os9@cbosgd.att.com (10/15/87)
OS-9 Discussions Thursday, October 15th 1987 Volume 3 : Issue 19
Today's Topics:
SCRED comments; FREE Cheat Sheet!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 87 20:15:41 edt
From: ihnp4!ihwld!rigel!knudsen
Subject: SCRED comments; FREE Cheat Sheet!
First, let me say that I've used a SUN workstation and laser printer
to make a pretty good "cheat sheet" for the SCRED editor supplied
with OS/K and the optional Coco Level 2 Developer's System.
If you want a copy, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:
Mike Knudsen
1411 E. Wakeman Ave.
Wheaton, IL 60187
(If you're with Bell Labs, just mail free to IH-6B-338).
Since I have the new Dynastar and the old TSEdit, I haven't used
SCRED beyond a trial run or two, but based on careful reading of the manual
and experience with other editors, my feelings are:
GOOD & BAD POINTS about SCRED:
* Can edit files too large for memory (like Dynastar, unlike TSEdit).
Unfortunately you still have to tell the command line #mmK to get
mm Kbytes of RAM instead of the default buffer size, which is
pretty small (just like TSEdit).
* Can save current state of your file and keep on editing.
* Can insert other files and write out parts of the edit buffer.
* Has Cut/Paste buffer with versatile command set.
* Allows "Undo" but only on one line (however, deleting multiple lines
puts them in the paste buffer, so you can paste them back).
* Definitely a "Mode" editor -- like TSEdit, SCRED has Insert and Edit
modes that you have to ping-pong between. Personally I dislike
modes (so I use EMACS and Dyna), but others prefer them.
There is also a 3rd Command mode, which is equivalent to the ':'
prefix commands in TSEdit or the ^N menu in Dyna.
* To add to confusion, the Search and Change commands are duplicated
in Edit and Command modes. A convenience, once you get the
slightly different names straight (send for my cheatsheet).
* Cursor-motion and some Deletion commands are assigned to keys
by location, joystick-style. Other commands are by mnemonic letters.
[In my cheatsheet I've made up a few names that are more mnemonic
than in the manual.]
* Using a single key (^K) to alternately go to beginning and end of
current line is a neat trick that deserves to be copied.
* SCRED lacks all the different ways of moving the cursor around
in context that TSEdit has (like "go to next 'T'"
or "delete up to next '('"). Of course these are luxuries.
* Everything is very line-oriented, including Cut/Paste.
The manual says to split lines into two or three lines if you want
to cut a phrase out of the middle, etc. Splitting is easy (^B).
* Search strings use '?' as a wild-card to match one character.
Nice, but I wish they had '*' too.
Also an initial Blank anchors the search to beginning of line.
* Line numbers are not displayed, but you can say "G nn" and go to
line number nn. Handy for assembler and compiler error messages.
* I don't know yet whether you can quote (using ^V) the newline character
in search and replace strings. Few 8-bit editors can, EMACS can.
This is a very handy feature for finding empty lines, anchoring
searches to end or beginning of lines, adding lines, etc.
* There is no way to insert or recognize real TABs (^I), despite
what the manual says. Must be a bug. OS/K users, how well does
your version work? Haven't tried SCRED on files with real tabs
from other editors.
* You can quickly set tab stops (simulated with blanks) at every N
columns. But you can't set individual tab stops as in Dyna.
* There are no document-formatting functions like paragraph filling.
There is an auto-indent (to match previous line) mode,
great for us C programmers.
* On-line Help menus are available by pressing '?'. These work well.
* You can hit one key to start continuous scrolling of the text up
or down, pausing and restarting with the space bar. Very nice
depending on how smoothly your screen or terminal handles this.
* SCRED automatically does a GETSTAT and adjusts to whatever size window
(on Coco 3) you're using, up to full 80x24 and including old 32x16.
You could have several SCREDs going on the same screen!
Due to its terminal heritage, SCRED does not use overlay windows.
* SCRED uses the now-standard /DD/SYS/TermSet file to customize its
cursor operations to your screen or terminal. The manual tells
how to set up new entries for this file.
* Not bulletproof! SCRED uses ESCape for several things.
Since this is ^BREAK on a Coco, it's very easy to type BREAK instead
of ESC. Once in a while is OK, but about the 3rd BREAK SCRED hangs
up the whole system--you can't even change windows with CLEAR.
Lookit the 3 Stooges, type "DOS" ... Maybe re-map these keys!
* If I remember right, SCRED is pretty big, about 32K, so 32K is the most
data RAM you can use. But remember your file can be bigger.
-------------------------------------
The views expressed in OS-9 Discussions are those of the individual authors
only. Copies of digests are available by mail request.
------
Moderator: John Daleske cbosgd!cbdkc1!daleske daleske@cbdkc1.ATT.COM
Submissions should go to: cbosgd!os9 os9@cbosgd.ATT.COM
Comments to the moderator cbosgd!os9-request os9-request@cbosgd.ATT.COM
*********************
End of OS-9 Discussions
*********************