bwebster@iastate.edu (Webster Brian D) (10/04/90)
My employer needs a simple, full screen editor that will run on a VAX 8250
running BSD 4.3-tahoe. This editor will be used by non-technical people
for writing mail messages, etc. Currently we use a line editor that was
developed in-house, but we want to provide full-screen capabilities.
Before I write a new editor, I want to find out if one already exists.
I'd rather not re-invent the wheel. The requirements I am looking for are:
1) Must be easy to learn and use.
2) Full screen editing capabilities. Must be able to move the cursor
around using the arrow keys. It must support vt100 arrow keys. Other
terminal support would be nice, but not required.
3) The editor should do reasonable word wraps. Again, it would be
nice if different width screens were supported (ie 80 or 132 columns),
but 80 columns would be okay.
4) The commands that are desired are write file and quit, write file,
read file, and quit without saving. Much more than these are
overkill.
5) Source code must be provided.
6) See requirement #1.
Optional features of the editor would be:
1) Ability to handle a signature file.
2) Ability to handle replies and include the text of the original message
in the reply.
I have both vi and emacs, but nether one of these are acceptable for this
application. Both are too big, have too many bells-and-whistles, and are
too hard to learn.
I'd like to hear about either public domain or commercial products, but my
employer would be much happier with public domain. :-)
Thanks for any information you can give me...
/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\
| Brian Webster | Disclaimer: |
| EXNET Programmer/Analyst | The above statements and/or |
| Iowa State University Extension | ideas are mine, and may not |
| s1webste@exnet.iastate.edu | reflect those of my employer. |
\____________________________________+_________________________________/gdh@calmasd.Prime.COM (Gerald Hall) (10/08/90)
In article <1990Oct4.153022.13721@news.iastate.edu> bwebster@iastate.edu (Webster Brian D) writes: >My employer needs a simple, full screen editor that will run on a VAX 8250 >running BSD 4.3-tahoe. >[...] >I have both vi and emacs, but nether one of these are acceptable for this >application. Both are too big, have too many bells-and-whistles, and are >too hard to learn. Reconsider vi for this. Just don't try to teach them everything all at once. My wife teaches secretaries (and our kids) a very small subset of vi (about 12 commands) in about 10 minutes which is adequate for them to do anything they need to do. Just pretend that this is all that it can do and you have your "simple" and small (compared to emacs) editor. And there are two significant advantages: as the users become more sophisticated and require more advanced capabilities they already have them available, and the editor they have learned (and become dependent on) will be available and supported on every UNIX system they ever see. -- / / Jerry CalmaSD UNIX SysAdmin +1 619 587-3065 /
jrd@stl.stc.co.uk (J.R.Davis) (10/10/90)
>>My employer needs a simple, full screen editor that will run on a VAX 8250 >>running BSD 4.3-tahoe. >>[...] > >Reconsider vi for this. Yes. If possible, use existing, supported, standard, free tools. Note also that you can create a subset of vi, if that is all that is required. All you have to do is set up key mappings for all the keys you don't want to work to be something silent and safe. (this can get rid of most of the "bells-and-whistles"). -jrd -- John Davis ( J.R.Davis@stl.stc.co.uk +44 (0)279 429531 Ext 3618 )
robert@isgtec.UUCP (Robert A. Osborne) (10/12/90)
In article <1846@calmasd.Prime.COM> gdh@calmasd.Prime.COM (Gerald Hall) writes: #bwebster@iastate.edu (Webster Brian D) writes: #>[need simple, full screen editor, vi & emacs too big, difficult, noisy... #> That is what he meant by 'too many bells-and-whistles', isn't it?] # #Reconsider vi for this. Just don't try to teach them everything #all at once. Or get the sources for Elvis and remove all the commands/features you don't want. (The sources are really clean, I added a few features (tag stack, keyword searching, set tags=) in about an hour, it would be simple to ifdef out anything that was unwanted) #[...] as the users become more sophisticated [...] Just give them the real thing! Or remove less features... Rob. -- Robert A. Osborne ...uunet!utai!lsuc!isgtec!robert or robert@isgtec.uucp
timm@skye.sybase.com (Tim Meazell) (10/17/90)
Has anyone tried/used viPlus from Unipress. It is an emacs derivative which allegedly has the keyboard interface of vi with emacs underneath with, among many other things, multiple buffers/windows and keyboard macros. Sounds like a winner to me, but don't know from experience.