Helicon Ape Manager - 10 helpful tips

Although we tried to make Helicon Ape Manager as easy-to-use, friendly and intuitive as possible, some features may not be obvious and are worth mentioning.

1. Password generation utility

Create an empty file. Go to Options -> Insert user password... and you are at the right place.

This utility allows you to generate passwords for Basic and Digest authentication types using MD5 or SHA1 encryption or plain text.

If you want to create several passwords, you may use Ctrl+Enter hotkey to prevent Password generator from closing after the password is inserted.

2. Regex testing utility

When you put the cursor anywhere on RewriteRule line, you can test its operability using RegexTest utility. Just press F4 or go to Options -> RewriteRule tester...

3. Magnet

This small but sometimes really useful button (next to Options menu item) allows to open other configuration file (from other location) next to the tab with currently opened config (not instead of it).

4. Directives Autocompletion

Helicon Ape Manager supports directives autocompletion which is invoked using standard Ctrl+Space hotkey.

5. Errors highlighting

If you type some directive that is unsupported in the current context, you will see it painted in red.

6. Open selected file

This feature allows to instantly open an existing file which name and path (absolute or relative to the current folder) are written in the config. For that purpose you may either right-click on the file name and choose "Open selected file" or use File -> Open selected file... (Ctrl+Shift+O) menu item.

7. Open site in browser from Manager

Helicon Ape Manager allows to open any location of the website in default browser by simply right-clicking on desired resource and choosing one of supported protocols (ports).

8. Web.config editing

Apart from it's direct purpose to make editing of Helicon Ape configs fast and handy, Helicon Ape Manager allows to edit web.config files as well.

9. Marked folders with .htaccess or web.config

To make it easier for you to know which folders contain .htaccess files, which contain web.configs and which both, we've used this color scheme:

1. with .htaccess - folder name in black
2. with web.config - folder name with light orange background
3. with both - folder name in black with light orange background
4. without either - folder mane in grey

10. Multiple lines comment

This feature may look obvious for those using Microsoft Visual Studio, but that does not diminish its convenience. You may comment/uncomment multiple lines in Helicon Ape Manager in one click.

Some of the above features may not have been as obvious as we thought, but we want you to use them not to complicate simple things, that's why we've written this small but hopefully helpful article. So, enjoy!