From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Paul D. Smith" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: The Ultimate Editor Widget -- ? Date: 15 Jan 2003 14:19:43 -0500 Organization: Nortel Networks, Inc. / Billerica, MA Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+gnu-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: Reply-To: psmith@nortelnetworks.com NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1042658860 32010 80.91.224.249 (15 Jan 2003 19:27:40 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 19:27:40 +0000 (UTC) Return-path: Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 18YtCI-0008Ja-00 for ; Wed, 15 Jan 2003 20:27:34 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13) id 18YtAZ-0000G8-0C for gnu-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:25:47 -0500 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!torn!qcarhaaa.nortelnetworks.com!bcarh189.ca.nortel.com!bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 49 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: lemming.engeast.baynetworks.com Original-X-Trace: zcars0v6.ca.nortel.com 1042658384 4225 47.17.140.90 (15 Jan 2003 19:19:44 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: hawkinsj@nortelnetworks.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 19:19:44 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2 Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:108985 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1b5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: List-Unsubscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+gnu-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:5513 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:5513 I know someone has already thought of this--heck I think I might have even brought it up in the past myself. But recent editing experiences have prompted me to send this again. In the past Emacs has been an umbrella application: people have developed ELisp libraries to perform all kinds of tasks that required text editing within Emacs itself. So the unifying editor experience was that you'd work completely within Emacs and all the various utilities that required editing would be implemented in ELisp, and you'd have the same editor commands for everything. That worked well, and still does to some extent: I use Gnus and VM for news and mail, etc. But increasingly it is the case that technology is moving faster than Emacs can keep up. I will likely need to switch my email (at least at work) to Evolution in the near future, so I can take advantage of interoperability with Exchange. Also I've been working on Wikis and editing inside an editor's text box is a debilitating experience for someone who's been using Emacs for more than 15 years :-/. What I would love to see is an "Emacs server", that other applications could talk to and request that a new editing window be created with a specific parent, and various characteristics (font, foreground/background color, etc.) That way the Emacs window could be swallowed by the invoking application and you'd have a complete Emacs editor within whatever application (Evolution mail content window, Galeon text editor window, etc.) wanted one. Many of the pieces of this are already present in Emacs, of course, at least combined with something like gnuclient which can have windows invoked with different displays, etc. I have no idea, really, what would be involved with providing an ELisp interface to a function that would create an Emacs window that could be embedded like that--and I know very little about X programming--but it doesn't seem like it would be _that_ difficult. Anyone want to take a shot at it? :) -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul D. Smith HASMAT--HA Software Mthds & Tools "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them.