Emacs: a 21st century text-editor

Emacs: a 21st century text-editor

[Christopher G D Tipper]

Emacs: a 21st century text-editor

I have been using emacs for over a year now, and value its power and
flexibility. However, I cannot get used to some idiosyncrasies of its
behaviour which seem to me to be artifacts of its heritage, rather
than components of a piece of modern software. What I am talking about
is nothing to do with any superficial features, such as the complex
interface nor its architecture. It just seems to be stuck in the 20th
century with no sign of any attempt at modernisation.

1 Text-wrapping. Text wrapping is a limitation, and it would be nice
  to scroll past the edge of the screen. This is particularly acute in
  my case editing XSLT scripts where line-breaks become a
  presentational issue. Sometimes I actually need to compose documents
  with 250 columns, and I don't appreciate emacs telling me otherwise.

2 Shell open. Emacs really ought to be able recognise when the shell
  is requesting it to open a file. Gnu-client should be unnecessary in
  a modern application.

3 Tabbed buffers. Open buffers should be easily visible in a tabbed
  layout below the menu, in the manner of XEmacs. A proper history
  list would help here so that documents are persistent across
  sessions.

4 File Dialogs. I use dlgopen.el on Windows, which gets rid of the
  most serious interface issue of all, the lack of modern file
  dialogs. It wouldn't be rocket-science to adapt the interface to
  support this. XEmacs file dialogs are unusable IMHO.

5 Paste replaces edit. This idea that when I paste I end up with both
  the replacement text and the old text does not belong in the modern
  idiom. This is a real versioning issue when the replacement text
  scrolls past the bottom of the screen. I think this is just an
  old-fashioned feature that never got updated.

Best wishes,
Christopher Tipper
--------------------------------o00o--------------------------------
  "Since light travels faster than sound, isn't that why 
   some people appear bright until you hear them speak" 
                                          - Steve Wright

Re: Emacs: a 21st century text-editor

[Ulrich Hobelmann]

Christopher G D Tipper wrote:
> 1 Text-wrapping. Text wrapping is a limitation, and it would be nice
>   to scroll past the edge of the screen. This is particularly acute in
>   my case editing XSLT scripts where line-breaks become a
>   presentational issue. Sometimes I actually need to compose documents
>   with 250 columns, and I don't appreciate emacs telling me otherwise.

Do you mean that you want a horizontal scrollbar, or are you just (like 
me) annoyed by those arrows left and right when a line is long?

BTW, emacs people: take a look at how Apple TextEdit handles long lines; 
that's more like in a word processor, but if you type up or down, you 
move in screen lines, even though it's just one line in the file.

> 3 Tabbed buffers. Open buffers should be easily visible in a tabbed
>   layout below the menu, in the manner of XEmacs. A proper history
>   list would help here so that documents are persistent across
>   sessions.

That would be nice.  Having everything mostly available in a text buffer 
is somewhat antiquated.  Similarly something like Cmd-left/right (or 
Ctrl-left on Windows/Linux) would be nice for switching between Tabs.

> 4 File Dialogs. I use dlgopen.el on Windows, which gets rid of the
>   most serious interface issue of all, the lack of modern file
>   dialogs. It wouldn't be rocket-science to adapt the interface to
>   support this. XEmacs file dialogs are unusable IMHO.

I use drag-and-drop to put files into emacs sometimes (on the Mac), but 
having it recognize standard open/close keymappings would be nice too, 
as would be dialogs.

> 5 Paste replaces edit. This idea that when I paste I end up with both
>   the replacement text and the old text does not belong in the modern
>   idiom. This is a real versioning issue when the replacement text
>   scrolls past the bottom of the screen. I think this is just an
>   old-fashioned feature that never got updated.

And make mark and backspace delete the marked text.

Re: Emacs: a 21st century text-editor

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Christopher G D Tipper" <chris.tipper@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 20:04:02 -0000
> 
> 1 Text-wrapping. Text wrapping is a limitation, and it would be nice
>   to scroll past the edge of the screen. This is particularly acute in
>   my case editing XSLT scripts where line-breaks become a
>   presentational issue. Sometimes I actually need to compose documents
>   with 250 columns, and I don't appreciate emacs telling me otherwise.

I'm not sure I understand what is your complaint here: would setting
truncate-lines and/or truncate-partial-width-windows to non-nil do
what you want?  If not, why not?

> 2 Shell open. Emacs really ought to be able recognise when the shell
>   is requesting it to open a file. Gnu-client should be unnecessary in
>   a modern application.

Can you suggest a more-or-less portable interface that Emacs can use
to implement such a feature?

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by ``shell is requesting to open a
file'' -- can you give an example?

> 3 Tabbed buffers. Open buffers should be easily visible in a tabbed
>   layout below the menu, in the manner of XEmacs. A proper history
>   list would help here so that documents are persistent across
>   sessions.

desktop.el gives you the latter of the two features.

> 4 File Dialogs. I use dlgopen.el on Windows, which gets rid of the
>   most serious interface issue of all, the lack of modern file
>   dialogs.

Again, I don't understand: Emacs already uses file dialogs (the ones
provided by the toolkit used to build Emacs) when you invoke find-file
via a mouse click (e.g., File->Open from the menu bar).  What is
exactly the problem here?

> 5 Paste replaces edit. This idea that when I paste I end up with both
>   the replacement text and the old text does not belong in the modern
>   idiom.

delete-selection-mode will give you this, I think.

Re: Emacs: a 21st century text-editor

[Gaetan Leurent]

Ulrich Hobelmann wrote on 08 Mar 2005 21:42:42 +0100:

> Similarly something like Cmd-left/right (or Ctrl-left on
> Windows/Linux) would be nice for switching between Tabs.

You can bind Ctrl-left / Ctrl-right to prev-buffer / next-buffer.
On the current CVS they are set on C-x left and C-x right.

-- 
Gaëtan LEURENT

Re: Emacs: a 21st century text-editor

[Mathias Dahl]

"Christopher G D Tipper" <chris.tipper@gmail.com> writes:

> It just seems to be stuck in the 20th century with no sign of any
> attempt at modernisation.

Although I agree somewhat I think you are a bit unfair. Lately it has
got some nie-looking tool bar, the file dialog when accessed from the
menu bar is quite good (at least on Windows), etc.

> 1 Text-wrapping. Text wrapping is a limitation, and it would be nice
>   to scroll past the edge of the screen. This is particularly acute in
>   my case editing XSLT scripts where line-breaks become a
>   presentational issue. Sometimes I actually need to compose documents
>   with 250 columns, and I don't appreciate emacs telling me otherwise.

Have you tried Ctrl-PgDown and Ctrl-PgUp? Works quite well. I too miss
a horizontal scroll bar sometimes though.

> 2 Shell open. Emacs really ought to be able recognise when the shell
>   is requesting it to open a file. Gnu-client should be unnecessary in
>   a modern application.

I agree with this and I really do not understand why it should be that
hard to "feel" if an Emacs instance is allready running, and opening
the file in that. But I am no low-level programmer, so I would not
know about technical limitations here.

> 3 Tabbed buffers. Open buffers should be easily visible in a tabbed
>   layout below the menu, in the manner of XEmacs. A proper history
>   list would help here so that documents are persistent across
>   sessions.

Personally, that tab-bar would be so crowded that the tabs would not
do any good. I tend to have many files and buffers open, especially
since emacs is more than a text editor for me (reading news, mail,
todolists, calendar etc etc). Btw, have you tried out tabbar.el? I
don't like it, but you might.

Persistent files though sessions is solved in many ways (desktop.el is
built in in emacs).

> 4 File Dialogs. I use dlgopen.el on Windows, which gets rid of the
> most serious interface issue of all, the lack of modern file
> dialogs. It wouldn't be rocket-science to adapt the interface to
> support this. XEmacs file dialogs are unusable IMHO.

On Windows, File -> Open File... works for me. I like to open the
files using the minibuffer though.

> 5 Paste replaces edit. This idea that when I paste I end up with
> both the replacement text and the old text does not belong in the
> modern idiom. This is a real versioning issue when the replacement
> text scrolls past the bottom of the screen. I think this is just an
> old-fashioned feature that never got updated.

I used to like this. I used pc-selection-mode and
delete-selection-mode, which you will probably like, but nowadays I
have turned all that off. I do not even use transient-mark-mode. I
have got used to do C-SPC (set-mark-command), move the cursor to the
end of the region I want to operate on, and to C-w, M-w, delete-region
(which I have mapped to C-c d). And I like it. For deleting words or
lines, I use M-d, C-k etc.

Basically I see where you are coming from, but by being a bit flexible
and accepting some "old quirks" (which seems to be really thought
through when you get used to it), I like it the way it works. Just
because something is not familiar does not meen that it is bad.

IMHO, of course... :)

/Mathias

Re: Emacs: a 21st century text-editor

[Gian Uberto Lauri]

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My 0.002ÂŽ¤ (the 0 count is right). I apologize for the delay.

>>>>> "MD" == Mathias Dahl <brakjoller@gmail.com> writes:

MD> "Christopher G D Tipper" <chris.tipper@gmail.com> writes:
>> It just seems to be stuck in the 20th century with no sign of any
>> attempt at modernisation.

No "modern" program has the  flexibility of Emacs. No modern editor is
as good  as Emacs. No  modern editor  is ready to  do my work  for me,
Emacs does it often.

MD> Although I agree somewhat I think you are a bit unfair. Lately it
MD> has got some nie-looking tool bar, the file dialog when accessed
MD> from the menu bar is quite good (at least on Windows), etc.

It's good under Mac OS X, Linux when compiled wiht GTK and so on.
(uh oh, the toolbar is cool looking, but I keep it disabled).

>> 1 Text-wrapping. Text wrapping is a limitation, and it would be
>> nice to scroll past the edge of the screen. This is particularly
>> acute in my case editing XSLT scripts where line-breaks become a
>> presentational issue. Sometimes I actually need to compose
>> documents with 250 columns, and I don't appreciate emacs telling me
>> otherwise.

MD> Have you tried Ctrl-PgDown and Ctrl-PgUp? Works quite well. I too
MD> miss a horizontal scroll bar sometimes though.

Hmmmm... Even  not using Ctrl-PgDown  and Ctrl-PgUp I rarely  feel the
need of  this when i set sqlplus  line to 30000 characters  and shot a
sixty fields query (of course,  sqlplus is controlled by emacs and its
output goes in an Emacs buffer).

With code... I feel that whenever  you have to scroll past the edge of
the  screen there's  something wrong  either in  your code  or  in the
language design...  Anyway I  can deal with these situations disabling
the  text wrapping and  using word  or line  moving commands.  IMHO of
course.

>> 2 Shell open. Emacs really ought to be able recognise when the
>> shell is requesting it to open a file. Gnu-client should be
>> unnecessary in a modern application.

MD> I agree with this and I really do not understand why it should be
MD> that hard to "feel" if an Emacs instance is allready running, and
MD> opening the file in that. But I am no low-level programmer, so I
MD> would not know about technical limitations here.

Emacs is  the shell.

gnuclient or emacsclient are still a very good solution since they are
useful in al broader range of situations.

They can help  you with the clicky thing, but they  are useful in many
other  situations, especially when  you call  anc Emacs  function from
OUTSIDE emacs, not only to invoke an existing emacs from the shell.

>> 3 Tabbed buffers. Open buffers should be easily visible in a tabbed
>> layout below the menu, in the manner of XEmacs. A proper history
>> list would help here so that documents are persistent across
>> sessions.

MD> Personally, that tab-bar would be so crowded that the tabs would
MD> not do any good. I tend to have many files and buffers open,
MD> especially since emacs is more than a text editor for me (reading
MD> news, mail, todolists, calendar etc etc). Btw, have you tried out
MD> tabbar.el? I don't like it, but you might.

I agree 100%

>> 4 File Dialogs. I use dlgopen.el on Windows, which gets rid of the
>> most serious interface issue of all, the lack of modern file
>> dialogs. It wouldn't be rocket-science to adapt the interface to
>> support this. XEmacs file dialogs are unusable IMHO.

MD> On Windows, File -> Open File... works for me. I like to open the
MD> files using the minibuffer though.

Again. it works on Mac OS X, Linux (at least if compiled with GTK)

MD> Basically I see where you are coming from, but by being a bit
MD> flexible and accepting some "old quirks" (which seems to be really
MD> thought through when you get used to it), I like it the way it
MD> works. Just because something is not familiar does not meen that
MD> it is bad.

MD> IMHO, of course... :)

Not  just your  opinion. I  did a  talk to  our local  FSUG,  a simple
introduction explaining how Emacs was born, how it was designed and so
on. While workind  on this talk I realized (mostly  thanks to a Usenet
post) that keybindings are choosen  in a very smart way that considers
how often  you use them.  CUA  standard is ludicrous  when compared to
the wisdom behind Emacs keybinding choice.

--
 /\            ___
/___/\__|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_____________________
  //--\ | | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamico
\/		    e coltivatore diretto di software

Re: Emacs: a 21st century text-editor

[Richard Stallman]

    It's good under Mac OS X, Linux when compiled wiht GTK and so on.

I'm glad you like the way Emacs looks nowadays, but when you're
talking about the system that comes primarily out of the GNU Project,
would you please call it "GNU/Linux", not just "Linux"?

See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html for more explanation.

Re: Emacs: a 21st century text-editor

[Alan Mackenzie]

Christopher G D Tipper <chris.tipper@gmail.com> wrote on Tue, 08 Mar 2005
20:04:02 -0000:
> Emacs: a 21st century text-editor

> I have been using emacs for over a year now, and value its power and
> flexibility. However, I cannot get used to some idiosyncrasies ....

Congratulations on spelling that word correctly!  I'll bet you can write
"supersede", too.  ;-)

> .... of its behaviour which seem to me to be artifacts of its heritage,
> rather than components of a piece of modern software. What I am talking
> about is nothing to do with any superficial features, such as the
> complex interface nor its architecture. It just seems to be stuck in
> the 20th century with no sign of any attempt at modernisation.

Hmmm.  Not all answers to that are polite.  Possibly the best is that
Emacs doesn't follow fashion, it follows functionality.  Not everything
modern in user interface design is good, not by a long chalk.  Not
everything that is good for a casual user is good for a power user.
Emacs is optimised for power users.

> 1 Text-wrapping. Text wrapping is a limitation, and it would be nice
>   to scroll past the edge of the screen. This is particularly acute in
>   my case editing XSLT scripts where line-breaks become a
>   presentational issue. Sometimes I actually need to compose documents
>   with 250 columns, and I don't appreciate emacs telling me otherwise.

I think you mean it would be nice to be _able_ to set up to scroll past
the edge of the screen.  Some people prefer long lines to wrap on the
display (i.e. without newlines), some prefer auto-filling (i.e. with
newlines).  There's various settings you can set for this.

> 2 Shell open. Emacs really ought to be able recognise when the shell
>   is requesting it to open a file. Gnu-client should be unnecessary in
>   a modern application.

> 3 Tabbed buffers. Open buffers should be easily visible in a tabbed
>   layout below the menu, in the manner of XEmacs.

Again, this is personal taste.  Such a feature would be of no help to me,
and I strongly dislike such distractions on my screen.  But I agree that
such a feature as an option would be a good thing.

>   A proper history list would help here so that documents are
>   persistent across sessions.

What do you mean by a "history list", and what does "proper" mean.
desktop.el does a not too bad job.

> 4 File Dialogs. I use dlgopen.el on Windows, which gets rid of the
>   most serious interface issue of all, the lack of modern file
>   dialogs. It wouldn't be rocket-science to adapt the interface to
>   support this. XEmacs file dialogs are unusable IMHO.

Why is that a serious interface issue?  How are modern file dialogues
better?  Too me, dialog boxes are like explosions in my face, so I
disable them as much as possible.  What's wrong with what Emacs currently
offers?

> 5 Paste replaces edit.

"edit"?

>   This idea that when I paste I end up with both the replacement text
>   and the old text does not belong in the modern idiom.

What do you mean by "the old text" when pasting?  Do you mean that you
want to mark some text, then replace it with some other text with a
single key-sequence?  How is this better than deleting text then yanking
other text?  It seems to me more a matter of personal taste.  Many
"modern" proprietary programs drive me to distraction in that moving the
cursor to a field on the screen marks its contents in such a way that
pressing any key within reach of the home position deletes the entire
field.  As for "not belonging in the modern idiom", I thank my deity and
RMS (not necessarily in that order ;-) that Emacs retains tried and
tested old stuff.  

> This is a real versioning issue ...

What do you mean by "versioning issue"?

> ... when the replacement text scrolls past the bottom of the screen. I
> think this is just an old-fashioned feature that never got updated.

The thing is, there are _lots_ of different ways people work.  What is so
obviously the Right Thing to you is absolute purgatory for others (like
me).  I use Emacs, by choice, on a 134 x 41 character console screen
rather than a GUI, so as to avoid mice, dialog boxes, menus, scroll-bars,
as well as not having to mess with fonts and so on.  The solution is to
provide enough different ways of working so that everybody can find their
optimum setup.  I have a feeling that Emacs can be customized nearer to
what you want than you've so far found out.

> Best wishes,
> Christopher Tipper

And to yourself, Sir!

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)
Email: aacm@muuc.dee; to decode, wherever there is a repeated letter
(like "aa"), remove half of them (leaving, say, "a").