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From: kgallagh@digi.lonestar.org (Kevin Gallagher)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs,gnu.emacs.help
Subject: Re: "Real" Vi and Edt emulation packages?
Message-ID: <1991Apr26.053212.23114@digi.lonestar.org>
Date: 26 Apr 91 05:32:12 GMT
References: <1991Apr25.145435.4390@ttsi.lonestar.org>
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX
Lines: 36

In article <1991Apr25.145435.4390@ttsi.lonestar.org> mse@ttsi.lonestar.org (Mark Evans) writes:
>
>I like GNU emacs and its cousin epoch a whole lot except for one bothersome
>characteristic.  I don't like how the word oriented functions behave with
>respect to non-alphanumeric characters.  I'd rather have the behavior
>of vi or perhaps edt.  I've checked out the emulation packages (vip.el and 
>edt.el) and come away disappointed because they tend to inherit the behavior 
>of emacs.  I'm wondering if there are any other frustrated souls who have
>extended the vi and edt packages to work more closely like their Unix and
>VMS counterparts?  Would you kindly share your work?

I have a package that we have been using for over a year that is about 80% of
what you want.  For the past several weeks, I have been upgrading it and will
conduct an internal beta test of the revisions within the next month or so.
The new version will be about a 98% true emulation of EDT keypad mode
commands.  It will emulate EDT's cursor movement almost perfectly, including
the way EDT handles non-alphanumeric characters.  The internal beta test will
last a few weeks.  Then when I complete the brief documentation and
installation instructions needed to make it a complete package, I'll solicit
volunteers from the net to participate in an external beta test.  This will
probably happen sometime in June.

The package will include keyboard support for Apollo's Low-Profile keyboards,
as well as DEC's VT-100 and VT-200 series keyboards.  Customizing it to work
with other Ascii terminals we expect will be fairly easy.

In the meantime, you can get at least part of what you want by modifying
Emacs' definition of what constitutes a word and whitespace (and many other
things) by customizing your own syntax table.  Read section 18.5, page 219, in
the GNU Emacs Manual, 6th Edition, Version 18.  Also, check out Chapter 30 in
the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, Edition 1.02, June 1990.
-- 
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Kevin Gallagher        kgallagh@digi.lonestar.org OR ...!uunet!digi!kgallagh
DSC Communications Corporation   Addr: MS 152, 1000 Coit Rd, Plano, TX 75075
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