pchris@sim.Berkeley.EDU (Chris Perleberg) (02/28/88)
Hi Netlanders, I recently came across a great shareware editor. It's called ConTEXT written by Don Milne (I got it on the Atari BBS under CONTXTV2.ARC). It was made to replace the TDI Modula2 editor, and if they still have the same editor they had two years ago, getting the ConTEXT editor is a MUST if you work with TDI Modula2. It supports the error insertion of the TDI editor. There are several great things about this editor. It is a GEM based editor, and about the fastest that I have seen. But the really nice thing is that it is Word Star compatible, so you aren't bound to the mouse (though you can use it) like other GEM editors (notably Megamax C's). The cursor keys also work correctly (unlike Megamax C's editor). Inserting text is very fast, and scrolling is faster than other GEM editors. The commands can have their key bindings changed, and there are macros. Overall, this editor appears to be a professional product. There are a few problems (annoyances) with this editor: i) It does not support hard tabs: instead, when you tab, the editor inserts spaces, so to delete a tab means deleting 8 spaces. I don't know why so many editor authors like this feature, but it is an annoyance since it is slower (decreases productivity) and takes more memory. At least make this feature reconfigurable, instead of hardwiring it into the code. ii) The file selector has a default mask of '*.MOD' for modula2 source. This can not be reconfigured (unlike other default settings), and is an annoyance when not working with Modula2. iii) Only one file can be edited at a time. The multiple windows/open files of the Megamax C editor is a definite advantage, especially with cut and paste between the windows/files. This is definitely needed in the ConTEXT editor. iv) The editor appears to only be able to edit up to 64K files. If you do block copy insertions to get to this limit, it will warn you that there is not enough memory. But I tested it once by inserting characters at this limit, and a Modula2 runtime error popped up, which forced me to exit the program, thus losing the file. Normally, this limit is not a problem. The docs say this program was originally uploaded to BIX. I'm a poor and destitute student, so I can't afford BIX. If someone can contact the author (BIX-ID: "mpack" (MicroPack Ltd.)) and relay the above comments, I would be grateful. I am willing to pay $40 - $50 for ConTEXT with the above problems/annoyances solved. Also, if a new version (I have version 2) of ConTEXT exists on BIX, could someone download it to the Atari BBS? As a programmer, I spend a lot of time in editors. It is difficult to find an editor that works like I do, but after trying a lot of editors on the ST (I have tried the three VI emulators: LEVEE is the best, though it still has several annoying problems I can't live with. I don't do EMACS), I have found ConTEXT to be very good, and would be even better with the problems above solved. Thanks for listening, Chris Perleberg pchris@sim.berkeley.edu