🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul31.214328.18156@twisto.eng.hou.compaq.com> darylb@sword.eng.hou.compaq.com (Daryl Biberdorf) writes:
:In article <DAVIS.92Jul31170548@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu> davis@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu  (John E. Davis) writes:
:>
:>I have seen questions such as ``Where can I find a simple editor for UNIX?''
:>time and time again on this group.  I cannot help but to wonder what it is
:>that people want.  What *is* a simple editor?  

And the qualifications so far are:
:     a) not modal
:
:     b) editor that does not require building (eg. edit makefile, etc...)
:    
:     c) an editor that will terminate with an obvious command
:        sequence (say, alt-X as opposed to :wq  or  ctrl-X ctrl-C)
:
:     d) an editor that always binds page up, page down, and the
:        cursor movement functions to obvious keys on the user's
:        terminal (pgup/pgdown bind to Prev Scrn and Next Scrn and
:        up/down/left/right bind to the appropriate arrow keys on
:        a VT-220, for example).
:

For my set of users, an easy editor is:

a) 	Must look identical to the first editor ever learned - users are not
	being paid to spend time learning editors.
which for most is a derivation of the Rand editor called INed.
This editor had the following characteristics.

a)	Uses arrow keys to move around screen.
b)	Use Function keys to perform 99% of the functionality of the editor.
	The original pgm used its own config file for defining escape sequences.
	Our replacement, written in house, uses 30 or so termcap extended
	attributes to replace that file.  The replacement is 90% or more
	compatible with the original.  It is not a menu bar driven editor -
	one must have the doc, cheat sheets or at least familarity with the
	software to remember which key on one's keyboard does which function.
	On the other hand, the replacement version has most of the std stuff
	like insert , delete characters, lines, columns, etc of data, 
	a keystroke macro capability, ability to filter selected text thru
	Unix stdin/stdout filters, and multiple horizontal windows.  It
	takes about 139 k or so of disk bytes on a SPARC in unoptimised 
	compile output.

There is a freely distributable derivation of RAND editor available out
there called mined - I dont know how related it is to the one posted
to the net.
-- 
Larry W. Virden                 UUCP: osu-cis!chemabs!lvirden
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