[comp.emacs] Word wrap mode - is there one?

konczal@SUNMGR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (Joe Konczal) (06/26/91)

   Date: 26 Jun 91 02:59:58 GMT
   From: krawchuk@cpsc.ucalgary.ca  (Bj Krawchuk)

   [...]
   Isn't this evidence of the silly emacs name for wrapping: filling!?

   Perhaps a solution to this would be to provide aliases of functions
   for people not yet used to emacs jargon.

Maybe all we need is an entry for `wrapping' in the concept index of
the Emacs Manual, refering users to `filling'.

--
Joe Konczal
konczal@ncsl.nist.gov

aks%anywhere@HUB.UCSB.EDU (Alan Stebbens) (06/27/91)

> Many years ago when I was learning emacs, I asked the same question
> as I'm sure many other emacs novices did. 
> Isn't this evidence of the silly emacs name for wrapping: filling!?

Hmm.  I would beg to differ: `filling', the "silly emacs name for
wrapping" is, in fact, the original typesetting name for the act of
filling characters up to the paragraph boundaries.  The phrase "word
wrapping" is much more recent, and more peculiar to the word processing
field and relative newcomers like WordStar and "vi".

Thus, emacs' use of the phrase "filling" is reflects a more careful
observance of the typesetting concepts, although it is not a typesetter.

Whichever phrase is more intuitive depends upon your point of view,
which, of course, may depend upon your date of birth :^).

> Perhaps a solution to this would be to provide aliases of functions
> for people not yet used to emacs jargon.

This seems like a good idea; on the other hand, I would hate to have
this index consuming any of Emacs' dataspace.  Why not provide a better
KWOK as part of the online manual?  I just did a "s" search for "wrap"
in the Emacs Info mode, and found three occurances, two of which the
perusal would lead me to "auto-fill-mode".

Alan