Changing your default editor

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When you edit a HTML or script file from Zoom (from either the Templates menu or the Configuration Window), it will open up in the default editor for that file type in Windows. However, some users’ computers may not be setup to use their preferred applications for certain file types (not to mention a lot of applications “hijack” certain file associations upon installation). If you want Zoom to edit a file type with a different application, you will need to change your Windows file associations.

In Windows XP to Vista, you need to open up the “Control Panel” in Windows, and select “Folder Options”. Click on the “File types” tab and select the extension you wish to modify (“HTML” for the search page, and “PHP”, “ASP”, or “JS” for the search scripts). Then click on the “Advanced” button, and select the “Edit” action from the list. Click on the “Edit…” button and here you can specify the application to open this file with.

In Windows 7 and later, you go to "Control Panel"->"Default Programs"->"Set Associations" to do this.

For more information, please consult Windows Help.

Once you have done this, selecting the “Customize search page appearance” and “Modify search scripts” options in Zoom will always open the file in your preferred editor.

Note: Due to known issues with the way it handles HTML files, MS Word is NOT recommended for editing HTML files and in particular, the search page template for Zoom. One such issue is when it automatically tries to strip, remove, or re-arrange HTML comments it considers unnecessary – which happens to be required by Zoom. There are also general-use problems with the additional meta data it adds to a web page, which causes it to not render correctly or at all in most versions of Internet Explorer.