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From: Thilo.KHK@t-online.de (Thilo Schmid)
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Subject: Re: VW - Powerful System, Lame Editor
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 09:39:13 +0000
References: <4dpi45$llt@news4.digex.net>
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patrick m. ryan wrote:
> 
> [warning: what follows are the rantings of a unix-starved lunatic]
> 
>         Would someone tell me why a system as powerful as VisualWorks has
> such a lame text editor?  Think about the editing capabilities in the class
> browsers and workspace.  I think *EDLIN* may be more full-featured than the
> basic ParagraphEditor in VW.  MSVC++ at least has context highlighting and
> auto indent!
> 
>         I came to VW (on WinNT) after 9 years of Unix.  I've got emacs and
> vi in my blood.  What do you mean I have to use the a mouse button to cut
> and paste?!  Much as I gripe about Microsoft(TM), I have to give them
> credit.  I can do just about anything I have to in Word and almost never
> touch the mouse.  It's not that I don't think the mouse is a powerful tool.
> It's just that I think the keyboard has gotten the short shrift.  VW is
> painfully mouse-dependent and that dependency affects my productivity.
> 
>         I've hacked into the ParagraphEditor code to give myself a few
> features that at least pull the editor into the early 80's.  The vendor
> who gives me a powerful, 1990's editor along with my class library will get
> my bucks.  Buffers, registers, regions, context highlighting, auto indent,
> word completion, style settings.  These are a few of my favorite things.
> Give me some tools!
> 
> pat
> 
> --
>                                                            patrick m. ryan
>                                                     pryan@access.digex.net
>                                   <URL:http://www.access.digex.net/~pryan>

ParcPlace has traditionally been very mouse centric. You may enhance your 
editing capabilities by making changes to ParagraphEditor 
class>initializeDispatchTable, or better write your own method to make 
changes to the keyboard dispatch table. Not everyone likes the Microsoft 
key conventions.

Context highlighting and auto indent can be implemented using the 
"format" option of the SmalltalkCompiler. Changing the print methods in 
the subclasses of ProgramNode allow you to introduce any formating style 
you might prefer. This is more powerful than in most other development 
plattforms.
