Anyway to have Eve act like a simple WYSIWYG editor?

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2 total messages Started by acs_mn Wed, 27 Jan 1993 17:50

#145

Author: acs_mn
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 17:50

29 lines
1948 bytes

    I was wondering if anyone has written anything in TPU as an extension to
Eve which would make Eve act like a very basic WYSIWYG editor?

    I have an application program which will display text files and this
program understands basic VTxxx escape sequences to do such things as bold,
underline, etc. Right now, it is somewhat painful to create these files since
the person creating the file must insert the various escape sequences
manually.  I have considered defining keys that insert the right codes - and
this would definitely be better - but what I really would like is to have Eve
interpret the code and show the word in reverse video, etc.  Right now, the
person has to save their file, get out of Eve and run the application program
to display the file just to figure out if they have all the bold codes, etc.
correct.  It would be so much nicer to have Eve do this.

    I did a little experimentation with the SET(TEXT,window,NO_TRANSLATE)
option and this does allow Eve to show the video attributes but then editing
the text lines containing the escape sequences is difficult because the cursor
movement and the text on the screen aren't in sync.

    Software version info: VMS 5.5-2 with VAXTPU V2.6.

    Has anybody attempted to do something like this using TPU? Any and all
ideas appreciated.  Thanks.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Marlys A. Nelson			System Manager, Systems Programmer,
Academic Computing			Network Manager, etc., etc.
Univ. of WI - River Falls
Internet: Marlys.A.Nelson@uwrf.edu

Re: Anyway to have Eve act like a simple WYSIWYG editor?

#143

Author: "John E. Davis"
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 07:15

59 lines
3149 bytes

In article <1993Jan27.160525.1@slacvx.slac.stanford.edu>
fairfield@slacvx.slac.stanford.edu writes: 

           I've done  it  (editing  these  things,  that  is),  but nothing
       special  is  required.  Just use EVE and split the screen  into  two
       windows.  Set one to  NO_TRANSLATE  and  edit  in  the  other.   The
       NO_TRANSLATE  window  gives  you a "real-time" picture of your edits
       while the normal, BLANK_TABS window keeps  the editing point in sync
       with the cursor.


Although I have no reason to doubt that the above is true, I find it hard to
believe that it works well.  Suppose I insert an escape char into the buffer
in the manner described above.  Then in the ``editing'' window, I will see a
displayable representation for the character, e.g., as ^[.  Then I would
suppose that the editor would move to the apporpriate row and column on the
terminal where the escape is to be ``displayed'' (in the other window) and
output it at that point without translation.  The the editor should move the
terminal cursor back to the editing window.  So, a simple insert of an escape
char in row 1 column 1 would result in the following sent to the terminal:

    ^[[1;1H  (position cursor at 1,1
    ^ [      (output two char displayable sequence )
    ^[13;1H  (goto row 13,1 of second window)
    ^[       (literal escape character)
    ^[[1;3H  (move cursor to next position and wait for more user input)

The point is, the terminal will see an escape two back to back escapes and
will not know what to do with it and leave the cursor at  13,1.

Of course, I am making alot of assumptions about how I think the editor works
so the above scenario may be totally wrong.

Instead, I would define strings like

   @b  bold
   @r  reverse video
   @n  normal video
   @u  underline
   @l  blink
   etc...

Then my  file would look like:

   This is @bbold text@n and this is @lblinking text@n etc....

Then I would simply do a replace:  @b  --> ^[[5m, etc....
Of course this still presents a problem with formatting, etc, but I at least
it is more readable.

   
--
     _____________
#___/John E. Davis\_________________________________________________________
#
# internet: davis@amy.tch.harvard.edu
#   bitnet: davis@ohstpy
#   office: 617-735-6746
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