Allah Sulu's Massive Tool

• I added a line on the "Properties" window (from the FILE menu) listing the number of lines in the document. This value may change depending upon whether or not you have "Word Wrap" (on the WINDOW menu) enabled.
• There is a new command on the EDIT menu, "Paste Special". Use this if you want to paste Unicode text (such as this) into the Massive Tool. The Unicode characters will be converted into ampersand tags. This command will also strip control characters (such as tabs) out of the pasted text, and correct for line breaks that aren't in the CR-LF format. The "Paste Special" function can also be activated by right-clicking on the Paste button on the Edit toolbar.
• There are two new buttons on the Edit toolbar with arrows on them. If you click on the up arrow, it moves the cursor to the top of the document; and if you right-click on it, it selects all text from the top of the document to the current cursor/selection location (the latter is functionally identical to the "Select to Top" command on the EDIT menu). If you click on the down arrow, it moves the cursor to the end of the document; and if you right-click on it, it selects all text from the current cursor/selection location to the end of the document (the latter is functionally identical to the "Select to End" command on the EDIT menu).
• Updated the "Find…" and "Replace…" commands from the SEARCH menu. I don't know if any of you ever edit megabyte-sized files in the Massive Tool; but I do, and some search-and-replace operations can take forever. Every now and then I manage to tighten them up a bit more.
• I've added new functionality to the "Horizontal Rule" screen on the INSERT menu. In addition to creating <hr> tags, the Massive Tool can create simulated horizontal rules using <table> tags with background images, allowing you to have patterns, animation, and so forth in your dividers.
• The "Images" window (from the HTML menu) has a new control – a sliding bar that lets you set the opacity/transparency of the image (see this post for more information).
• There's a new option on the MACROS menu which provides a "Command Line" at the bottom of the screen.
• I've changed the format of the reference pages generated by the Massive Tool (see this post for more information).
• I corrected some minor issues (I won't call them bugs, because they're not all my fault) with the userpic names (loaded on the "Post to LiveJournal" screen) because they got confused by apostrophes and ampersands (I'll keep an eye out for other characters it might have difficulty with) and with the code for lists (which didn't work properly in someone else's journal because of their style, for some godforsaken reason. I know LiveJournal was the culprit, because as soon as I added ?style=mine to the URL, the problem went away).
• As usual, there are more icons and backgrounds (including Q*Bert), and the internal scripting language has undergone a major revamping – many of the old macros won't work anymore, since I've changed many commands to make the whole more logical and consistent; but I've updated the macros that I include with the Massive Tool, and I can help with any others that may or may not exist out there.

Allah Sulu's Massive Tool

• Beneath "Open File…" command on the File menu is a new option, "Open URL…" This will allow you to open a web page directly into the Massive Tool for viewing or editing. It can also be used to open a directory, such as http://www.holyducttape.com/stuff/asmt-icons/, to easily peruse some or all of the files within (by using the "Open Links" command on the Window menu; more on that below).
• There have been two changes related to the Edit menu. First, the Edit Toolbar has a new button (bearing a red asterisk) which will activate the "Select All" function (or, if you right-click it, will activate the "Select a Line" function, which was just added in the last update). Opening the "Preferences…" screen from the Edit menu will reveal a new tab for customizing the "Open Links" command on the Window menu – when you use that option now to simultaneously open all of the links in a document (or in the section of the document that you have selected), you can specify where the links are to be opened (into separate tabs in Firefox seems to be the best choice, at least for me).
• The LJ user tag code created by both the "User Tags…" command on the HTML menu (and associated toolbar button) and from the Reference Pages has been expanded. I was torn in past as to whether I should use <nobr> or <span style="white-space: nowrap;"> tags around the user tags to try to keep the icons and usernames together on the same line, as each has its advantages and disadvantages. <nobr> is smaller, but for whatever reason is not supported by Firefox. The other method, however, doesn't work on LJ's User Profile pages; since LJ removes the CSS "style" commands from the HTML you post in your bio (leaving only "<span>" behind). After using one, and then the other, I decided to simply go with both henceforth. This means that you should be pretty much covered in your journal posts (unless there's some wacky S2 style which also strips out the CSS from the user tag), but you may be out of luck viewing a bio page in Firefox.
• The "Post to LiveJournal…" screen on the LJ menu has been further expanded. In addition to the list of accounts that you can post from, you can also store a list of communities to post to. All other options for posting are made available to you, although some of them (like the Userpic selection) require you to enter your password in order to post with them. If you don't enter your password, this option works as it did before, sending all of your selections into the LJ post screen. If you do provide a password, then the Massive Tool can post directly to LJ without the need of using that intermediary screen. There is also a button which will read the list of icons and tags associated with a user or community into the Tool, to allow you to select them from before posting. (A few words on the passwords: the passwords are encrypted before they are used, or saved if you press the floppy disc button next to that field. According to LJ, this method of encryption is "Not perfectly secure, but defeats the most simple of network sniffers." In other words, don't use this method when you're unsure of the safety of your connection. I use the password for posting sometimes from home or work, but not on other people's systems and definitely not over wireless from my laptop. The most secure method of posting to LJ is with "challenge-response authentication", which I should be able to include in a future Massive Tool update. If you do save the passwords, they are saved in your ASMT.TXT file. Do not let anyone else get access to that file or they can use it via the Massive Tool to post under your name – so you also want to be sure of the sanctity of any machines that you save your password to. This is a useful option, but necessarily the best one in all circumstances.)
• Also on the LJ menu is the "LJ User / Links…" screen which allows you to generate a number of different user-based LJ URLs. I have added the new "Send a Message" URL to the list of options, but I have not added the "Flag Journal" URL (for philosophical reasons).
• I have updated many of the .RIM macro files, which you can execute with the "Run Macro..." command on the Macro menu. Some of them no longer functioned correctly given the constant changes and expansions I'm making to the scripting language, and others have been made better by the inclusion of new features in the language. Most of the macros function on whatever text you have selected when you run them (or your entire document if no text is selected) and perform various functions. I don't know how much (if at all) any of you employ the macros; but some of them are fairly easy to modify (and even have comments explaining how they work) if anyone wants to look "under the hood" (for instance, if you really wanted a blink command, you could make one very easily by modifying the overstrike.rim macro. Another macro to look at, if you want to see some of the things the Massive Tool's scripting language can accomplish, is quotes.rim.
• A number of minor changes have been made to the Window menu. The "Tile" option has been changed to "Tile Horizontally", and a new "Tile Vertically" option has been added. (I generally use the Massive Tool with the Text and HTML Preview panes tiled, Text on top; but my new monitor at work is a 1920x1200 resolution widescreen monitor, so I figured I might want to tile the two panes side-by-side for some uses.) "Close Links" has been changed to "Close Internal Panes" to be more consistent with the choices listed on the Preference tab described in the second bullet above (since not all links are opened into internal panes); also, not all internal panes are from opened links (some are from the "Post to LiveJournal…" command). Finally, I added a "Reload / Refresh" option, which can also be activated by pressing F5 (which is the IE Refresh key; I couldn't assign the Firefox Reload key, Ctrl-R, because that's being used elsewhere).
• There are, as usual, more backgrounds included in ASMT.INI and more icons in ALLAH_SULU.TMI – however, I have not yet made usericons of the Village People.

I just uploaded the latest version (3.3.5) of Massive Tool. For the most part, there are just a few months of minor enhancements, bug fixes, and additional icons … But I did some major work on expanding the built-in macro scripting language.¹ There's a new macro named pretzel.rim that shows off some of the new functionality; just run it and enter some text when prompted.²

¹ I don't know if anyone other than me writes macros in the Massive Tool, but I know that some of you run them.
² I did not create those character graphics; I just made the macro as an example for someone.