Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!mcsun!ukc!slxsys!ibmpcug!demon!news From: pmoore@cix.compulink.co.uk (Paul Moore) Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn Subject: Desktop editors Message-ID: <1991Jun15.122613.12088@demon.co.uk> Date: 15 Jun 91 12:26:13 GMT Sender: news@demon.co.uk (C-News Owner) Reply-To: Paul Moore Organization: Gated to News by demon.co.uk Lines: 44 Whenever I want to edit a file on the desktop, I seem to have only one real choice - !Edit. Now, while !Edit is OK, it has a number of major (to my mind) failings. Specifically 1. It doesn't handle tabs nicely - "[09]" on display, and its handling of the tab key on input are horrible. Why can't I have TAB insert a tab character, which is displayed in the usual way (spaces to next multiple of N - usually 8 - columns). 2. The need to use the mouse. I have no objection, as such, to mice, but for an application like a text editor, I prefer to do everything with the keyboard. (Switching between keyboard & mouse slows you down a *lot*) 3. No WP/programming features, like word wrap, brace matching, etc. (You would need to be able to switch these off and on as needed). What I'd really like, is a version of Emacs (Gnu, Micro, whatever...) which runs on the desktop, in resizable windows, with multiple windows available at once. Preferably with sources, both to see how it was done, and because I love messing around with other people's code :-) Has anybody ever produced such a beast? I have a port of MicroEmacs 3.11, which works great outside the desktop. I'd love to make it a full multi- tasking application, but I've not really got any experience of writing desktop stuff, so I don't know where to start... I seem to remember hearing once of a desktop version of some release of MicroEmacs - if anybody's got it, I'd be happy to try and "upgrade" it to 3.11. Come on, guys! Surely someone's had a go at improving on Acorn's offering! Gustav. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Moore: pmoore@cix.compulink.co.uk or pmoore%cix@ukc.ac.uk or ...!tharr!gustav or gustav@tharr.UUCP ---------------------------------------------------------------------------