Hexie

What does Hexie offer that other hex editors don't? One useful feature is the ability to mark any block of data to be interpreted as one of several different data types. Another is the ability to insert line breaks - if you know, say, that a file begins with an eight-byte header, you can press after formatting that header to put the following data onto a new line.

Whatever formatting you apply is saved in a separate file, so that the next time you open that file with Hexie, your formatting is preserved. The saved file format is the same for any OS you run Hexie on (and it runs on every major OS), so you can easily take your work from one system to another.

· Quitting the program: Ctrl-Q (Cmd-Q) or the close button on the window will quit Hexie, first saving whatever markup you created for the current file. The markup is saved as ".hexie".

· Formatting commands: H: View the selected data in raw hexadecimal. C: View the selected data as ASCII characters. U: View the selected data as unsigned integers. I: View the selected data as signed integers. F: View the selected data as single-precision floating point values (4 bytes). D: View the selected data as double-precision floating point values (8 bytes). Any number: Break the selected data into blocks of the given size. For example, U 4 formats the data as 4-byte unsigned integers. F 8 formats the data as doubles. Shift + any of the above: Set the default format. For example, Shift + C displays all data in the file that does not have a particular format assigned to it as ASCII characters. Return: Insert a line break before the current cursor position. Delete: Delete all selected line breaks and formatting. S: Shortcut for "I 2" - formats data as a "short" (based on what a C compiler on a 32-bit system would call a "short"). "U S" is equivalent to "U 2" (unsigned short). L: Shortcut for "I 4" - formats the data as a long. "U L" formats data as unsigned longs. "L L" and "U L L" format the data as long longs or as unsigned long longs (8-byte values). E: Toggle the endian mode. The current mode is displayed as "LE" (little endian) or "BE" (big endian) in the status bar.

· Cursor movement and scroll: Arrow keys: Move the cursor. Space bar: Move the cursor to the end of the current formatted block of data. Shift + arrows or space: Move the cursor and select everything between the current cursor position and the new one. Page Up/Down: Scroll to the previous or next page of data. Home/End: Scroll to the start or end of the file.

· Mouse control: Click to move the cursor. Shift + click or click and drag to select a region. Click on the scroll bar to scroll the view.