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As a programmer, I can often be more productive using a 3rd party text editor like UltraEdit. 

 

It would be great to be able edit programs in an external editor with the ability to edit multiple programs at the same time. 

 

Ideally, I am looking for  the same type of functionality that exists in the program WinSCP for editing files.

5 Comments
Reeza
Super User

I'm not sure what you mean. You can open up any SAS program in any text editor and edit to your hearts content. I think that NotePad++ has SAS syntax highlight as well, through a third party add-in.

CaseySmith
SAS Employee

We are considering adding the ability to open SAS programs referenced in an EG project into an external editor (from within EG; and more generally, to open any externally referenced file in an EG project into the OS-registered default application).  For example, it might be something as simple as having an "Open in External Application" menu item on the context menu for each externally referenced item.  Would that meet your needs or were you thinking of something more?

Trey
Fluorite | Level 6

Yes this would meet my needs.

CaseySmith
SAS Employee

We added this capability in EG 7.12.  You can now "Open <externalFile> with Windows Default", which will open it with the Windows associated application...

 

external.png

 

Also, with the "notification of external file changes" feature added in EG 7.11, if you change and save the program file outside of EG, EG will now notify you that it was modified and prompt you whether to reload it (if open).

 

The combination of these two features should make it much easier to work with an alternative/preferred editor for writing your SAS code, then return to EG for submitting and organizing.

 

Note: This works with externally referenced files (ex. .sas files).  It does not facilitate editing embedded SAS programs with external editors. 

 

You can see more details about the enhancements in this paper:

Increasing Your Productivity with New Features in SAS® Enterprise Guide®

IMPROVED HANDLING OF EXTERNALLY REFERENCED FILES (bottom of page 7)

NOTIFICATION OF EXTERNAL FILE CHANGES (bottom of page 5)

 

Casey

Casey_SAS
SAS Employee
Status changed to: Suggestion Implemented