Xref: utzoo gnu.emacs:2913 comp.emacs:8372 Path: utzoo!yunexus!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!snorkelwacker!think!barmar From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) Newsgroups: gnu.emacs,comp.emacs Subject: Re: Call for discussion: Emacs and window systems Message-ID: <36871@think.Think.COM> Date: 29 May 90 16:16:19 GMT Article-I.D.: think.36871 References: <1990May25.092932.15008@postmaster@turing.ac.uk> Sender: news@Think.COM Reply-To: barmar@nugodot.think.com (Barry Margolin) Followup-To: gnu.emacs Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA Lines: 21 In article cimshop!davidm@uunet.UU.NET (David S. Masterson) writes: >Might I suggest expanding this into "How can Emacs best make use of the >multi-tasking environment of a windowing system?" I think this is a completely separate (and much more difficult) issue, and it would not be wise to hold up releasing windowing features for this. I'm not sure what you mean by "multi-tasking environment of a windowing system" (the only system I know of where the window system provides the multi-tasking is MS/Windows). The systems that GNU Emacs runs on (mostly Unix-based) are multi-tasking even when they don't have a window system. And the kinds of things I'd want to do with a multi-tasking Emacs are independent of its windowing. Just as we have the ability to run programs in the background in a non-windowed Unix shell it would be nice to be able to run editor commands in the background in a non-windows Emacs; for instance, it would be nice to be able to start up a long-running keyboard macro and then edit another buffer while it is still running. -- Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar