Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pwcmrd!skipnyc!atpal!tneff From: tneff@atpal.UUCP (Tom Neff) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Microsoft Editor: problems Summary: a couple of answers Message-ID: <162@atpal.UUCP> Date: 18 May 88 15:49:18 GMT References: <1180018@hpcvlx.HP.COM> Reply-To: tneff@atpal.UUCP (Tom Neff) Organization: President\'s Council on Astrology Lines: 62 In article <1180018@hpcvlx.HP.COM> everett@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Everett Kaser) writes: >Thanks for including your new Microsoft Editor with the new versions of >C and MASM. It looked very interesting, and I thought I'd give it a try. >Well, after a couple of days of trying to configure it to look and work >something like Emacs, I'm, errr, uhhhh, well-l-l-l, disappointed (to be >polite). If you already have EMACS and like it so much, stick with it -- don't blame Microsoft for not reinventing it. I think M.EXE is an OK editor personally, not the ultimate but not half bad either. I daresay you would have an equally tough time teaching EMACS to emulate the Microsoft Editor. Their command building approaches are too different. >I started out trying to adjust the screen colors and size... >Well, the colors changed just fine... >However, simply putting the 43-line >mode into TOOLS.INI didn't work (Height:41). A much easier way to do this is to put your EGA into 43 line mode first with something like 43.COM (a microscopically tiny and useful program I would be happy to post here if you like) and then invoke M.EXE without saying anything at all about Height: in TOOLS.INI. Generally speaking, I don't like programs messing around with my screen mode without permission. As it happens, M detects 43 line mode at initialization time and stays there quite happily without further inducements. If you spend almost all your time in 43 line mode as I do, you can just run M.EXE "straight" in the expectation that 43 will already be in effect; if you tend to switch back and forth between 43/25 a lot, you can create M.BAT which does a 43.COM before running M.EXE. >Once I got the screen the way I liked it (reasonably), I decided to try >writing an extension program ... [goes on to describe an apparent bug in the argument structure passed to user-written editor extensions] I haven't got as far as you in programming extensions, but when I do I'll check on this and let you know if there's anything you missed or a good workaround. In the meantime, MS ought to respond, cause it sounds lousy. > To create a successful C extension, you need to follow these guidelines: > 1. Check the README.DOC file to see what functions you can call... >Well, there was no README.DOC file on the editor disk. I looked on all of >the disks that came with C 5.1, and found only one README.DOC file... Oops. It's called UTILITY.DOC, not README.DOC. They must have split it off into a separate doc after the manual was printed. Look on your disks again. Actually, with any Microsoft product it's a good idea to go through all disks as soon as the package arrives and print out *.DOC and README.* and also the PACK*.LST. In this case PACKING.LST would have told you about UTILITY.DOC. I printed and read everything the first day, so I never noticed the wrong filename reference in the manual addendum. >as a programmers manual for a programmers editor, this one sucks the big one. I agree this thing is still under-documented. Why don't you put together a list of the specific things you want to know, and maybe we can get a tech memo from Microsoft. -- Tom Neff UUCP: ...uunet!pwcmrd!skipnyc!atpal!tneff "None of your toys CIS: 76556,2536 MCI: TNEFF will function..." GEnie: TOMNEFF BIX: are you kidding?