MJackson.Wbst@PARC-MAXC.ARPA (01/18/84)
Often in rapid typing I make many little typing errors as may occur in this very sentence I'm typing. I'll deliberately wait until I'm done before going back to correct the errors, and deliberately make a copy so you can see the original and the final version of this. Well, it took me just under 30 seconds to make eight changes in the preceding paragraph, using a (3-button) mouse-driven screen editor which is essentially always in insert mode. No "incremental cursor motion" required--just a little care to get the "insert point" right the first time. (Easy--hold down the key and you can see where insertion is going to be; release the key when you are happy.) The one replacement operation was just as straightforward: middle mouse button for word select, DEL, type replacement. In a paragraph I had actually typed there might not have been any errors. With BS to erase just-typed letters and COM-BS (two-key combination) to erase just-typed words, text tends to come out pretty clean. I've never used REM's favorite cursor-key editor; perhaps I'd prefer it, but I have my doubts. In generating reports or programs I compose at the screen; this involves a lot of rethinking and rearranging of what I have typed, which is extremely convenient given a mouse with which to select small, medium, and large chunks of text. I recently needed to translate some programs (in Ratfor) to run (in Pascal, a language I was just learning) on an Intel system; the Alter editor available seems like a perfectly nice editor OF ITS TYPE, but compared to what I am used to it is a dog. I can't conceive of using "backwards string search" to place the insert point at the error; if I can look to find the error I can "mouse" it in very close to the same delay-time. Mark [Addendum: Despite my mail-site, I actually have very little vested interest in mice. I'm a physicist working on copiers in upstate New York--I've never even been to PARC, although I do, of course, work for Xerox.]