cnrdean2@violet.berkeley.edu (07/16/88)
Bob Drzyzgula writes: >Here at the Federal Reserve Board, we have a number of senior and >not so senior management type users that feel that having to learn >a "complicated" syntax for an editor just to send and receive mail >is an undue burden... >The last thing I need is a project to write a new editor. >I keep thinking that the Rand editor e would be the answer, >but then I worry about the user that all of a sudden wants to send >something with tabs in it (I don't know, a Makefile or something)... >So I invite discussion on this. Does anyone know of a deathly >simple, entirely intuitive, full screen editor that will work on >vt220 terminals, and maybe do function keys and stuff, that might >satisfy these users? I posted a similar request to comp.editors 3 weeks ago for the same reasons: we need a SIMPLE (VERY SIMPLE) cursor-key-driven editor for ADMINISTRATIVE mail users. We would settle for running only on vt100 terminals and PC's that emulate vt100. I got 2 replies: both suggesting RAND editor--which appears to be WAY TOO COMPLICATED for these users. The editor that comes with a $300 Radio Shack Model 100 notebook computer is much more appropriate for these people. Is it possible that nothing like this has ever been written for UNIX and vt100 terminals??!! There was a trivially simple editor called "ice", written for PDP-11 Unix, which came out of Canada. Was this written in C or assembler? It is only 8K on a DEC PRO-350 running VENIX. It could only run on vt100 terminals. This is sort of thing we're looking for, if written in C. Jim Bradley, College of Natural Resources Computer Facility, UC Berkeley
spectre@mit-vax.LCS.MIT.EDU (Joseph D. Morrison) (07/18/88)
A while ago, Bob Drzyzgula writes: >Does anyone know of a deathly >simple, entirely intuitive, full screen editor that will work on >vt220 terminals, and maybe do function keys and stuff, that might >satisfy these users? I believe the standard editor that comes with VMS meets these requirements; it's called EDT, and it's supposed to be intuitive, easy to use, etc. If EDT is too hard to get a hold of, GNU emacs has an EDT mode that works fairly well; and that might in fact be just what you need, because it ought to be easy to interface with MH... Hope this helps... Joe Morrison -- MIT Laboratory for Computer Science UUCP: ...!mit-eddie!vx!spectre 545 Technology Square, Room 425 ARPA: spectre@vx.lcs.mit.edu Cambridge, MA 02139 (617) 253-5881 -- "That's no answer. That's not even science!"
mkhaw@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA (Mike Khaw) (07/18/88)
>>Does anyone know of a deathly >>simple, entirely intuitive, full screen editor that will work on >>vt220 terminals, and maybe do function keys and stuff, that might >>satisfy these users? > > I believe the standard editor that comes with VMS meets these > requirements; it's called EDT, and it's supposed to be intuitive, easy > to use, etc. I can't let this go by without comment. EDT is probably easier to learn than vi or emacs, but you need a vt100 style keypad on your terminal (unless you want to use line-mode or "nokeypad" commands). Also, while you do eventually develop a feel for using the keypad, it took me a long time before I could do without a "rubber ducky" overlay on the keypad or frequently resorting to PF2 (now how intuitive is THAT, that PF2 gives you help). I don't consider the keypad "binding"s particularly logically laid out either. This isn't the place to get into it, but EDT (at least the versions I've used in VMS 3.5 through VMS 4.3) has some pretty infuriating aspects to it. OK, I'll mention one: after a crash, both vi and emacs can recover the file pretty quickly; EDT can take an incredibly long time to "play back" its journal file, and it won't let you do it in batch, so you have to waste an interactive session letting it do the recovery. Mike Khaw -- internet: mkhaw@teknowledge.arpa uucp: {uunet|sun|ucbvax|decwrl|uw-beaver}!mkhaw%teknowledge.arpa hardcopy: Teknowledge Inc, 1850 Embarcadero Rd, POB 10119, Palo Alto, CA 94303
dboyes@uoregon.uoregon.edu (David Boyes) (07/20/88)
In article <4452@mit-vax.LCS.MIT.EDU> spectre@mit-vax.UUCP (Joseph D. Morrison) writes: >I believe the standard editor that comes with VMS meets these >requirements; it's called EDT, and it's supposed to be intuitive, easy >to use, etc. Oh, please. Not EDT. ANYTHING but EDT. Besides, EDT is a VMS-only product. Another problem with EDT is that it depends heavily on the VT100 keypad, something which a lot of microcomputer based terminal emulators (MacTerminal and RedRyder leap immediately to mind) make very difficult to use, so you get really baroque command sequences to get simple things done. The biggest minus of EDT that I've found is that it often doesn't sense the terminal type properly ( this may be a VMS problem -- I don't know) on non-DEC ANSI terminals and goes into line mode, a "feature" which I find unacceptable. I'm not trying to start an editor war. Please do not flame on that basis. >If EDT is too hard to get a hold of, GNU emacs has an EDT mode that >works fairly well; and that might in fact be just what you need, >because it ought to be easy to interface with MH... GNU is probably overkill for just a simple mail editor. Heck, if you're going to use GNU, you might as well use the GNU mail mode instead of anything else. > Joe Morrison >MIT Laboratory for Computer Science UUCP: ...!mit-eddie!vx!spectre -- David Boyes | Internet: dboyes@drizzle.cs.uoregon.edu | (503) 686-4394 | BITNET: dboyes@uoregon | DECnet mail addresses -- just say no.