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From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: One user's editor wish list
Message-ID: <1991Mar21.050551.9098@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 21 Mar 91 05:05:51 GMT
References: <1991Feb22.134323.20410@scrumpy@.bnr.ca> <11032@dog.ee.lbl.gov> <1991Mar20.191434.5634@scrumpy@.bnr.ca>
Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX
Lines: 71

In article <1991Mar20.191434.5634@scrumpy@.bnr.ca> bnrmtl!lewis@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu writes:

  >On the topic of TABS.
>Exactly what I observe.  That's why, at least, I avoid tabs in files.  Of
>course the editor should make use of the key somehow (it's on every terminal).
>A complete editor should, I suppose, give all the options.

If you intend to edit Makefiles, you probably want to store real tabs
in the file.

 >On the concept of non-MODAL.

>Agreed.  What I don't like in vi is that the editor (as opposed to my brain
>over which I have somewhat better control) can be in different modes with the
>cursor in the text area and I can't seem to remember which one and can't tell
>from just looking at the display (it looks exactly the same whether one is in
>insert mode or in command mode).

Current vi's have ":set showmode" to display the mode on the bottom
screen line, but it's kind of annoying.  I happen to like vi's modal
operation, although it did take a long time to get used to it.  I tend
to view, browse, and search much more text than I actually modify or
insert.  Being in command mode by default with most commands available
on the "handy" parts of the keyboard makes this much easier.  Also,
if you prepend an ESC to each of the normal vi commands you would notice
that the only remaining concept of modedness is that you have to
explicitly start an insert or append.  Everything else then works the
same no matter what mode you were in, since an extra ESC in command
mode is ignored (except for the beep).  BTW, this is the worst problem
I have with VIP-mode in GNU emacs - ESC ESC does something very different
than vi.

  >On INTUITION.
>Of course, and that's why there will never be any single editor to please
>everyone.  I should define this more carefully, but I'm not sure I can!
>As a first attempt, it's when I can guess without having to read the
>documentation.  If for example the key to split lines is C-S maybe I'll guess
>it.  If it's ESC C-Y C-Q META-F1 there's no chance!

All the same to me... And if by C-S you mean control-S, please save
everyone a lot of trouble and avoid using common flow control characters
that won't pass through a lot of communications links as editor commands.

>On UNDO and RECOVER.

There is a subtle connection between undo/repeat and modedness.  If
you don't have explicit commands to start and stop insert and append
modes, undo and repeat commands won't have boundaries for these operations.

  >On WP FEATURES.
  [re-wrap by filtering]
>That's fine, but what if I only want to reflow a single paragraph, not the
>whole file.  I guess I move the paragraph to another file, filter it, bring
>it back. 

No, you can filter a limited region through another process, but I agree
that re-wrap should be built in, since it is simple (wrapmargin is
already there) and it is common.

>The same applies to sorting.  What if I want to sort only part of the file.
>In XEDIT, a single command will do it.

I wouldn't want this built into an editor unless it provided everthing
you might want in a sort - kind of at odds with your "small is beautiful"
comment.  On the other hand, I've found the sort in Wordperfect to
be quite useful on DOS systems where you don't have a good external
sort program.  It's also nice that it knows to ignore its own formatting
codes and knows how to deal with elements of it's mail merge lists.

Les Mikesell
  les@chinet.chi.il.us