Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!umd5!uvaarpa!mcnc!rti!sas!cole
From: cole@sas.UUCP (Tom Cole)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Capps' Editor Construction Kit
Message-ID: <479@sas.UUCP>
Date: 26 Apr 88 01:34:03 GMT
References: <48@melbcae.edu.au> <332STORKEL@RICE>
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.,Cary NC,25712
Lines: 70
Summary: Short summary of experiences with CAPPS'


Well, I got a copy of CAPPS' (LSP version).  Here ae re a few
unsolicited comments.

1.  The package is largely a replacement for TE routines.  There
    are PE routines for the typical TE operations, from PEKey to
    PECut, etc.  The first and foremost advantages of this is that
    CAPPS' is *fast* compared to TE, and supports tab characters.
    I had an application where I wanted to use TE to manage an
    output window and gave it up because TE was just too slow.
    CAPPS' is fast enough to send it characters in real time and
    it works very niceley.  And implementing your own tabs in TE
    is a real pain.

2.  The editor allows you to imbed escape characters (ascii value 
    less than 32) in the text, and declare a corresponding routine
    to be called that can process the text next to the escape or
    bracketed by the escape.  That's how LSP bolds keywords.  I
    have yet to fully explore this capability.

3.  They provide a (reasonably) fully commented text editor and text
    edit desk accessory that uses CAPPS' to do its work.  Good examples
    of shell applications, by the way.  These also give examples of how
    to use the escape character feature, etc.

4.  Also part of the package is a "grep" routine.  In its simplest
    form, it can do the search/replace operations expected of any
    normal editor.  It can be case insensitive and quite fast.

    In its most oblique forms, it is a full regular expression
    handler that can search for all kinds of wierdness, basically
    like the un*x grep stuff

5.  The routines are supplied as Lightspeed C or Pascal libraries, and
    interface files.  So I doubt you could run them with other languages
    or environments without being able to read and translate Lightspeed
    libraries.  The source for the actual PE routines, grepper, etc.
    are *not* included, only the source to the sample application and
    DA that use CAPPS'

6.  The package also includes some HFS navigation commands and file/path
    expansion routines which I haven't played with.

7.  The documentation is pretty good, mostly convincing me that in normal
    use the routines just "plug-replace" the corresponding TE routines.
    The docs come as laser-typeset looseleaf pages punched for three-
    ring binders - supply your own binder...

8.  I bought the stuff because it was fast,  and I could make it do
    text window handling without writing ugly stuff.  Someday, when I
    am less busy I would like to get into the grittier stuff.  However,
    it is soooo cheap that it was well worth it just for the speedup.
    Since it can be had from places like MacConnection for about $50,
    that makes it worth about 2 hours of your time if you get paid
    $25/hour.  If you get $100/hour, even better... :-).

Anyway, not the most complete review ever made, but a start.  I really like
the package.  It seems typical of what I consider the high quality of work
that Think.... er.... Symantec puts out.  It isn't for everyone, but if it
is for you, then it's really good.

I have (naturally) no connection with Symantec/Think or MacConnection, other
than being satisfied customers of both organizations.  Keep up the good
work.  I would love to hear from anyone who has really gotten into CAPPS'
and can send me (or post) more complete comments.

Tom Cole
SAS Institute
{nearly_anywhere}|mcnc|rti|sas|cole

My opinions ARE those of my employer, they just don't know it yet...