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