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From: knudsen@cbnewsd.att.com (michael.j.knudsen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os9
Subject: Bugs, Questions on UMacs (OSK)
Keywords: editor bugs howto
Message-ID: <1991Feb1.231404.14812@cbnewsd.att.com>
Date: 1 Feb 91 23:14:04 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 59

I've been using Umacs, Microware's proprietary version of the PD
editor UEmacs, pretty heavily lately and have some questions and
gripes.  It's enough like real (U**X) Emacs to be both easy and a
hazard to use.  I can fix most of that with a key-binding .umacsrc
file, but some questions and complaints are:

(1) Is there any way to search-and-replace a given string with NOTHING?
As it is, you have to enter at least one character at the "replace
with" prompt, or it defaults to the previously-used prompt.
I love that memory of the previous new-string (lacking in real Emacs),
but how can I just delete all occurences of some string without
leaving at least a SPACE or some such thing in their place?

(2) The delete-word (M-D and M-^H) commands have some *weird*
notions of what constitutes a "word" -- seems that periods, dashes,
and other punctuation chars get wiped out along with letters and
digits.  Maybe it's based on OSK file names, or what?
Anyway, it's rough on C structure expressions.

(3) When creating/editing a .umacsrc or other command file,
should control characters be entered as themselves (using the M-Q
"quote" trick), or spelled out as a circumflex (^) then the letter?

And are meta-char sequences spelled out M - letter?
(Such obvious question, too obvious for the manual writers to think
of -- I too have written manuals and left out the really "dumb"
questions that "everybody" knows :-)

(4) Is there any way to change to another buffer by name and not
have to hit ^X1 to get rid of that split screen?
Besides just using ^X^F with the existing file name, which I do now?
Or the previous and next buffer commands?

(5) When changing buffers by using ^X^F, I found that Umacs is
case-sensitive in file names!  I was editing MakeFile, tried to go
back to it later as Makefile, and got the same file read into a new buffer!

Real Emacs gives the buffers numbers for names, which makes for
fast swapping with less typing and typos.

(6) How come the ^X^B buffer-status command tells you everything
about your Aunt May's hernia operation, but not whether each buffer
is currently up-to-date on disk?

(7) When you try to exit with ^X^C and some buffers are not up to date,
it would be nice if Umacs would ask you "do you want to write"
for *each buffer* by name, instead of just all-or-none.
Especially since (6) doesn't let me review the buffers' status
before exiting.

(8) On the plus side, Umacs is fast and not *seriously* buggy in
the sense of crashing the system, disappearing files, etc.
And it lets you use REAL TABS (unlike Dynastar) and redefine their
size on the fly.
And the added paragraph-formatting commands make it serious
competition to Dynastar for word processing.
-- 
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