Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 21:48:59 -0600 (MDT)
Message-Id: <199810050348.VAA26269@kewlaid.highfiber.com>
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To: opendos AT delorie DOT com
From: raster AT highfiber DOT com (Charles Dye)
Subject: Editor suggestions

How about some suggestions on an operating system utility that everyone
feels strongly about?

When DR DOS first included EDITOR (later renamed to simply EDIT), Microsoft
was still shipping EDLIN.  A substantial portion of the MS-DOS manual was
devoted to explaining the mysteries of that unfriendly kludge.  Clearly,
EDITOR was a huge leap forward.  But nowadays, when even Microsoft includes
a text editor capable of opening several large text files at once, DRI's
editor is starting to look elderly.  (WordStar?  What's that?)  Here are my
suggestions.  Some are trivial; some would require a total rewrite!

* This drives me nuts:  the Enter key inserts a CRLF in insert mode, but
  moves to the start of the next line in overtype.  Ack!  Have it always
  insert a CRLF.  Define another keystroke, say shift-Enter or control-
  Enter, as "move to start of next line."

* Allow EDIT with no command-line arguments to simply create a new,
  unnamed document, instead of bringing forth the open-file dialog.  Better
  yet, allow both behaviours, selected by an option in the .INI file.

* Multiple files open at once.  Cut-and-paste between them.

* Multiple windows.  Could be much more flexible than MS's:  allow more
  than two windows; allow them to be resized and repositioned in both
  dimensions.  Tile 'em, overlap 'em, etc.  Cut-and-paste between them.
  View two parts of the same file simultaneously.

* Support the 28- 43- and 50-line modes, like Microsoft's.  Support the
  143-column modes, unlike Microsoft's.  If this meant scrapping the
  pseudo-graphical display, I wouldn't complain too much.

* Search and replace could support Unixy regular expressions (for
  hackers) or Soundex (for mere mortals.)

* There are now three ways to select text:  the WordStar keys, via menu
  commands, or with a mouse drag.  I personally don't like any of them.
  How about shifted cursor keys, like Microsoft's?  But allow multiline
  selections to begin and end in any column, unlike MS.

* Have the cursor *consistently* indicate the typing mode:  underscore
  for overtype, block for insert.  Or vice versa -- just so long as it's
  a reliable indicator.  EDIT currently updates the cursor shape only
  after the second press of the Insert key, which I suppose is a bug.

* Undo.

* Option to defeat the automatic backup.  It's a great feature for new
  users.  However, some of us like to think we know what we're doing :-)
  and the .BAK files can be cluttersome.  It would be nice to be able to
  edit .BAK files, too.

* Programmable F-keys.  They should be able to enter plain text, or work
  the menus and dialogs.  Same them in the .INI file.

* Devote a key to saving the current file, invoking an external program
  or batch file, and passing it the name of the file.  Instant access
  to your compiler/assembler/spell-checker/HTML viewer/troff/grep....
  EDIT already has a shell-to-DOS function, so much of the code is
  already there.

* Allow inserting/removing one or more characters from the start of a
  block of lines.  Useful for email, and for commenting out/uncommenting
  statements in programs or batch files.

* CUA keystrokes instead of WordStar, .INI option.

Finally, I should point out a few nice features that still trump
Microsoft's editor.  You can edit arbitrarily large files.  (I just
opened a 7 meg text file.  *Crash*  ... but after I set the TEMP
variable to point to the hard drive instead of the RAMdrive, worked
perfectly.  If you can't read RBIL with it, it's not a Real Editor!)
The ability to shell out of the editor is very handy, particularly in
a single-tasking environment like DOS.  The pseudo-graphical display
is pleasant, though not crucial.  The fact that custom colors in the
editor carry over into other utilities like SETUP and the defragger is
an elegant touch.

There was a time when DRI's editor was vastly better than what
Microsoft was shipping.  It could happen again.

raster AT highfiber DOT com