Is it just me...

Tony Houghton · External Since: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 113

On Thu, 5 Nov 2009 00:30:14 +0000
Folderol <folderol RemoveThis @ukfsn.org> wrote:

> On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 14:01:00 +0000
> Tony Houghton <h RemoveThis @realh.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > You can drag the tabs out of gedit to get separate windows. And of
> > course it isn't impossible to prevent windows jumping to the front in
> > GNOME. Even metacity [1] can do it, but with side effects.
>
> I must admit I wasn't aware of that. Although I think it still doesn't
> allow multiple views on the same document.

That's a nuisance. Neither does gvim, which also doesn't let you drag
tabs out of their original window. These limitations, especially in
conjunction with browsing compiler errors, drove me to write vixn. If I
mention the word "Throwback" to you as an ex-RISC OS user, maybe you'll
be wishing you liked vi now Smile

.

> > [1] I don't know why GNOME still uses it as the default window manager.
> > It's a botched experiment attempting to prove that it's impossible to
> > write a window manager that's flexible, friendly and consistent, and
> > maintainable, which is all proven wrong by xfwm4.
>
> I'm an openbox user myself. I have very precise demands on how my WM
> behaves and this one works for me.

I quite like that one too, but all its themes are almost identical and
it needs quite a lot of tedious text editing to make it behave sensibly,
whereas I can set up xfwm4 with a few clicks. IIRC I can even do it all
with its standard config tool without having to run the "tweaks" one
too.

--
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk

Folderol · External Since: Dec 13, 2004 Posts: 135

On Thu, 5 Nov 2009 00:48:48 +0000
Tony Houghton <h RemoveThis @realh.co.uk> wrote:

> On Thu, 5 Nov 2009 00:30:14 +0000
> Folderol <folderol RemoveThis @ukfsn.org> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 14:01:00 +0000
> > Tony Houghton <h RemoveThis @realh.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > You can drag the tabs out of gedit to get separate windows. And of
> > > course it isn't impossible to prevent windows jumping to the front in
> > > GNOME. Even metacity [1] can do it, but with side effects.
> >
> > I must admit I wasn't aware of that. Although I think it still doesn't
> > allow multiple views on the same document.
>
> That's a nuisance. Neither does gvim, which also doesn't let you drag
> tabs out of their original window. These limitations, especially in
> conjunction with browsing compiler errors, drove me to write vixn. If I
> mention the word "Throwback" to you as an ex-RISC OS user, maybe you'll
> be wishing you liked vi now Smile

.

I did have a couple of stabs at both vi and emacs and found both of
them infuriatingly arcane with the keyboard shortcuts for everything
and no visible menu structure (it may have been there, but I couldn't
find it). My 'raw' text editor of choice is therefore nano.

I had a quick look at vixn and initial impressions are good. Simple,
clean layout - exactly what I want for real work. I couldn't find search
and replace. Are they there but on vi-like shorcuts?

Seeing as we're talking re-tread RISC-OS, drag 'n drop load and save
would be nice Smile

Hmm, throwback. Now you're teasing aren't you!

> > > [1] I don't know why GNOME still uses it as the default window manager.
> > > It's a botched experiment attempting to prove that it's impossible to
> > > write a window manager that's flexible, friendly and consistent, and
> > > maintainable, which is all proven wrong by xfwm4.
> >
> > I'm an openbox user myself. I have very precise demands on how my WM
> > behaves and this one works for me.
>
> I quite like that one too, but all its themes are almost identical and
> it needs quite a lot of tedious text editing to make it behave sensibly,
> whereas I can set up xfwm4 with a few clicks. IIRC I can even do it all
> with its standard config tool without having to run the "tweaks" one
> too.

I've almost forgotten how to set up openbox now. I spent a lot of time
getting it exactly how I wanted, then stored the .config/openbox
directory in as many places as I could think of! As well as this I have
a slightly modified theme, that again is simple and uncluttered.

Any new machine I set up just gets a copy of these chucked in straight
away.

One bit I'm rather proud of is an action set up so that a double-click
on the title bar sets the dimensions of that window to 800x640 and
centres it - very useful for misbehaving apps that set oversize
windows so you can't reach the 'handles'.

--
Will J G

Geoffrey Clements · External Since: Apr 06, 2004 Posts: 226

"Folderol" <folderol.RemoveThis@ukfsn.org> wrote in message
news:20091105233858.0cb0c4a8@debian...
>
> I did have a couple of stabs at both vi and emacs and found both of
> them infuriatingly arcane with the keyboard shortcuts for everything
> and no visible menu structure (it may have been there, but I couldn't
> find it). My 'raw' text editor of choice is therefore nano.
>

I too found the keybindings for vi a bit odd when I first tried it out but I
also found that a little perserverence pays dividends and once you "get it"
editing becomes very easy and quick.

I'll let nix tell how good emacs is! Smile

--
Geoff

Tony Houghton · External Since: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 113

On Thu, 5 Nov 2009 23:38:58 +0000
Folderol <folderol RemoveThis @ukfsn.org> wrote:

> I did have a couple of stabs at both vi and emacs and found both of
> them infuriatingly arcane with the keyboard shortcuts for everything
> and no visible menu structure (it may have been there, but I couldn't
> find it). My 'raw' text editor of choice is therefore nano.
>
> I had a quick look at vixn and initial impressions are good. Simple,
> clean layout - exactly what I want for real work. I couldn't find search
> and replace. Are they there but on vi-like shorcuts?

Yes. Vixn's at that awkward stage where it does enough for my needs but
hasn't attracted enough interest from other people to persuade me to
make it "complete" when I've got other things to do. Its menus are very
underdeveloped because I've never really used vim's menus (I used the
console version as much as the GUI version). The keystrokes aren't
really any harder to learn than any other powerful text editor's,
probably easier, because you can perform complex operations by combining
simple ones.

But if you do want to learn vi, start with vim and graduate to vixn
later, because vim has a good tutorial, while vixn only has
auto-generated HTML crib-sheets.

> Seeing as we're talking re-tread RISC-OS, drag 'n drop load and save
> would be nice Smile

I think it does drag'n'drop loading. I could add saving too if it caught
on with the ROX community, but I'm not sure whether that works with
other file managers.

> Hmm, throwback. Now you're teasing aren't you!

No, I really did add a good throwback system because I was desperate for
one. You still have to run make/gcc from within the text editor of
course, but it's quite easy for it to parse the errors and warnings. As
long as you're using GNU make and gcc of course!

> > > > [1] I don't know why GNOME still uses it as the default window manager.
> > > > It's a botched experiment attempting to prove that it's impossible to
> > > > write a window manager that's flexible, friendly and consistent, and
> > > > maintainable, which is all proven wrong by xfwm4.
> > >
> > > I'm an openbox user myself. I have very precise demands on how my WM
> > > behaves and this one works for me.
> >
> > I quite like that one too, but all its themes are almost identical and
> > it needs quite a lot of tedious text editing to make it behave sensibly,
> > whereas I can set up xfwm4 with a few clicks. IIRC I can even do it all
> > with its standard config tool without having to run the "tweaks" one
> > too.
>
> I've almost forgotten how to set up openbox now. I spent a lot of time
> getting it exactly how I wanted, then stored the .config/openbox
> directory in as many places as I could think of! As well as this I have
> a slightly modified theme, that again is simple and uncluttered.
>
> Any new machine I set up just gets a copy of these chucked in straight
> away.
>
> One bit I'm rather proud of is an action set up so that a double-click
> on the title bar sets the dimensions of that window to 800x640 and
> centres it - very useful for misbehaving apps that set oversize
> windows so you can't reach the 'handles'.
>

--
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk

Robert Marshall · External Since: Jul 30, 2004 Posts: 95

On Thu, 5 Nov 2009, folderol RemoveThis @ukfsn.org wrote:

> On Thu, 5 Nov 2009 00:48:48 +0000
> Tony Houghton <h RemoveThis @realh.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 5 Nov 2009 00:30:14 +0000
>> Folderol <folderol RemoveThis @ukfsn.org> wrote:
>>
>> > On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 14:01:00 +0000
>> > Tony Houghton <h RemoveThis @realh.co.uk> wrote:
>> >
>> > > You can drag the tabs out of gedit to get separate windows. And
>> > > of course it isn't impossible to prevent windows jumping to the
>> > > front in GNOME. Even metacity [1] can do it, but with side
>> > > effects.
>> >
>> > I must admit I wasn't aware of that. Although I think it still
>> > doesn't allow multiple views on the same document.
>>
>> That's a nuisance. Neither does gvim, which also doesn't let you drag
>> tabs out of their original window. These limitations, especially in
>> conjunction with browsing compiler errors, drove me to write vixn. If
>> I mention the word "Throwback" to you as an ex-RISC OS user, maybe
>> you'll be wishing you liked vi now Smile

.
>
> I did have a couple of stabs at both vi and emacs and found both of
> them infuriatingly arcane with the keyboard shortcuts for everything
> and no visible menu structure (it may have been there, but I couldn't
> find it). My 'raw' text editor of choice is therefore nano.

Menus have been in emacs since around version 19 (early 1990's) either
you're running with a setup which turns it off,does
ESC-x menu-bar-mode
turn it on again, or you're running a very old version!
Or are you running it on a remote machine?

Robert
--
La grenouille songe..dans son château d'eau
Links and things http://rmstar.blogspot.com/

FP · External Since: Sep 28, 2009 Posts: 2

On 05/11/2009 00:20, Nix wrote:
> On 3 Nov 2009, Frank Peelo spake thusly:
>
>
>>alexd wrote:
>>
>>>Have to disagree with you there - I can't stand popup windows!
>>
>>Yes, I'm surprised more editors don't do it this way. I bought EditPad
>>Pro, years ago, on Windows, and it uses this idea. So you don't have a
>>dialogue box hiding the text that you're trying to search, getting in
>>the way. Far better to have it out of the way at the bottom. Should
>>have taken over the world by now.
>
>
> Emacs has done this since the 1970s. Since a bunch of very popular
> wordprocessors descended fairly directly from Emacs (notably WordStar,
> at I think a two-generation remove), it's suprising that the avoid-dialogs
> isearch-is-king idea fell so much into abeyance.

Wordstar is descended from emacs? Interesting. I came across both when a
student, twentysomething years ago on the ACT Sirius 1. Had no problem
using Wordstar. Couldn't get my head around emacs. Least I think it was
emacs. Now that I have Vile (a cut-down emacsish editor) on my Psion 5,
I really should get around to learning it... don't seem to have the
time, though. And the Psion screen is getting quite hard to read, but
that's probably just old age.

FP

Nix · External Since: Jul 29, 2004 Posts: 688

On 10 Nov 2009, FP outgrape:

> On 05/11/2009 00:20, Nix wrote:
>> On 3 Nov 2009, Frank Peelo spake thusly:
>>
>>>Yes, I'm surprised more editors don't do it this way. I bought EditPad
>>>Pro, years ago, on Windows, and it uses this idea. So you don't have a
>>>dialogue box hiding the text that you're trying to search, getting in
>>>the way. Far better to have it out of the way at the bottom. Should
>>>have taken over the world by now.
>> Emacs has done this since the 1970s. Since a bunch of very popular
>> wordprocessors descended fairly directly from Emacs (notably WordStar,
>> at I think a two-generation remove), it's suprising that the avoid-dialogs
>> isearch-is-king idea fell so much into abeyance.
>
> Wordstar is descended from emacs? Interesting. I came across both when

I think so, though I can't be sure where I got the info from (email from
JWZ, perhaps, many years ago). Old and faded memory, maay be wrong Smile

> a student, twentysomething years ago on the ACT Sirius 1. Had no
> problem using Wordstar. Couldn't get my head around emacs. Least I
> think it was emacs.

It's just like WordStar except the keybindings are different and it's
far more customizable (and far more user-hostile unless you customize
it, I must have ten thousand lines of elisp customizing mine now).

> Now that I have Vile (a cut-down emacsish editor)
> on my Psion 5, I really should get around to learning it... don't seem
> to have the time, though. And the Psion screen is getting quite hard
> to read, but that's probably just old age.

I suspect Psion 5s have way little memory. Wikipedia says 4--16Mb, which
is seriously pushing it for Emacs: it needs 10Mb or so just to start
up. By modern standards Emacs is quite trim (certainly compared to hogs
like Eclipse), but that still means 50--100Mb if heavily used. If you're
using something like Gnus the memory usage goes way up (my XEmacs is
using 417Mb right now and I've seen it in the 800Mb range before).