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history'n philosophy
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1992-05-06
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History 'n Philosophy
=====================
Once upon a time, in the dim Dawn Age of the Amiga, a time long before the
Shell as we know it today, there came into being "First Sili(CON:)".
The Shell's primitive ancestor, the "CLI", had no history record, almost no
command line editing, and to execute scripts you always had to preface your
command with "EXECUTE". This was a sorry state, and Sili(CON:)'s mission
was to rescue Amiga users from their plight. It not only gave them full
arrow-key editing of the command line and a recallable history, but the
history was VISIBLE, and could be accessed with the mouse. On top of that,
it could detect and execute CLI scripts just like other commands. It was
one of the first of its kind, and soon others followed the same path.
However, it was only the First of an intended succession. Only one CLI
could be under Sili(CON:)'s control, and there were some dreams -- like
environment variables -- left unfulfilled. The faithful were promised a
more glorious successor, but he never really arrived.
Meanwhile, things have changed. The Amiga has its own Shell, with editing,
history, aliases and environment variables. And now, as the age of
version 2.0 arrives, the Shell's capabilities become impressive indeed.
So Sili(CON:)'s time has passed, hasn't it? Well, perhaps not.
There is an important aspect of Sili(CON:) not shared by any other Shell
interface. The Amiga emphasizes its WorkBench and mouse-accessible
interface, but this doesn't extend to the normal shell window. However,
most users of a Command Interface find that they need the same, or similar,
commands over and over again. Wouldn't it be nice just to type these once,
and from then on be able to execute them with just a mouse-click?
Exactly that is what Sili(CON:) has always given you. So now, with a new
emphasis, the successor has finally arrived -- "PolySili(CON:)". There is
no need any longer for a specially crafted "shell" of its own -- the
standard one provides the facilities you need -- so it now simply uses that
for executing commands. Using the standard Shell, too, ensures
compatibility with the rest of the Amiga World. Instead, PolySili(CON:)
concentrates on the User Interface.
The central philosophy is that you should have a common control point for
ALL Shells, however many you have running at once. The visible,
mouse-clickable, history is present just as it was in the original
Sili(CON:), but it can contain command lines for many shells. Each line,
when invoked, automatically goes to its associated shell. A shell may
conveniently be dedicated to its own purpose, yet its control is from the
same point as all the other active projects. Command lines may entered in
the Sili(CON:) area, and transmitted to their shells whatever their
destination processes are currently engaged in, and command lines don't get
mixed up with process output.
Not only shells, but potentially any other command-line driven process, can
be controlled from Sili(CON:). An ARexx program can, for example, easily
be connected -- even though Sili(CON:) itself doesn't have an ARexx port.
(It doesn't need one, BECAUSE connection is so easy.)
Another nice feature is that you can load a bunch of command lines required
for a certain job directly into the history with a single command. This
makes for a very comfortable working environment. You also have various
other options available for manipulating the history list, that you don't
see in most other systems.
PolySili(CON:) is distributed as Shareware. The Freely Distributable
package is a completely functional package, except that it omits some of
the modules that give you a few things mentioned above, like convenient
linking to non-shell programs and saving and loading of History and State.
For a "licensing" donation of $25, you will get a copy of the complete
system plus a full printed manual. Remember though that the development of
this program is paid for entirely by such donations, so that if you have it
installed in your system you are honour bound to contribute at least
something.