From: utzoo!decvax!wivax!linus!allegra!eagle!mhuxt!mhuxj!mhuxa!houxm!ihnp4!spanky!burl!duke!mcnc!unc!tim
Newsgroups: net.lang.lisp
Title: Re: Beginners guide to Franz Lisp as promised
Article-I.D.: unc.5172
Posted: Fri May  6 16:19:54 1983
Received: Wed May 11 06:13:06 1983
References: genrad.3207

Relay-Version:version B 2.10 gamma 4/3/83; site mhuxt.UUCP
Message-ID:<5172@unc.UUCP>
Date:Fri, 6-May-83 16:19:54 EDT


I wish I'd had something like that when I got started. There are of course
a number of things that could be added to it, but most important, I think,
is that vi has a "lisp" mode which provides automatic indentation of list
structures. It's not perfect -- it isn't specific to Franz, so it doesn't
know about semicolon comments and such -- but it sure helps. To use it,
just say ":set lisp" in vi. (Note: it is possible to compile vi without
lisp mode to save space. If this was done on your system, I'm sorry to
have wasted your time.)

Another handy vi mode is "showmatch". When this is on, entering a close
parenthesis causes the cursor to momentarily bounce to the matching
open parenthesis, if it's on the screen. Again, it's not perfect --
it doesn't know about square brackets -- but it is handy. To use it,
say ":set showmatch" or ":se sm" in vi.

You can set more than one option at once, for instance ":set lisp sm".
Finally, it is possible to set these options on the command line, so
you can use an alias to vi your Lisp programs with the modes turned on.

alias vl vi '+:set lisp sm' \!*

is my alias. It works with csh only, of course. Saying "vl foo.l"
starts up vi on the file foo.l with lisp and sm set. (Unfortunately,
you start at the end of the file instead of the beginning when you
do this, but that's no big thing.)

I hope this has served to help rather than confuse. Does anyone have
Gosling Emacs "electric-lisp-mode" working with Franz Lisp, by the way?

Tim Maroney