Options|Auto Break is only available if the syntax coloring scheme you selected for the file’s file type specifies automatic breaking rules. Those rules may use the breaking and indentation style you select on the Brackets page in the file type configuration. Most of the syntax coloring schemes for programming languages use that breaking and indentation style for curly braces or keywords that surround blocks of code. Some schemes like those for Visual Basic provide their own rules. The HTML and XML schemes use the rules for markup tags.
Automatic breaking can insert line breaks before and after the text that you enter via the keyboard. The syntax coloring scheme can specify this to be done immediately or when you move the cursor to another line. The schemes provided with EditPad Pro apply automatic breaking immediately unless they are breaking around a keyword. The Delphi scheme, for example, breaks around the “begin” and “end” keywords. It delays automatic breaking so that you can still enter something like “BeginOperation” without getting a line break in the middle of your identifier. Automatic breaking is smart enough not to insert a duplicate line break if you press the Enter key immediately after typing “begin”. Automatic breaking never removes any line breaks that you enter.
If the syntax coloring scheme specifies automatic indentation rules then those rules are always applied to any line breaks that are inserted automatically. It doesn’t matter whether Options|Keep Indent and Options|Auto Indent are on or off.
Options|Auto Break is particularly powerful when used in combination with Edit|Auto Match Brackets. When both are on, if you enter an opening bracket, or a keyword or tag that the syntax coloring scheme matches as an opening bracket, then Auto Break first breaks and indents the opening bracket. Then Auto Match Brackets inserts the closing bracket. Then Auto Break kicks in again and breaks and indents the closing bracket. These three steps happen as one operation. So when editing a file using one of EditPad Pro’s syntax coloring schemes for C-style languages, pressing { on the keyboard gives you a new { } block with the cursor on a blank line between them with extra indentation.
Note that “auto break” is a file type specific setting in EditPad Pro. If you change the setting through the Options menu or the toolbar, it is applied to the active file only. If you create a new file or open an existing one then EditPad uses the setting you made on the Brackets page for the type of file you are creating or opening. Also, when you use File|Save As to save the file as a different file type, the setting for the current file changes to what you specified for the new file type.
Options menu
Options|Auto Indent
File Types|Colors and Syntax
File Types|Brackets