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From: tmoody@sjuphil.uucp (T. Moody)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: PC Editors
Message-ID: <1991Feb15.032234.4724@sjuphil.uucp>
Date: 15 Feb 91 03:22:34 GMT
Reply-To: tmoody@sjuphil.UUCP ()
Organization: Saint Joseph's University
Lines: 57

Although I am not a programmer, I use ascii text editors a lot.  For
example, I am finishing a book manuscript and the publisher wants pure
ascii.  There are plenty of word processors around, but most of them
lately are heavy on formatting features and fairly light on
sophisticated editing features, and most are quite slow to use, for
those of us who are stuck with trailing edge technology.

Many editors are obviously intended to be used by programmers; some are
adaptable to other purposes.  I propose to make a list of the features
that I take to be most desirable, and see if anyone knows of an MS-DOS
editor that has all of them.

(1) Unlimited file size.  That is, the editor should be capable of
swapping to disk or to extended memory when the file(s) get large or
numerous.  It can be useful, for example, to load several chapters at
once for tracking down cross-references.  [Tech-edit 2.5 does this]

(2) Multiple files and windows.  I don't care so much about vertical
screen splitting, but it can be very useful to have a number of windows
open simultaneously, and one should be able to edit as many files as one
wants.  [Most editors can do something along these lines, although some,
such as the Ravitz Editor, are limited to two windows]

(3) Macro/extension language.  It should support a standard set of
programming constructs, including branching and looping. [Micro-emacs is
preeminent here.  VDE (video display editor) has a primitive language;
some others allow editing of simple non-branching macros]

(4) Regular expression search and replace.  [Micro-emacs and tech-edit]

(5) Full undelete.  That is, one should be able to undelete lines or
blocks of text of any size (limited perhaps by available memory).  Some
editors, such as Qedit, are still limited to a line-by-line approach to
undeleting.

(6) Full undo.  This should include undoing of search and replace
commands, and even regular expression search/replace.  Tech-edit has
partial undo--it will undo block movement and deletions but not
search/replace changes.  I know of no PC editor that has full undo.

(7) Keystroke flexibility.  Ideally, the editor should allow you to
assign whatever functions to whatever keystrokes, or sequences of
keystrokes.  Micro-emacs is pretty good about this, and so is Bingo 2.0.
 The Whitney editor allows single-key command definitions, and Qedit has
a limited acceptance of multiple-keystroke definitions.

(8) Flexible region marking.  There are still editors that only allow
complete lines to be marked for copying, deleting and moving.  This is
not acceptable.

Obviously, there are plenty of other "routine" editor functions that
need to be there, but I know of no single editor that supports all of
the above eight.

-- 
Todd Moody * tmoody@sjuphil.sju.edu
            "In what furnace was thy brain?"  -- William Blake