Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cmcl2!adm!smoke!brl.mil!moss From: moss@brl.mil (Gary S. Moss (VLD/VMB) ) Newsgroups: comp.windows.x Subject: Re: motif text editor Message-ID: <13309@smoke.BRL.MIL> Date: 6 Jul 90 15:29:52 GMT References: <9006211559.AA24864@m2.csc.ti.com> Sender: news@smoke.BRL.MIL Reply-To: moss@brl.mil Organization: Ballistic Research Laboratory Lines: 45 In article <9006211559.AA24864@m2.csc.ti.com>, seymour@m2.csc.ti.COM (Ricky Seymour) writes: |> |> Anybody knows of a good text editor that runs on X and allows extensive mousing? The "sam" editor written by Rob Pike is excellent. You need to license it from the AT&T Toolchest; we have a site-wide license. If you order it, you should get the latest improvements from Doug Gwyn , these are mostly related to the X support. Sam is a successor to the "jim" editor, originally written for Teletype 5620 terminals with a downloadable graphics front-end and a host portion. It now supports Teletype 630s, Suntools and X and the host portion is still separate and can be run remotely. You start it up on your workstation running X or Suntools and specify the host where the files are so it can start up the remote host portion. This gets around the portability problem inherant in graphics applications (less of a problem with X) and you need only compile the front-end on your workstation. The host portion is extremely portable; we use it on Encore (Gould), Alliant, SGI, Cray, Vax and Suns. The command language can be used by itself (sam -d) like ed(1) or sed(1). Some unique features of sam: 1) A powerful and elegant line editor style command language similar but much richer then ed(1). It allows \n in patterns, nested commands, and better addressing than ed. 2) Cut and paste (allows exchanges with the window manager selection buffer). 3) Integration between the command language in one window and mouse operations in the others. Command language allows shell commands to be easily encorporated. 4) Multiple resizable windows. 5) Popup menus for heavily used functions. Perhaps if you aren't convinced yet you should call the Toolkit. Sorry if this sounds like a sales pitch, but I really think sam's the greatest. -Gary