::scr Editors. Again.

[Earle Martin]

On Thu, Nov 01, 2001 at 01:20:23PM +0000, simon wistow wrote:
> > <territory-stake>
> 
> Not the point - now *why* you like those and what they do right and what you'd
> like in a perfect editor/mail program ... now that's heading there.

Alright - I wasn't sure whether the "towards a better text editor" thread had
become taboo or not[0].

joe features:
- simple commands (almost everything is ^K and then a single letter).
- obvious navigation with cursor keys. Type something and it appears.
- virtually no "interface" barring a strip across the top of the window
  with the file name, cursor position, system time (a nice touch) and the
  instruction "Ctrl-K H for help".
- hitting the help combination drops the strip down by a few lines to
  display all the keypresses, of which there are several screens (in this
  mini-screen at the top of your window) which you can cycle through and
  leave on whilst you work as a crib.
- move by or delete words or lines.
- autoindent if you like.
- excellent search-and-replace that can use regexps. I-search.
- record and play macros.
- set bookmarks in files.
- insert contents of files into file currently being edited.
- tiny built-in calculator that you can invoke.
- spellchecker.
- split screen any number of times and work on separate files, or the 
  same file. 
- jump out into the shell and back.
- fire what you're editing through a compiler.

And it's *small* - about 180k in my /usr/bin. 

I used pico for a long time, but it never really had enough features for me.
Then I started using joe one day on a machine that didn't have pico. It took
me about 3 minutes to get used to the basic keystrokes and I was using it
happily.... You don't even need to know them, though - you only really need
one, ^KX, save and quit. Everything else is just typing. In fact, I used it
for ages before I found out about the more advanced features, and so, I
imagine, most people could. To be honest, I only found out about the
calculator just now whilst I was writing that list.[2] 

This is very close to my perfect text editor, and maybe even it *is* my
perfect text editor, because I don't really need syntax colouring,
drag-and-drop and what-have-you. It's small, free from interface junk,
simple and powerful. This is why I'm using it right now from inside mutt, to
compose this email.

Now I'm going to go and have lunch and think about why I like mutt so much.


[0] And that was why I titled it "content-free"...[1]
[1] Not any more.
[2] Esc-M for Maths. It appears as a small "=" prompt at the bottom line of
the screen where you can equate to your heart's content.

-- 
Exhausted by the effort of concentrating on the traffic and holding the cars
around us in their lanes, I took my hands off the wheel and let the car
press on.                                           - J. G. Ballard, "Crash"