Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!oliveb!intelca!mipos3!cpocd2!nate From: nate@cpocd2.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng,comp.editors Subject: Re: CMS woes (Re: Request for human interface design anecdotes) Message-ID: <967@cpocd2.UUCP> Date: Wed, 4-Nov-87 17:32:25 EST Article-I.D.: cpocd2.967 Posted: Wed Nov 4 17:32:25 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 09:09:44 EST References: <3389@uw-june.UUCP> <1057@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> <3045@psuvax1.psu.edu> Reply-To: nate@cpocd2.UUCP (Nathan Hess) Organization: Intel Corp., ASIC Services Operation, Chandler AZ Lines: 51 Keywords: human factors, interfaces, editors Xref: utgpu comp.cog-eng:265 comp.editors:1 In article <3045@psuvax1.psu.edu> flee@gondor.psu.edu (Felix Lee) writes: >In article <1057@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> dick@ucsfccb.UUCP (Dick Karpinski) writes: >>In CMS, in full screen mode, using XEDIT, every that >>I type at the end of a line takes me to the command area. >>Not what I meant. >I too hated (actually ) taking you back to the command area. >What I did was write a macro for the Enter key that put you on the command >area only if you hadn't typed anything else. It also turned the command >area on and off when necessary. Actually, if you pour through the XEDIT manual, you might come up with something like the following command, which you can put into the PROFILE XEDIT (init) file: SET ENTER IGNORE CURSOR CMDLINE 1 PRIORITY 5 This will keep the cursor where it was the first time you press and drop it down to the command line the second time. I have found it to be usable; the default behaviour *IS* rather annoying... >Xedit is usable, potentially as powerful as Emacs, but not very nice. The >defaults are awful. Yes, the defaults are indeed awful. XEDIT also lacks the ability to deal with regular expressions. However, because of it's line-mode oriented beginnings, it does have a couple features that I have never seen on any other editor: the ALL macro, which only displays those lines containing a given string -- "ERROR", for example; the HOR macro, which allows column-wise editing in any block of lines in the file -- delete, move, copy columns. This latter feature is *extremely* handy for dealing with simulation outputs. Plus, you can invoke the ALL macro, and then invoke HOR on whatever part of the file is left, essentially treating all lines containing a given string as one contiguous block of text. I have never encountered another editor that can do either of these two things, let alone combine them. XEDIT is blazingly fast. It is also quite easily extensible. Compared with Emacs, however, the user interface is quite a bit more awkward. Painfully so, at times. Even though Emacs is my CE(tm), [Chosen Editor :-]# I would still most likely rather use XEDIT than vi or EDT/TPU. If XEDIT would only support regular expressions... --woodstock -- "How did you get your mind to tilt like your hat?" ...!{decwrl|hplabs!oliveb|pur-ee|qantel|amd}!intelca!mipos3!cpocd2!nate : nate@cpocd2.intel.com ATT : (602) 961-2037