Xref: utzoo comp.misc:5677 comp.editors:605 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!gaynor From: gaynor@athos.rutgers.edu (Silver) Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.editors Subject: Re: UNIX needs a real text editor (2-nd Repost) Message-ID: Date: 29 Mar 89 15:33:16 GMT References: <1004@taurus.BITNET> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 88 (Doron, your message made it through this time!) >> = trb@stag.bitnet > = zifrony@taurus.bitnet >> 1) allows multi-file editing with a clean and fast buffering scheme Got it. >> 2) fully supports folding Got it. >> 3) allows the programmer to relate lines and words and use these >> relationships in a hyper-text like manner (i.e. moving back and forth >> between a program document and the appropriate lines of code at the press >> of a few keys) Doesn't sound to difficult to program this in... An extended tags mechanism would probably suffice to start. >> 4) has configurations save and restore modes (so you can get back to EXACTLY >> the same place you left off editing the day before...with all buffer info >> intact) Got it. >> 5) has more intelligence built in (rather than interpreted in macros) This is rather vague. I tend to say "Got it." simply because the extension language is much more than a dumb macro language. > In addition, ... > 1. A two window option, like in DEC's EVE, to better utilize the multi-file > editing capability. Got it. > 2. A recovery mechanism after a crash is more than welcome. Got it, normally via n-keypress-checkpointing (you set n) and automatic backup version generation. > If editable, like the editing journal in DEC's environment Journaling as you describe would be trivial to implement. Most find the recovery mechanisms adequate, though. > suppress a few bad commands Brings to mind the feature which allows one to arbitrarily restrict functions known to be confusing, a command-disabling mechanism. > 3. Have the result of a pushed system command ... be put in a new editing > buffer, so it can be looked at, and incorporated in the files being > edited. Got it, several different ways. > (I know of GNU Emacs, but I don't think it is supplied with each UnIX system, > and it is worse to learn than vi, and requires a lot of time investment to be > utilized in a good way). First, note that Emacs is persistent. If it's not supplied with a given Unix system, forgive the vendor's ignorance, and install it yourself. Ports to most machines can be made without hitch through the supplied machine and os definitions. comp.emacs and gnu.emacs can be consulted when difficulties arise. (Emacs users provide suprisingly good support to each other.) It is no worse to learn than vi. Better in some respects, mostly because it is the best-documented individual software product that I can think of (note that _all_ of the documentation is on-line, most of it interactively accessable). It boils down to "you get what you pay for". You invest a little time into either, you get only a novice understanding. You invest quite a bit more time into either, you get an expert understanding. That's as far as you go in vi. In Emacs, you keep on going, learning neat time-saving feature after neat feature, as long as you have the time and will to do so. Or you can continue at a lower level, and learn to program new tricks into the old dog. The environment Emacs provides for its own extension language is pretty nice - I do most of my non-C programming in Emacs Lisp, just for the nice environment, smokin' user interface, and wonderful system interface. For starting emacs users, my advice is simple: run through the interactive tutorial (takes about 2 hours) to acquire a basic working knowledge. Then, make a print of the 3-page reference `card', and _use_ it. Then, when comfortable, browse the Info tree for detailed information on more advanced features (the Info tree is a tree-menu-based interctive browser for the several-hundred-page detailed user manual). > Working with a SUN workstation, I find TEXTEDIT, the mouse-based editor, and > the possibility to have a few copies of it concurrently, as a compensation > for the lack of nice features. Got the mouse support under X and NeWS. (I haven't used suntools in over a year, but even so, never used or looked at emacstool.) Regards, [Ag] gaynor@rutgers.edu