pwl@tc.fluke.COM (Paul Lutt) (08/24/88)
I have been asked by one of our users to try to obtain a "simple to
learn and use" visual text editor. He considers vi and emacs to be
much too complicated for the casual user. He also considers the PC-
based WordPerfect to be too complicated.
If this particular user had a Sun workstation, I would suggest
something like Sun's textedit tool. However, the user is stuck with a
VT100 style terminal.
Possible solutions include an emacs profile that provides access to the
most basic functions only. Perhaps a WordStar mapping. We have both
Unipress emacs and GNUemacs available.
If you have had the same sort of request and have found a reasonable
solution, I would sure like to hear about it.
As background, the target systems would be Vax 11/780s running Mt. Xinu
MORE/bsd and Sun workstations running SunOS 3.5.2 and SunOS 4.0.
Please mail any replies to me direct and I will pass them along. Thank
you.
--
Paul Lutt
Domain: pwl@tc.fluke.COM
Voice: +1 206 356 5059
UUCP: {uw-beaver,microsof,sun}!fluke!pwl
Snail: John Fluke Mfg. Co. / P.O. Box C9090 / Everett WA 98206gaynor@athos.rutgers.edu (Silver) (08/24/88)
pwl@tc.fluke.COM (Paul Lutt) writes: > He considers ... emacs to be much too complicated for the casual user. This is ridiculous, of course, at least for GNU. It does what it's programmed to do, sporting a full-fledged lisp under that pretty exterior. If the user thinks it's complicated, then hack things out. Maybe start a feature-a-week club, and show the user neat tricks on a weekly basis. Regards, [Ag] gaynor@rutgers.edu
donr@shark.TEK.COM (Don Riss) (08/24/88)
In article <4912@fluke.COM> pwl@tc.fluke.COM (Paul Lutt) writes: >I have been asked by one of our users to try to obtain a "simple to >learn and use" visual text editor. He considers vi and emacs to be >much too complicated for the casual user. He also considers the PC- >based WordPerfect to be too complicated. > Has anyone written or considered writing a UCSD-Pascal-like editor for VAX or SUN or whatever? The UCSD editor will do a lot of things, some of them the hard way, but its main advantage seems to be that moderately intelligent seventh-graders can (and have) learned it quite easily. An aside - I've got to fix my .cshrc - it threw me into (yuk-ptui) vi to write this note. I've just found out that J is the way you delete a CRLF. Now that's not intuitively obvious to the casual observer... but may make some wierd sort of sense to the computer scientist who believes that control-J = LF (sometimes) DISCALIMER::NOBODY, BUT NOBODY WANTS THESE IDEAS BUT ME, & I'M NOT SURE ABOUT ME.
davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) (08/25/88)
In article <4912@fluke.COM> pwl@tc.fluke.COM (Paul Lutt) writes: | Possible solutions include an emacs profile that provides access to the | most basic functions only. Perhaps a WordStar mapping. We have both | Unipress emacs and GNUemacs available. If you go with MicroEMACS it will run on the PC and mainframe, too. Your idea of a limited key mapping is a good one, which I know many people have used with success. MicroEMACS has a restricted mode which will prevent remapping keys, by accident or intent. I believe MicroGNU runs on a PC, too, but I haven't seen the new version (called mg) running yet, so that's rumor. Good luck with your project, and remember that stickon labels for the keys can reduce the learning curve by a good bit. We use them because they are cheaper than answering the phone. Casual users seem to have zero transfer of editing commands into long term memory, so labels replace learning. -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
karish@denali.stanford.edu (Chuck Karish) (08/25/88)
In article <2557@shark.TEK.COM> donr@shark.TEK.COM (Don Riss) writes:
<An aside - I've got to fix my .cshrc - it threw me into (yuk-ptui) vi
<to write this note. I've just found out that J is the way you delete
<a CRLF. Now that's not intuitively obvious to the casual observer...
<but may make some wierd sort of sense to the computer scientist who
<believes that control-J = LF (sometimes)
J is used to Join two lines. It adds a space, if necessary, to keep
from running two words together.
Chuck Karish ARPA: karish@denali.stanford.edu
BITNET: karish%denali@forsythe.stanford.edu
UUCP: {decvax,hplabs!hpda}!mindcrf!karish
USPS: 1825 California St. #5 Mountain View, CA 94041lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) (08/25/88)
From article <2557@shark.TEK.COM>, by donr@shark.TEK.COM (Don Riss): " Has anyone written or considered writing a UCSD-Pascal-like editor for " VAX or SUN or whatever? The UCSD editor will do a lot of things, some " of them the hard way, but its main advantage seems to be that moderately " intelligent seventh-graders can (and have) learned it quite easily. The UCSD editor is the easiest to learn I've ever used. I would also like to have a similar editor available on unix. Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
dch@cci632.UUCP (David C. Howland) (08/26/88)
In article <4912@fluke.COM> pwl@tc.fluke.COM (Paul Lutt) writes: >I have been asked by one of our users to try to obtain a "simple to >learn and use" visual text editor. He considers vi and emacs to be >much too complicated for the casual user. He also considers the PC- >based WordPerfect to be too complicated. One the the engineers here wrote an "easy-mode" for GNUemacs. Instead of taking functionally out of emacs easy-mode hides it. To get back to full Emacs one types C-cC-c. Easy-mode uses soft keys and a display menu. On the menu are simple functions such as find-file and save-buffer. This is an example display menu. (much prettier than this and reverse video). ______________________ ______________________________ _______________________ |find| save |switch | | grep| next | shell|compare | | other |two | next| |file| buffer|buffer | | | error| |window | | window|windows| menu| ---------------------- ------------------------------ ----------------------- The terminal we use in house has two lines at the top of the terminal that are not accessible to emacs normally. On these two lines are the display menu. By typing "next menu" (last entry on the example line above) pops up the next menu and binds the soft keys to the currently displayed menu. Shifted next menu takes you back one menu. The menus are circular so hitting next menu will eventuality take you back to the menu you are currently on. To add functionality to easy-mode requires a table change to allow the new function and to add/update the menus. Easy-mode is soooo easy even a ....... could figure it out! Goal in life: The eradication of vi! :-)
irf@kuling.UUCP (Bo Thide) (08/26/88)
In article <2557@shark.TEK.COM> donr@shark.TEK.COM (Don Riss) writes: >VAX or SUN or whatever? The UCSD editor will do a lot of things, some >of them the hard way, but its main advantage seems to be that moderately >intelligent seventh-graders can (and have) learned it quite easily. > >An aside - I've got to fix my .cshrc - it threw me into (yuk-ptui) vi >to write this note. I've just found out that J is the way you delete >a CRLF. Now that's not intuitively obvious to the casual observer... The vi "J" stands for Join lines. In fact ALL vi commands and operators are single letter mnemonics! (a=Append, b=Back, c=Change, d=Delete, f=Find, G=Go to, H=Home, i=Insert, J=Join, L=Last line, M=Middle line, n=Next, o=Open a new line, p=Put back from buffer, r=Replace, s=Substitute, t=To, u=Undo, w=Word, x=CROSS out, y=Yank into buffer, z=set Zone). This my eighth-grader son learnt after a few minutes of 'vi' wordprocessing for a school project... He is (at least) moderately intelligent. -Bo -- >>> Bo Thide', Swedish Institute of Space Physics, S-755 90 Uppsala, Sweden <<< Phone (+46) 18-300020. Telex: 76036 (IRFUPP S). UUCP: ..enea!kuling!irfu!bt
oz@yunexus.UUCP (Ozan Yigit) (08/28/88)
In article <..@athos.rutgers.edu> gaynor@athos.rutgers.edu (Silver) writes: >pwl@tc.fluke.COM (Paul Lutt) writes: >> He considers ... emacs to be much too complicated for the casual user. > >... Maybe start a feature-a-week >club, and show the user neat tricks on a weekly basis. Hehee.. that should take about a decade or so to complete huh ?? That is, assuming a "feature-frozen" gnu-emacs :-) (you missed your smiley) oz -- Crud that is not paged | Usenet: ...!utzoo!yunexus!oz is still crud. | ...uunet!mnetor!yunexus!oz andrew@alice | Bitnet: oz@[yulibra|yuyetti] | Phonet: +1 416 736-5257x3976
root@ttsi.UUCP (Super user) (08/31/88)
In article <2557@shark.TEK.COM>, donr@shark.TEK.COM (Don Riss) writes: > In article <4912@fluke.COM> pwl@tc.fluke.COM (Paul Lutt) writes: > >I have been asked by one of our users to try to obtain a "simple to > >learn and use" visual text editor. He considers vi and emacs to be > >much too complicated for the casual user. He also considers the PC- > >based WordPerfect to be too complicated. > > > Has anyone written or considered writing a UCSD-Pascal-like editor for > VAX or SUN or whatever? The UCSD editor will do a lot of things, some > of them the hard way, but its main advantage seems to be that moderately > intelligent seventh-graders can (and have) learned it quite easily. > If you're looking for VI or Emacs type editing this Article does not apply. We have located a SIMPLE screen editor for Unix which has the these features: o Full Screen Editing o Highlighted Cut/Paste o Multiple file edit o Read sections from other files o 64 Command sequence full UNDO ! o Operates on 650K+ file sizes o Variable text caching o On-line help o User definable keystroke - command options o KeyMacro definitions o Your basic search - replace etc editing If you've ever worked with a editor like Breif, Screen, or other plain TEXT oriented editors, and liked them, this is what the doctor ordered. I've been using this editor and found no features lacking for program and general text editing. It does not have all the features of EMACS and VI, but I've found that I use more of the features in uscreen than VI or Emacs because they make 'sense' to me. The documentation is scant, but after using the editor for a few minutes I found I didn't need the paper documentation. There are some limitations to uscreen. o Uscreen currently supports two terminal types, VT100 and a AT BUS screen controller (EGA, VGA, CGA, Herc). o It's available only for 386 Systems - Xenix 2.2.3 or 2.3 If you'd like more info send your request via e-mail ...!ttsi!alex
dar@belltec.UUCP (Dimitri Rotow) (09/01/88)
> In article <2557@shark.TEK.COM>, donr@shark.TEK.COM (Don Riss) writes: > > Has anyone written or considered writing a UCSD-Pascal-like editor for > > VAX or SUN or whatever? The UCSD editor will do a lot of things, some > > ... Yes. Bell Tech ships an editor called "sc" which is a UCSD Pascal editor clone. Cromemco and Fortune users know it well. Call the sales office at 800-426-8649 or 415-659-9097 for more info, or mail me direct. sc now runs on lots of different systems. - Dimitri Rotow !pacbell!belltec!dar