Data Modification

Direct data modification is a simplest editing action provided by the Hex Editor Neo.

First, we'll describe all supported view types in more detail.

View Types

Hex Editor Neo supports a number of different view types. A view type is a property of individual editor window, therefore, you can have several editor windows (for the same or different documents) with different view types. Hex Editor Neo supports hexadecimal, decimal, octal and binary data representation. In addition, two floating-point formats are also supported. For some of these representations, it allows you to select data grouping, according to the following table:

You can change the editor window display type using the View » Display As command, and change grouping using View » Group By command, both of which are available through the popup menu.

Modifying File Data

When you move the cursor in an editor window, you are working with navigation cursor. In order to be able to modify the document's data you need to switch to editing cursor. This can be achieved using one of the following ways:

• Execute the Edit » Edit Cell command (F2 by default). This will switch the cursor mode. For hexadecimal and octal view types, the caret is placed at the first cell's digit. For other view types, the entire cell is selected, like in standard edit control.
• Double-click on a cell to start editing it. For hexadecimal view types, the caret is placed at the first cell's digit. For other view types, the entire cell is selected, like in standard edit control.
• For hexadecimal and octal view types, click on a specific digit in the current cell. This switches into the edit mode and moves the caret to a digit you clicked.
• Press a ‘0’ - ‘9’ key, ‘A’ - ‘F’ key (for hexadecimal view types) to start editing the current cell when data pane is active. Press any alpha-numeric key to change the current cell's value when text pane is active.

Once in an edit mode, only the ‘0’ - ‘9’ keys and ‘A’ - ‘F’ keys (for hexadecimal view types) may be pressed if data pane is active and any alpha-numeric keys may be pressed if text pane is active. Navigation keys cancel the edit mode, except for the right and left keys, which moves the caret within the current or neighbor cells.

For hexadecimal view types, when last digit in a cell is modified, the cursor automatically moves to the next cell, continuing to stay in edit mode. The caret is moved to the next cell's first digit. Pressing Esc key cancels any modification made to the current cell. Pressing Enter key commits any modifications made to the current cell, moves the cursor to the next cell and cancels edit mode.

For decimal and floating-point view types, press Enter key to accept changes and move to the next cell or press Esc key to cancel any changes made to the cell. Arrow keys work only within the current cell.

For floating-point view types, you may use the sign symbol ('-'), floating-point symbol ('.') as well as exponent symbol (‘e’) to enter floating-point values. For example, the following floating-point values are correct:

1.2
-105.45
2.34e-23

The last “scientific” form represents the 2.34·10^-23 number.

If multiple cursors are present in editor window, data modification applies to each cursor location. Current Insert Mode is also taken into account when calculating the resulting cursors positions.

Scripting

Scripts may use IDocumentView.typeChar and IDocumentView.editCell methods to modify document data.