C70:editor-people (06/10/82)
>From Margolin.PDO@MIT-MULTICS Thu Jun 10 01:23:43 1982
I just wanted to mention something that I have always noticed about
standalone word-processing systems (I haven't had much experience using
them, so I don't really know how apropos this note will be). They
generally seem to use the character stream model of text. They also
generally have a special character on the screen that represents the
newline at the end of each line (it often seems to be a down-pointing
triangular shape). Does anyone know how these systems deal with lines
that are too long for the screen?
I bring this up because I assume that these systems must be doing
something right by this time. The first one I ever saw was in a
friend's father's legal office, about five years ago. In five years
they must have learned what is best for professional secretaries and
word processors. Perhaps I should get around to wandering into the MIT
Word Processing Center, where they use CPT-8000 systems.
barmarC70:editor-people (06/12/82)
>From KLOTZ@MIT-OZ Sat Jun 12 00:24:11 1982
They also generally have a special character on the screen
that represents the newline at the end of each line (it
often seems to be a down-pointing triangular shape).
I have used editors/word processors that have this feature, and find
it distracting. I also foget that there isn't a real CR at the end
of each line, but that's probably my fault for using such an editor
for a more general purpose than that for which it was designed.
Wang's standalone system has this character, and also has a faint point
instead of a space. Most such systems don't allow lines longer than the
screen width, and gloss over that by always being in autofill mode. The
claim is that for those who use it, it doesn't matter, since all they do
is write documents anyway.
These systems universally (as nearly as I can tell) require the user to
go into ``insert mode'' to put text in to the middle of a paragraph.
Probably the people who use them don't mind, since they are mostly
typing letters that other people wrote, and then they do need to change
something, it is minor.
I believe that most people (not in the academic community) who prefer
editors that are always in write-over mode don't do composition using
the editor. It's too easy to accidently overwrite text when you want
to insert it, and it's hard to try putting together different phrases
and sentences when you have to enter and exit different modes to do it.
I disagree to some extent with the statement that these people are
doing something right. I think that the editors they are writing are
for completely different types of users, who use editors as if they
were IBM correcting typewriters. The wp programs are supposed to fit
into that model. In the community of academic users, who want a
general purpose editor for both natural languages and progamming
languages, the model of a typewritten sheet of paper is unnecessarily
restrictive, and not worth emulating.
Leigh.