Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: MPW wish list
Message-ID: <10046@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 5 Feb 90 07:22:48 GMT
References: <1990Jan23.065751.29303@peace.waikato.ac.nz> <6310@internal.Apple.COM> <3566@odin.SGI.COM>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 42

In article <3566@odin.SGI.COM> shap@delrey.sgi.com (Jonathan Shapiro) writes:
>One of the things that has always bothered me about MPW is that its
>editor is hardwired in.

Not really.  You can use whatever editor you want (except possibly for
Projector -- I haven't used it ye, so I don't know).  The makefiles
just look at mod dates.  Now, in LightSpeed C, you're in a lot of
trouble if you want to use another editor, but with MPW C, it's
perfectly easy under MultiFinder.

>I have used other editors, most recently vi and emacs, for a long
>time, and I find that moving to the mouse every two seconds to correct
>typos in the line above really cuts into my throughput.

So learn to use the arrow keys!  This is exactly the same way you move
around in vi and emacs, after all.

>Also, the mac
>editor isn't programmable, so the hacks I have put together to do
>sophisticated indenting, etc. can't be done there.

How so?  You can run both tools and scripts in the editor, and add your
own keyboard shortcuts to do them if you like.  There's not as much
direct control over the text as in MLisp, but there's far more than in
vi (which isn't really programmable, unless you count the ! command).
You can give editor commands from scripts, and run tools which do
whatever you want to the text.

>I would be willing to write my own editor if the interface could be
>published or if I could get it from Apple by asking for it.

You can do it now.  What's the problem?  All that you have to use the
MPW Shell for is a command line interpreter.  Any editor will work
with your makefiles.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com

"He goes on about the wailing and gnashing of teeth.  It comes in one
 verse after another, and it is quite manifest to the reader that there
 is a certain pleasure in contemplating the wailing and gnashing of
 teeth, or else it would not occur so often."
	-- Bertrand Russell, "Why I Am Not a Christian"