abair@turbinia.oakhill.uucp (Alan Bair) (10/07/89)
I have been using Elm for several months now and have found it to be very usefull. This is Elm 2.2 PL11. Recently I have been trying to decide how to edit mailings, so I have been using the different options for mail editing. At this point I am using the builtin one that behaves like the Berkley mail command. I have tried using the 'TAB' to format various lists, but it just beeps and does nothing. I have used 'TAB' in the regular mail command without problems, I just checked :). Is there a problem with Elm or am I doing soemthing wrong? I built Elm and am running it on a Sun 3/60 OS 3.5. Alan Bair SPS CAD Motorola, Inc. UUCP cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!turbinia!abair
rob@PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo) (10/08/89)
In article <ABAIR.89Oct6180556@turbinia.oakhill.uucp> abair@turbinia.oakhill.uucp (Alan Bair) writes:
+At this point I am using the builtin [editor] that behaves like
+the Berkley mail command. I have tried using the 'TAB' to
+format various lists, but it just beeps and does nothing.
+I have used 'TAB' in the regular mail command without
+problems, I just checked :). Is there a problem with Elm
+or am I doing soemthing wrong?
Explanation:
This is a consequence of a simplicity in elm. Elm uses the
same function for obtaining string input from the user in
response to a prompt as for line input in the builtin editor.
When soliciting string input after a prompt, tab characters
(and other non-printing characters) should not be permitted,
and that's why the function behaves the way it does, beeping
when the user inputs an inadmissible character.
Information to elm developers:
Perhaps the function ought to be made a bit more complex,
by adding a flag argument, so that when the function is used
to accept input lines for the builtin editor, it will accept
tab (and perhaps someother control characters) that it shouldn't
accept in other cases. I forget the details of this function (I
once worked on it), but this change might be more complex than it seems,
e.g. erasing the previous character from the screen when it's a tab is
different from erasing a "normal" character (upon input of the erase
character).
--
Rob Bernardo ...![backbone]!pacbell!pbhyf!rob -or- rob@pbhyf.PacBell.COM
Product engineer, UNIX/C Reusable Code Library Editor, "Go `C' UNIX"
Office: (415) 823-2417 Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, California
Residence: (415) 827-4301 R BAR JB, Concord, California