::scr Towards a better text editor

[simon wistow]

On Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 11:57:26AM +0100, Richard Clamp said:
> Hrm, this old fucker.  Okay, let's give it a go.

It's an acid test. If this can be a sensible discussion then that bodes well.

> Again you're already muddling all the types of text into one.  Editing
> mail messages != editing code != editing structured data.

True. But Emacs and Vi even worse for this. 

OTOH I think applications suck - c.f other thread.

> I think it's a fine tool for the job, when the job is composing
> email.  

I agree. But i prefer it to everything else - 

> C-x C-f, C-x C-s, and they're similarly terse in vi.  Oh, my brain is
> hurting now.

C-x in Nano. I was being obtuse but you know what I meant. Plus key strokes in
Emacs aren't intuitive. In fact Emacs is not intuitive, not even internally.


> > the up arrow goes up, the down arrow goes down 
> 
> Snap.

Vi, OTOH, doesn't do this unless you're in editor mode.  But shirley I'm in a
text editor. I want to be editing stuff. Aaaargh.

Nurse, the restraints, I'm getting loose again.

> Oh good, heavens forbid you'd want to save on screen space by actually
> remembering what you're doing.  Editing text couldn't possibly be
> something you'd learn once and use consistently without expending any
> further mental effort on it, that would just be silly.

Fair point, well made. It would be nice to turn them of. Say, by typing M-X :)
What I meant to say was that all the common commands fit onto two lines at the
bottom which makes it easier to start using at first.

> Because it's not an editor for programming with?

True. However I'd like an editor that I can do both in. Or two but with
identical key commands. 

> That's okay, people would only waste space writing elite for it, eh?

Not if it was simple enough. 

> Exactly what text are you editing?  Define the job and the best tool
> will probably make itself known a lot more readily.

I don't think that the best tool exists at the moment. Which is what I'm
asking about. What features should a text editor have and where do you stop
before it gets too bloated?


-- 
: nature notes for the apocalypse