carroll@m.cs.uiuc.edu (06/08/90)
/* Written 4:29 am May 25, 1990 by russell@glencoe.turing.ac.uk in m.cs.uiuc.edu:comp.emacs */
/* ---------- "Call for discussion: Emacs and wind" ---------- */
[ ... ] To get the ball rolling here are a couple of suggestions:
+ A Mouse interface that doesn't preclude keyboard input while the
mouse is in use.
+ A similar facility for a Menu interface; allowing the mouse to talk
to Emacs while you've got a menu up and are mousing around over the
selections.
/* End of text from m.cs.uiuc.edu:comp.emacs */
One thing to keep in mind is that Epoch, the multi-X-windowing version of
GNU-emacs provides a useable platform for testing such ideas. 3.2 will
support the first of you suggestions, and could support the second with a
tiny amount of work (changing the event mask). Both the FSF and myself have
learned many interesting things from Epoch, and hopefully that will continue.
Alan M. Carroll Barbara/Marilyn in '92 :
carroll@cs.uiuc.edu + This time, why not choose the better halves?
Epoch Development Team
CS Grad / U of Ill @ Urbana ...{ucbvax,pur-ee,convex}!cs.uiuc.edu!carrollcarroll@m.cs.uiuc.edu (06/08/90)
/* Written 1:21 pm May 28, 1990 by rlk@think.com in m.cs.uiuc.edu:comp.emacs */ Off the top of my head, I can see quite a few useful things that could be hashed out on such a newsgroup: 1) Real mouse support, as opposed to layering on top of an 8-bit character stream (and thus requiring a higher-level, somewhat unreliable protocol). .Available in Epoch 3.1, 3.2. Mouse events can be set to show up in a seperate .event Q, without generating keys. 2) Context-sensitive mouse. This need not mean all-out hypertext, which could be done after a fashion (and isn't) with a standard terminal, but rather something as coarse-grained as per-buffer mouse behavior. .Available in Epoch 3.2 3) Multiple windows. Not exactly controversial in concept, but some of the applications could be interesting. .Available in all version of Epoch. 4) Extended text attributes. This obviously means things such as fonts (and colored text, on the appropriate display). .Available in Epoch, in addition to allowing arbritrary data to be associated .with the marked regions. Epoch doesn't work on non-X systems, however the .marked regions don't interfere with editing by non-Epoch editors. 5) An "emacs widget" of some kind. .Ability is there in Epoch 3.2, which supports sending & receiving both .property change events, and client messages. The emacsclient program can be .used to set up an Epoch such that it pops up a seperate X window for every .client that wants to edit something. File transmission can be through .properties or a file system. I believe someone already has such a system .inplace. /* End of text from m.cs.uiuc.edu:comp.emacs */