I own the personal edition.  how can I enable the CSTR so that a backspace works 

thank you.

in the serial monitor.  i want it to process a backspace using the CSTR button in that window

\b  per the page on your web site.  it appears that I have to pay more money to upgrade to a pro version?
I own the strandard version,

http://www.visualmicro.com/page/User-Guide.aspx?doc=Serial-Monitor.html

There is only one paid version of Visual Micro. You only pay more if using for work/profit/business but the functionality is the same.

So you are saying that \b isn't working? Are other escape chars working?

The tooltip is confusing. If you can switch it on it should be working.

The monitor is ascii so can't show control chars. What do you expect to see in the monitor? 
What do you see in the monitor when you send a backspace from the arduino using c++?

Forgive me if I am wrong but I think you are confused about what escape chars can do. Sorry if the docs are confusing I will revisit them.

1)
You should not confuse what the backspace key on a keyboard can do with the ASCII escape chars. Things go forward only and \b is simply an additional character not a command to control the direction of the cursor or emulate keystrokes.

2)
The CSTR applies to what you type into the "send" box at the top of the Serial Monitor and allows you to send, for example, the tab character to the arduino between hello and world like this 

hello \t world

This means the Serial.read on the arduino can receive the tab char.

If you send a \b to the arduino it will be able to use that, maybe your arduino code can perform a backspace on a connected lcd display.

hello \b world

But in all cases what appears in the monitor is only what is sent from the arduino and is not affected by CSTR.

I don't know of any products that do that without using an Arduino Leonardo type of board that can emulate usb keyboard, mouse etc.

Teensy make some nice boards that are powerful and cheap. 

I can't visualize what you are trying to achiever so maybe state why you need to backspace? What is the reason for needing to do that? What problem will it overcome?

Yes I do understand but to do that currently you have to use a micro-controller that pretend to be a HID USB device. 

Then could could send a backspace keystroke from micro-controller that the pc would understand and action.

So what I have said is correct.

I'll have a think about some remove control for the serial window such as clear last char and clear screen. Would be quite nice.

cant use a third party. need the vismicro serial monitor to act on the \b. 

ideally, please implement ALL character behavior on this page:

http://www.visualmicro.com/page/User-Guide.aspx?doc=Serial-Monitor.html

can you modify the source code please?

so when can you implement the features  for INBOUND...

"I'll have a think about some remove control for the serial window such as clear last char and clear screen. Would be quite nice."

or if you give me the source code for the serial window INBOUNd, all one has to do is look at imcoming chars. if is a \b, then move cursor to the left one position (unless already at position0).  This is a 2 line fix.

easy! Thanks