5. If the file does not exist then the original file is moved into the orig
folder so that the amended file does not overwrite it.
you're "algorithm" doesn't specify what happens if you run editor next time, i.e. when your orig folder will contain file from time X, you've made changes in time Y and now you're making changes in time Z :)
However, if the answer is "overwrite file in orig" then qed does nearly the same -- you can specify backup extension for each file type (i.e. C files, asm files, ...) as ".orig" so the difference will be just that folder vs backup file extension.
By doing this, the original source code would be kept while the user does
many edits on a file.
aha, now I see your point. this can be done (not so comfortably) in qed again -- just clear checkbox with "make backups" :)
Would this have an affect on using "make" ? Would it try to "make" everything in
the orig folder ? If so, could the folder be hidden ? (.orig ?)
you can write your makefile in any way you like it :)
The next obvious step would be to get the editor to "diff" the original and
the edited file to highlight where lines have been inserted and deleted. It
could allow the user to quickly compare their changes to the original and
even allow the user to rollback individual line changes.
there are tools which does this, I don't think we need to code another diff utility...