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From: mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.wanted
Subject: Re: SUMMARY: Super-simple UNIX editor
Message-ID: <1991Jun14.195428.26603@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 14 Jun 91 19:54:28 GMT
References: <1991Jun14.004711.25643@yenta.alb.nm.us> <jpc.676756992@avdms8.msfc.nasa.gov> <1991Jun13.052839.9509@hawkmoon.MN.ORG>
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Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
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In article <1991Jun14.004711.25643@yenta.alb.nm.us> dt@yenta.alb.nm.us (David B. Thomas) writes:
>det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) writes:
>
>>Could you name some messy-dos editors that would do the trick if there
>>were unix versions?
>>[...]
>>Sheesh.  You can't please everybody.
>
>I understand what Derek is getting at, but I think what a lot of novice
>unix users would like to see is something along the lines of the editor
>that comes with Borland's "Turbo" products.
>
>Let me define what "intuitive" means to me (in decreasing order of importance):
>
>	- text typed is always inserted at cursor (only one mode)
>	- arrow keys move as indicated
>	- backspace always deletes before cursor, including <cr>'s
>	- function keys either do nothing, or do what they
>	  say ("end" should go to the end of something, etc.)
>
>Sure, all editors must be learned, but this way, a beginner only needs
>to memorize how to get in and how to get out.  Other than that, if they
>know:
>	- at least one way to get the cursor to any place they want
>	- at least one way to remove an unwanted character
>	- at least one way to add a wanted character
>
>then they are up and running, and only need to refine their skills as their
>(im)patience dictates.
>
>I think just about anybody can be told "use the arrows and backspace for
>editing, and hit

  <cntrl - f>  

>when you're finished", and be capable of editing
>a text file.  Therefore *any* editor that supports these rudimentary
>capabilities would do nicely.  As far as I know (please, PLEASE correct me
>if I'm wrong... the editor would be more valuable to me than my dignity :-)
>there is no such editor available under unix.
>
>That means that a unix novice must spend a minimum of several hours fussing
>with inscrutable manuals even to be able to compose a usenet posting or
>"hello world" program.  Unix has always been for programmers.
>


I agree 100% with what you say! Creating such an editor would be easy:
Take the C code for either Jove or MicroEmacs and ruthlessly hack
out everything except the above, plus perhaps a single "search" command.
MicroEmacs has a simple method for putting a window on the screen which 
could contain a menu listing the commands that require control-keys
(you would have hacked out everything involving "meta").


Doug McDonald