zabkat support forum

In one of my layouts I have an external text file viewer defined but F3 uses the internal editor, Ctrl-F3 does use the defined external editor. Is there a setting that reverses what F3/Ctrl-F3 do? My main layout has the same external viewer defined and F3 uses it, so whatever is causing this is at the layout level.

I noticed this while using the latest beta, 5.0.0.8, but 5.0.0.3 has the same behavior.

in many places CTRL and ALT are consumed locally and this cannot be changed
but I can't see how this can change with a layout!?

Well two of the five layouts I use fairly often use Editor2 when I press F3 even though I have an external text viewer defined. The other three (including my main one) use my defined external text viewer when I press F3. I don't see any settings difference that would account for this opposite behavior.

The input box where the external text viewer is defined shows a tooltip "to use it when editor2 is present, press <Ctrl-F3>" so does that mean that using editor3 for F3 is normal even with an external viewer defined?

I'm curious why I'm getting opposite behavior in different layouts but the fix/workaround is simple... delete or rename editor2.

I did notice that if I rename editor2 after opening one of the affected layouts I get an error about not finding editor2 when I press F3. But if the layout is opened after editor2 is renamed the external viewer is used. So there seems to be a check for editor2 when the layout is opened. Is there a setting to disable that check?

from what I remember, for viewing F3 always prefers editor2 over the external one. Are you sure all the paths are set correctly in options?
also it could be an issue whether an editor2 window is showing already or not

The paths for external text editor and viewer are set the same for all five layouts. Two of the layouts prefer editor2 if it is present and correctly named in the install folder (which seems to be the expected behavior), the three other layouts prefer the external viewer.

I remember having to rename editor2 at some point way back but had not been doing that lately.

Oh, well, one of those little mysteries.

i checked the code and apparently there's a layout-specific option GIOPT_NOED209 that should explain the difference. See registry.txt

mystery solved!