[comp.editors] MS-Kermit and keymapping for gemacs?

yogi@cs.ubc.ca (Joseph Gil) (06/07/91)

Suppose that one has
	a) The world's best operating sytem (read: UNIX)
	b) The world's best editor (read: gemacs)
	c) The world's best terminal emulation program (Ms Kermit 3.10)
	   running on the world's best personal computer (read: IBM PC)
Also suppose that the operating system recognizes many kinds of
terminals, and that the terminal emulation software can do
many terminals, and that the editor	can do zillion of key mapping
stuff.

the problem is how to define a decent keymapping scheme:
including a ONE key (e.g., F1, Ctrl-Left, PgUp, Alt-A) for
all major editing  tasks.

What I am looking for is an essentially complete
package. I think I am capable of doing one myself, but
I was hoping that someone had done this already.

yogi@cs.ubc.ca (Joseph Gil) (06/08/91)

In article <1991Jun6.213242.18546@cs.ubc.ca> yogi@cs.ubc.ca (Joseph Gil) writes:
>
>Suppose that one has
> ...
> [Description of standard UNIX/PC-Kermit/Gemacs combo omitted.]
> ...
>the problem is how to define a decent keymapping scheme:
>including a ONE key (e.g., F1, Ctrl-Left, PgUp, Alt-A) for
>all major editing  tasks.
>
> ....
>
Reading the above message, I really had the urge of using all nasty
words in Oxford dictionary to flame this guy. However, I refrain from
doing so, because I know what such flamage might do to my shattered self
confidence ;-)

Well, there is an Ms-Kermit INI file (by Joel Spolsky and David
MacKenzie) defining  all Alt-keys as Meta-keys: that is Alt-a is 
send as ESC a. This file is available from simtel, wuarchive and
perhaps from other places.

Now the question is: why didn't I think of it?

Well, I was looking for something far more reached- 
Instead of equipping the kermit user with a better terminal to
emacs, make emacs look to the kermit user just like any ``decent''
PC editor.

Some ideas in this direction:
	a) Make ESC in emacs work like a PC ESC normal function (that
		is equivalent to EMACS ^G character)
	b) Show the marked block (or a marked block) in emacs using
	   a different attribute (say- reverse video).
	c) Use PC special line drawing chars in emacs to draw
       window boundaries.

Thanks

	Yossi