The user interface

The biggest part of the user interface is the editor area. Because Bluefish has a so-called "Multiple Document Interface", there are actually many editor areas in Bluefish, accessible via the tabs. By default the tabs are on the bottom.

Figure 3.1. Bluefish Editor Array

A screen shot of the Bluefish 1.0 editor array

The top of the Bluefish interface consists of a menu, a main tool bar, an HTML tool bar, and a Custom menu.

Figure 3.2. Bluefish Main Menu

A screen shot of the Bluefish 1.0 main menu

The main tool bar gives you quick access to the basic functionalities of a text editor.

Figure 3.3. Bluefish Main Tool Bar

A screen shot of the Bluefish 1.0 main tool bar

The HTML tool bar provides access to the most commonly used HTML functionalities.

Figure 3.4. Bluefish HTML Tool Bar

A screen shot of the Bluefish 1.0 HTML tool bar

The custom tool bar provides access to languages and replacement functions. It is fully customizable through the preferences panel.

Figure 3.5. Bluefish Custom Tool Bar

A screen shot of the Bluefish 1.0 custom tool bar

To the left of the editor area is the side panel. If you would prefer that the side bar be on the right side, simply change the setting in the User Interface tab found in the Edit->Preferences menu option. The side panel consists of a file browser, a function reference browser, and a bookmark browser.

The file browser provides quick access to files and directories.

Figure 3.6. Bluefish File Browser

A screen shot of the Bluefish 1.0 file browser

The function reference browser references CSS2, HTML, PHP, and Python functions with their syntax. Some of them provide dialogs to help you inserting them ,

Figure 3.7. Bluefish Function Reference Browser

A screen shot of the Bluefish 1.0 function reference browser

The bookmark browser provides access to previously marked positions in a file.

Figure 3.8. Bluefish Bookmark Browser

A screen shot of the Bluefish 1.0 bookmark browser

On the bottom of the Bluefish window is the status bar. Shown here are messages, the current line & column number, the insert (INS) or overwrite (OVR) mode for the cursor, and the file type & character encoding.

Figure 3.9. Bluefish Status Bar

A screen shot of the Bluefish 1.0 status bar

The visibility of these items can be toggled via the View menu.

Figure 3.10. Bluefish View Menu

A screen shot of the Bluefish 1.0 view menu

If you want to disable any of these items by default, you can set these options in the preferences under User interface.

The Help menu contains the typical About box. As usual, you will find in it developers', maintainers', and translators' details. Plus the configure flags used to compile Bluefish on your system.

Figure 3.11. Bluefish About Window

A screen shot of the Bluefish 1.0 about window

The other menus are described in the following sections: