Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!tale From: tale@pawl.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) Newsgroups: comp.emacs Subject: Re: Selecting a mini-Emacs for Sun systems Message-ID: <1989Nov10.065750.20432@rpi.edu> Date: 10 Nov 89 06:57:50 GMT References: <1989Oct26.034501.12114@rpi.edu> Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY Lines: 60 In <1989Oct26.034501.12114@rpi.edu> I requested some advice in selecting a smaller Emacs for our Sun systems. It is intended as an alternative to vi for people who prefer Emacs editing syntax but don't want the size and features of Emacs for basic edits (vipw, ~e in mail(1), etc). Based on the replies I received I was torn between mg3a and Jove. I don't like some things about either but then I have to keep telling myself I am a GNU Emacs weenie and I have to expect that a different version of Emacs will have some things I don't like. The way my initial inspection saw it: mg3a: Good -- very small (< 100k), roughly the same mode-line and minibuffer interaction as GNU. Help facility uses a seperate buffer rather than "panes". Bad -- No filename completion. Still seems to need some more basic modes. Jove: Good -- Filename completion. More basic modes. Bad -- Mode-line is not aesthetically pleasing to me, nor is mini-buffer interaction. I really hate panes for help too. Reminds me too much of painful experiences with PrimEmacs or whatevr Prime called it. For now, the filename completion and modes were the deciding vote for me so I have gone with Jove and will play with it for a while. I know I can change the mode-line so I have to see if I can get it to be pretty close to mg3a/GNU. Some people practically drooled in their letters, "I saw you say mg3a -- where did you get it?! I WANT I WANT I WANT." It's in beta-test and available via anonymous ftp to jade.berkeley.edu in the pub/mg directory. It is about 96k stripped on our Sun3 SunOS 4.0.3 system. vi is about 147k stripped. The current version of Jove is 4.14 and the current version is kept up to date in anonymous ftp on cs.rochester.edu. It is roughly 155k stripped. Jove is also available on tut.cis.ohio-state.edu and so it is available via anonymous UUCP to the osu-cis archives. My thanks to the following people for taking the time to answer my query: Steven L. Baur Johan Vromans Mark D. Grosen Jeff Sparkes Chuck Phillips David Masterson Steve Backus Johan has also written a mini-Emacs which he calls Scame; he offered it to me if I wanted to try it out but I imagine that offer extends to just about everyone. Mail him for details. [Hey Chuck, what mailer is supposed to make any sense out of that address? :-)] Dave