bazelman@wanginst.UUCP (Rudy Bazelmans) (12/02/85)
In October, I conducted a survey to determine user preference towards
various characteristics of text editors. The questionnaire was short
in order to encourage responses. THANKS TO ALL WHO RESPONDED!
Rudy
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For each characteristic listed in the questionnaire, the respondents
were asked to answer:
Y if they felt that the characteristic was useful
N is they felt that the characteristic was not useful
? if they did not understand the question.
Responses which were indecipherable or respondents who were
indecisive are included in the totals for the ? response. All
percentages have been rounded to the nearest percentage. The totals
from the 146 responses received are listed below:
Which editors have you used? Which editors do you like?
EDITOR % WHO HAVE USED % WHO LIKE
Vi 80 50
Emacs (all types) 64 50
EDT 37 14
teco 37 8
ed 28 4
Wordstar 29 8
Question Y(%) N(%) ?(%)
Full screen editing? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 1 0
Multiple windows?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 10 9
Support for simultaneously editing multiple files? 89 9 2
Support for arrow keys?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 33 4
Use of function keys?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 40 0
Use of the numeric keypad? . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 54 15
The ability to bind commands to keys of your choice? 85 15 0
Regular expression pattern matching? . . . . . . . 91 6 3
Cursor movement over words?. . . . . . . . . . . . 96 4 0
Cursor movement over sentences?. . . . . . . . . . 65 31 4
Cursor movement over paragraphs? . . . . . . . . . 61 34 4
Undo of any command? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 7 0
The ability to abort an edit?. . . . . . . . . . . 97 1 2
Automatic backup of the unedited file? . . . . . . 61 32 7
Automatic backup files during an edit? . . . . . . 61 32 7
A tutorial manual? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 27 1
A reference manual?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 3 0
A reference card?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 23 3
On-line documentation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 23 0
On-line command summary? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 16 2
Delimiter matching support for programming?. . . . 76 17 7
Automatic indentation of control structures? . . . 63 29 8
Syntax directed editing? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 32 34
Built-in extension language? . . . . . . . . . . . 55 19 26
Macro support? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 10 2
Automatic initialization of the editor at startup? 82 1 17
Do you prefer modeless editors over modal editors? 43 27 30
Any other features (Please list them)
There were over 50 pages of additional comments from the respondents.
Due to space constraints, the comments have not been reproduced here.
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Rudy Bazelmans - Wang Institute, (617) 967-2609
[apollo, bbncca, cadmus, decvax, harvard, linus, masscomp]!wanginst!bazelmansward@chinet.UUCP (Ward Christensen) (12/07/85)
I've been away from usenet for a couple months, so didn't see your (obviously excellent) editor survey in net.micro. I'd just like to pass along how much I like PMATE from Phoenix software for my PC. It is not "really up to date", i.e. no windows, doesn't use all of memory, no multi-file (well, multi-buffer, but only the "text" buffer has auto-file-scrolling), etc. BUT, it has the most powerful macro language I've seen in an editor. (there are undoubtedly more powerful UNIX editors around - I'm talking "in my CP/M and PC micro experience"). I have been able to totally redefine the keyboard (I HATE the arrow keys- they are for people who can't type and don't want to learn now). I use the "old fashion" ^H^J^K^L for cursor back, down, up, right, etc. ^G is char delete, ^S word back, ^D word right, etc. I've defined a meta-key ^], which does things like ^]^D delete word, ^]^] change case of char under cursor, etc. Though not supported directly, I've even added F1 to lower case the tagged block, F2 to upper case it, etc. One of its NICEST features is the repeat key, i.e. ^W causes next key to be pressed 4 times; ^W^W for 16 times, etc. Want a line of 78 dashes in your file (hopefully NOT to send thru the net!) just press ^W78- and you get them. It has a permanent macro section for single char macros which are invoked from the command line by saying .<character defining the macro>, for example, .+ is a little macro for adding up numbers in a column (that I wrote); .< will change hard-carriage returns into soft (it uses few embedded control chars - hi-bit C/R being the only one I really use). .M macro then changes soft c/r's back, etc. I really like it. Its overpriced, but can be found for a reasonable price by shopping around a bit. It is my hope they'll upgrade it to a "more modern editor" (windows, use all of memory, multi-file, etc) but they seem hung up on their overall bag of development tools, and their hardware speed-up boards.