[comp.windows.x] Motif text editor

moss@brl.mil (Gary S. Moss (VLD/VMB) <moss>) (07/06/90)

In article <9006211559.AA24864@m2.csc.ti.com>, seymour@m2.csc.ti.COM
(Ricky Seymour) writes:
|> 
|> Anybody knows of a good text editor that runs on X and allows
extensive mousing?

The "sam" editor written by Rob Pike is excellent.  You need to license it
from the AT&T Toolchest; we have a site-wide license.  If you order it, you
should get the latest improvements from Doug Gwyn <gwyn@brl.mil>, these are
mostly related to the X support.

Sam is a successor to the "jim" editor, originally written for Teletype
5620 terminals with a downloadable graphics front-end and a host portion.
It now supports Teletype 630s, Suntools and X and the host portion is still
separate and can be run remotely.  You start it up on your workstation
running X or Suntools and specify the host where the files are so it can
start up the remote host portion.  This gets around the portability
problem inherant in graphics applications (less of a problem with X) and
you need only compile the front-end on your workstation.  The host portion
is extremely portable; we use it on Encore (Gould), Alliant, SGI, Cray,
Vax and Suns.  The command language can be used by itself (sam -d) like
ed(1) or sed(1).

Some unique features of sam:

	1) A powerful and elegant line editor style command language
	similar but much richer then ed(1).  It allows \n in patterns,
	nested commands, and better addressing than ed.

	2) Cut and paste (allows exchanges with the window manager
	selection buffer).

	3) Integration between the command language in one window and
	mouse operations in the others.  Command language allows shell
	commands to be easily encorporated.

	4) Multiple resizable windows.

	5) Popup menus for heavily used functions.

Perhaps if you aren't convinced yet you should call the Toolkit.  Sorry
if this sounds like a sales pitch, but I really think sam's the greatest.

-Gary

sergio@sergio.uucp (Sergio Perrone/30000) (07/25/90)

Has anyone spent the time to improve the 'xmeditor' sample Motif application 
with features like search and replace?

Or, are there any good X-based text editors out there (other than xedit)?

Thanks,

Marc

--- Marc Andreessen, IBM AWD Austin, sergio@sergio.austin.ibm.com ---

rajeshg@diamond.tamu.edu (Rajesh Godbole) (07/26/90)

In article <2809@auschs.ibm.com>, sergio@sergio.uucp (Sergio
Perrone/30000) writes:
|> Or, are there any good X-based text editors out there (other than xedit)?


the X11 version of GNU's emacs is a pretty good editor.  it has a lisp
interface, besides it has some good utilities like rmail, a mail handling 
utility,  and rnews, a USENET news utility.



Rajesh Godbole,				|  preferred: rajeshg@diamond.tamu.edu
Department of Electrical Engineering.	|  otherwise: godbole@eemips.tamu.edu
Texas A&M University, College Station.	|  (409) 696-9528.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

price@chukls.ucs.dec.com (Chuck Price) (07/26/90)

In article <2809@auschs.ibm.com>, sergio@sergio.uucp (Sergio Perrone/30000) writes:

> Has anyone spent the time to improve the 'xmeditor' sample Motif application 
> with features like search and replace?
> 
> Or, are there any good X-based text editors out there (other than xedit)?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Marc
> 

Digital makes a great text editor called dxnotepad, which comes bundled on
all our workstation products. It includes split screen, search/replace,
infinite
(to the beginning of the session) undo/redo, and access to a user extensible
set of filters. But then, ...

> IBM AWD Austin
  ^^^^^^^
... you probably aren't interested in it anyway.  ;-)

-chuck

argv@turnpike.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan Heller) (08/09/90)

In article <2809@auschs.ibm.com> sergio@reed.UUCP (Sergio Perrone/30000) writes:
> Has anyone spent the time to improve the 'xmeditor' sample Motif application 
> with features like search and replace?

I have edited the xmeditor program to:
    1) generalize and abstract all redundant code into self-sufficient functions
   *2) integrate the WidgetWrap library to take advantage of the varargs
	interface for creating widgets and set/get routines.
    3) add performance enchancments.
    4) added comment lines to the code so the reader understands what
	the code trying to do.
    5) removed all global variable references.

The result of this was that the source (including new comment lines) is
now down to about 700 lines.  I added no functionality, but I didn't
remove any either.  However, now that the code has been abstracted and
generalized without globals, it is now a "module" that can be used as
a general text editor for any application.

A full chapter of the Motif Programmer's Manual (O'Reilly Assoc. Volume 6)
is dedicated to the Text widget(s) and will include this code and discussion.
The suggestion of adding "features" such as search and replace are addressed
as well.

-----footnote for item #2
*I have rewritten WidgetWrap to look/act just like the new XtVa* functions
in R4.  Thus, when Motif 1.1 is done, this code will be portable to 1.1
without mods and without having to use WidgetWrap.

--
dan
----------------------------------------------------
O'Reilly && Associates   argv@sun.com / argv@ora.com
Opinions expressed reflect those of the author only.