pmoore@cix.compulink.co.uk (Paul Moore) (06/15/91)
Whenever I want to edit a file on the desktop, I seem to have only one real
choice - !Edit. Now, while !Edit is OK, it has a number of major (to my
mind) failings. Specifically
1. It doesn't handle tabs nicely - "[09]" on display, and its handling
of the tab key on input are horrible. Why can't I have TAB insert a
tab character, which is displayed in the usual way (spaces to next
multiple of N - usually 8 - columns).
2. The need to use the mouse. I have no objection, as such, to mice, but
for an application like a text editor, I prefer to do everything with
the keyboard. (Switching between keyboard & mouse slows you down a
*lot*)
3. No WP/programming features, like word wrap, brace matching, etc.
(You would need to be able to switch these off and on as needed).
What I'd really like, is a version of Emacs (Gnu, Micro, whatever...) which
runs on the desktop, in resizable windows, with multiple windows available
at once. Preferably with sources, both to see how it was done, and
because I love messing around with other people's code :-)
Has anybody ever produced such a beast? I have a port of MicroEmacs 3.11,
which works great outside the desktop. I'd love to make it a full multi-
tasking application, but I've not really got any experience of writing
desktop stuff, so I don't know where to start... I seem to remember hearing
once of a desktop version of some release of MicroEmacs - if anybody's got
it, I'd be happy to try and "upgrade" it to 3.11.
Come on, guys! Surely someone's had a go at improving on Acorn's offering!
Gustav.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Moore: pmoore@cix.compulink.co.uk or pmoore%cix@ukc.ac.uk
or ...!tharr!gustav or gustav@tharr.UUCP
---------------------------------------------------------------------------gtoal@tardis.computer-science.edinburgh.ac.uk (06/16/91)
In article <1991Jun15.122613.12088@demon.co.uk> Paul Moore <pmoore@cix.compulink.co.uk> writes: >desktop stuff, so I don't know where to start... I seem to remember hearing >once of a desktop version of some release of MicroEmacs - if anybody's got >it, I'd be happy to try and "upgrade" it to 3.11. I think that might have been mine - I just used tiggr's 'textwindow' hack to put it in a simple text window. It didn't use *any* window features at all. Textwindow source is in the TeX distribution somewhere (it's what I use for the desktop TeX interface) What we need as a quick hack is a desktop Curses window. What we need as serious software is an X-windows interface to the Wimp. G
dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk (Denis Howe) (06/17/91)
I agree that it would be nice if !Edit was a bit more extensible and programmable. A recent article in Risc User magazine revealed that not only can you use function key presses to activate most menu functions (eg. control-f2 (Close window), f3 (Save), f4 (Search), f5 (Goto line) etc.) but you can also use function keys to simulate clicking on action icons in the dialog boxes (f1 for the first icon, f2 for the second etc.). ARMed with this knowledge, you can simulate function key presses by inserting characters into the keyboard input buffer with SYS "OS_Byte", 138, 0, c where c is the code to insert. Eg. I use the sequence S$ = CHR$&85 + STR$Line% + CHR$13 REPEAT SYS "OS_Byte", 138, 0, ASC(S$) S$ = MID$(S$, 2) UNTIL S$ = "" to make !Edit jump to line Line%. &85 is the code for the f5 key. I haven't experimented with this much yet but I suspect you could do quite a lot by intercepting keys, stuffing other keys into the buffer and reading the character at the cursor position (can you do this from another application?). Anybody tried this? -- Denis Howe <dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk> C-C H558A Imperial College London C-C-C +44 (71) 589 5111 x5064 N=N
gilbertd@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Dave Gilbert) (06/18/91)
In <DBH.91Jun17150408@asun4.doc.ic.ac.uk> dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk (Denis Howe) writes: >I agree that it would be nice if !Edit was a bit more extensible and >programmable. A recent article in Risc User magazine revealed that >not only can you use function key presses to activate most menu >functions (eg. control-f2 (Close window), f3 (Save), f4 (Search), f5 >(Goto line) etc.) but you can also use function keys to simulate >clicking on action icons in the dialog boxes (f1 for the first icon, >f2 for the second etc.). Dont forget that the idea of using a function key to trigger a dialogue box event should be available in all Wimp programmes - if it is not available then it is not keeping all Acorns guidlines. May I remind any writers out there that it is ****** annoying to find that you have to select a menu item to save, or worse to use a search and replace where you have to advance. May I also note that it is VERY annoying to see programs which use keys like Shift-F3 or CTRL-F3 to save - everything else uses just a plane old f3 key - why cant everything else? The dialogue box functions in C do most of this for you. I only came accross one problem - I created a window to interface to a printer driver. Of course it had two radio icons - for portrait and landscape. C dutifully assigned two function keys - one for each of the icons. The icons where in an Exclusive Selection Group so that clicking on one turned the other off etc. The problem came in that by using the function keys you could turn the landscape on even while the portrait was on - I eventualy used a raw event handler to trap this wierd behaviour. Dave -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Dave Gilbert - gilbertd@p4.cs.man.ac.uk - The MTBF of a piece of equipment - - G7FHJ@GB7NWP - is inversly proportional to its - ------------------------------------------- importance -