Almathera Ten Pack 3: CDPD 3/Almathera Ten on Ten - Disc 3: CDPD3.iso/fish/001-100/001-025/022/lemacs/readme

Text File | 1995-03-17 | 15KB | 455 lines

    MicroEMACS 3.6    new goodies

- CMODE additions

    in CMODE, pressing a '#' when there is only preceding whitespace
on a line causes the whitespace to be deleted.  (for preprocesser
commands to be brought up against the left margin.

- Next Buffer command

    The Next Buffer command (^X-X) switches the current window to
the next buffer in the buffer list (reading it in if needed).  This is
good for editing lists of files (mainly on UNIX when the shell expands
wild cards).

- Fill paragraph modified

    The fill paragraph command (<ESC> Q) now puts two spaces after
every period at the end of a word.  This is useful most of the time but
occasionally will put in spurious spaces (like after a middle initial).
Any suggestions on an algorithm for dealing with english would be
appreciated.

- Kill paragraph command added

    <ESC> ^W is now bound to kill-paragraph.  This kills the current
paragraph which the cursor is in.  A numeric argument will allow it to
kill a number of paragraphs.

- Global mode commands

    Set/delete global mode commands now allow the user to specify a
default mode for newly created buffers.  Thus, for example, if you
always wished to use EXACT case matching on a string, you could place a
"Set global mode exact" in your startup file and all buffers would start
with EXACT initially on.

- Overwrite mode

    OVER mode allows you to type text over the top of other text
without inserting it.  This mode is very good for editing tables of
information.

- Insert Space command added

    The Insert Space command (^C or INSERT) inserts a space in front
of the cursor push any text to the right one character farther to the
right.  This is a very usefull command while in OVERwrite mode. (I moved
the bind-to-key function to now initially be bound to <ESC>-K)

- Hunt Forward/Backward

    The hunt commands allow you to search for the last string
searched for without re-entering the string. Under PCDOS they are bound
to <ALT>-S and <ALT-R> (the new function prefix proved even more
verstile than I had thought when I wrote it. Do note the unusual
declarations for them in EBIND.H) Under other environments they are not
yet bound, and are probably best bound to a function key.

- Amiga Function/Cursor keys:

    are now supported. Function keys 1-10 are FN 0 - FN 9, shifted
function keys are FN P - FN Y, cursor keys are FN A - FN D, shifted
cursor keys are FN S, FN T, FN a, and FN @. (Use the describe-key
function to find specific keys).

- Reverse video Status lines

    The status line for each buffer can now (due to popular demand)
be in reverse video. This is configuable in ESTRUCT.H for people who
might not want it.

- Several Bug fixes:

    A bug in DOBUF would cause non-terminated strings under some
compilers has been fixed.

    Tabs when expanded on the AMIGA at display time sometimes caused
MicroEMACS to hang, this is fixed. (Reported by Dawn Banks)

    The current column position was not always maintained properly
when executing a keyboard macro, this is fixed. (Reported by Ernst Christen).

    Re-wrote word wrapping algorithm to be have better when
inserting text into the middle of a paragraph.

    <NL>'s at the end of a search to replace string cause the
replacement to terminate after they have done the first replacement on
the last line of the file, preventing MicroEMACS to hang while infinitly
replacing <NL>s.


- Future enhancments may include:

    -s on command line for alternative startup file
    numbered kill buffers
    fence matching for CMODE
    sort region command
    sentence movement and deletion commands

    If you make modifications to let MicroEMACS 3.6 run under any
new envirnments, please send me the changes. I am also looking for the
include file "rainbow.h".

    Could some please test this out under the Mark Williams C
compiler (which I do not have) and send me any needed changes to have it
run properly [most probably in termio.c].

    Send any ideas, suggestions or futher goodies to
            Daniel Lawrence
            ihnp4!pur-ee!pur-phy!duncan!lawrence

=============================================================================
    MicroEMACS 3.5

    This version of MicroEMACS is based on the version written by
Dave G. Conroy, and latter modified by Steve Wilhite and George Jones.
My thanks goes to them for writting such nice, well structured and
documented code. It is nice to see that there are some people out there
who know how to program well.

    I intend to continue to maintain this version and will consider
adding features and supported machines on request. Current hardware
supported includes:

    IBM-PC under PCDOS/MSDOS and many compatibles
    Dec Rainbow
    Commodore Amiga
    Unix V7
    Unix and Multix BSD 4.2
    Hewlett Packard 150 and various upgrades

Features added to MicroEMACS since version 2.0 include:

- Meta repeat codes

    Striking the <ESC> key followed by a numeric argument (possibly
with a leading minus sign) passes an argument down to a command which is
usually used as a repeat count. This is similar to the ^U command, but
there is no default value.

- Change in repositioning command

    The command to reposition the cursor now repositions it, by
default, to the center of the current window, rather than the first line
of the window. This I think is much more usefull and also consistant
with many other emacs'.

- File writting message....

    For those of us with big files, when you start a write of a file
to disk, the message [Writing..] now appears. This is so we know the
machine is really still there. (Paranoids Ahead!)

- Search strings now can have <NL>s in them

    It is very usefull to be able to have newlines in search and
replace strings. To do this, all text input to searching commands is now
terminated by an <ESC>.

- Replace!!!!!

    Yes, now we can replace as well as search. There are two flavors
of this command. <ESC> R allows us to replace each occurence of a string
with another string from the current point to the end of the file.
<ESC> ^R also queries us at each string to see if we want to replace it.
Typing a question mark here will display the options.

- Yes/no responces

    no longer require (or want) a return typed after them.

- Spawning

    Fixed up some MSDOS spawning messages. WARNING: If you have your
switchchar set to a '-' instead of a '/' Lattice C may have problems
when yanking up a new command processer. It will use a line like
COMMAND /C <command line>. You may have to rewrite this library function
to get it to work on your system properly.

- Suspend MicroEMACS

    Under Unix BSD 4.2 we now have code to put the editor into the
background and return to the parent shell. This is initially bound to
the ^X D keys.

- Function keys

    Under MSDOS on IBM-PCs and compatibles, the function keys and
cursor arrows now do what one would expect them to. There is a new
prefix in the editor to accodate this. (Look in MAIN.C for this) This
can be used to add function key support to most any machine by adding a
small piece of code to reconize the keys in the getkey() routine in
main.c, and adding the new definitions to the ebind.h header file.

- Abort (^G)

    now prints out [Aborted] on the command line so you know what
happened.

- Editor Modes

    Buffers now have modes associated with them. These modes can be
set with the set-mode (^X M) and the delete-mode (^X ^M) commands.

- CMODE mode

    When a file is read in with a .c or .h extention, CMODE is set
for that buffer. (This can also be manually set/deleted[see above]) In
CMODE, MicroEMACS attemts to be intelligent about doing automatic
indentation for you. It will indent any line the same as the privious
line unless the last line ended with a brace ({). Then it will indent an
extra tab stop (which varies depending on how tabs are set). Any lines
begining with a close brace (}) will by undented one tab stop if possible.

- WRAP mode

    This mode automatically wraps words onto the next line when the
word extends beyond the current fill column.

- VIEW mode

    This mode disables all commands that can change the current buffer.

- EXACT mode

    Normally all searches are done ignoring case. With this mode
set, only strings which exactly match the search string, including case,
are matched.

- GOTO line command

    The goto-line (<ESC> G) command will go to a specific line
number of the file. For example to go to the 76th line of a file, type:

    <ESC> 76 <ESC> G

- Rename buffer

    The command rename-buffer (<ESC> ^N) allows you to change the
name of the current buffer.

- Paragraph movement

    The forward-paragraph (<ESC> N) and previous-paragraph (<ESC> P)
commands allow movement from one paragraph to another.

- nasty algorith fixed....

    A rather nasty algorithm in the kill buffer processing got
rewritten which ends up reducing the speed neeeded to wipe large areas
immensly. This may have appeared to lock up the machine on the older
versions when a large wipe was attempted.

- Header files rearranged

    ESTRUCT.H    Structure and option declarations
    EDEF.H        Global and external variable declarations
    EPATH.H        Help and startup file paths
    EFUNC.H        Name binding table
    EBIND.H        Initial key binding tables

- Paragraph filling!!

    The fill-paragraph (<ESC> Q) command reformats the current
paragraph filling to the fill column as possible. Very handy....

- Long lines

    Lines longer than the screen now scroll right-left as you move
through them. Seeing what your editing is a big improvement.

- word move and deletes

    Due to massive demand by my users here, I have changed the way
word move and delete work so that they are more consistant and usefull.
But this change is configurable by changing the value of the NFWORD
constant in ESTRUCT.H

- View flag on command line

    -v on the command line causes the editor to read a file in with
VIEW mode set on. -e (edit) is the opposite causing it to read in for
editing (which is also the default).

- Quick EXIT has done a quick change....

    (sorry....) Quick-exit now writes out all changed buffers before
exiting.

- Very long file lines

    Very long lines (>255 chars) being read from a file now get
wrapped on multiple lines (instead of simple refusing to read any more
of the file as before) The user is warned about them with a message at
the end of the read.

- Space not clearing messages

    Many of my users complained about the space not inserting itself
after a message (it just cleared the message line). This is now
configuable in ESTRUCT.H

- HELP commands!

    the describe-key (^X ?) command allows the user to type in one
command and the editor echos back the command name bound to that key.
The help (<ESC> ?) command grabs the top window (or splits if if not
there) and reads in the EMACS.HLP file. The list of places to look for
the help file are in EPATH.H

- View file command

    View-file (^X ^V) is the same as find-file (old visit-file)
except it leaves the found file in VIEW mode.

- Improved updating

    On the systems that code has been written for, the screen update
routines will defer updating if there is type ahead present. This makes
all movement commands much more pleasant. The code for this is in the
function typahead() in TERMIO.C. This is currently implimented for
MSDOS, BSD4.2 and possible the AMIGA (Some one please check this out. I
only have limited access to an AMIGA)

- Buffer lists

    are now alphabetically maintained.

- Insert file

    Insert-file (^X ^I) allows you to insert the contents of a file
at the current position of the current buffer. very useful

- Scroll next window

    Scroll-next-down (<ESC> ^V) and scroll-next-up (<ESC> ^Z) allow
you to scroll the next window up and down by pages.

- Arguments to searches

    All searches and replaces now take a preceding numeric argument
to say how many times, rather than all the way to the bottom of the
file.

- Binding keys

    The bind-to-key (^C) function allows you to change what
command a key invokes. It will promt you for a command name, and then a
keystroke sequence. This is happy. Unbind-key (<ESC> ^C) allows you to
make a key now longer have a function. (This is good when you accidently
bind <RET> or a letter to something)

- Execute named command

    Will prompt you for a command name, and then execute it. This
allows you to execute commands that are not currently bound to any keys.

- Command name completion

    Any time you are prompted for a command, if you type in part of
it and hit the space bar, the editor will try to finish it. If the bell
righs, it means there is now command like what you are typing.

- Describe bindings

    Describe-bindings (not bound) will display a list of all the
commands in a window (splitting if neccesary) and the keys bound with
them. These will reflect the current bindings and not the default ones.
This is a good way to find out the name of a command you can't remember,
or which I picked a bad name for. (The names have been changed to
protect the guilty (thats me) and are in EFUNC.H You too can change them
if you are into it).

- Executing stuff

    The execute-command-line command prompts you for a command line
on the bottom of the screen in the form:

    {Numeric argument} <command-name> {<string arg> {<string arg>}}

    (where {} are for optional stuff) and then executes it.

    Execute-buffer executes a number of these commands in a buffer.
If any errors are found, the buffers current location will be set to the
begining of the line with the error in it.

    Execute-file will read a file into a buffer, execute it, and
then kill the buffer if it executed to completion with no errors.

- Startup file

    MicroEMACS will attempt to execute a startup file (whose name is
in EPATH.H) on startup. The MSDOS name is EMACS.RC and under unix it is
usually .emacsrc

- Multiple files on the command line

    MicroEMACS will now except a list of files on the command line.
These files will all be assigned buffers, but will not be read in until
the buffer is brought up in a window. -v and -e switches affect all the
files following them.

- FILE LOCKING

    This is for people on multi-user UNIX systems. What this feature
can do is prevent two people from editing the same file and stomping on
each others edits. Unfortunatly, the actually locking mechanism used
where I work is propritory so I could not send it out, but I have left
all the code (conditionally defined by the FILOCK symbol in ESTRUCT.H)
leading up to the actually locking routines so some one else can add it
with little effort. Here are the comments for the actual routines that
need to be added:

/**********************
 *
 * dolock -- lock the file fname
 *
 * if successful, returns NULL
 * if file locked, returns username of person locking the file
 * if other error, returns "LOCK ERROR: explanation"
 *
 *********************/

char *dolock(fname)

char *fname;    /* file name to be locked */


and


/**********************
 *
 * undolock -- unlock the file fname
 *
 * if successful, returns NULL
 * if other error, returns "LOCK ERROR: explanation"
 *
 *********************/

char *undolock(fname)

char *fname;        /* file name to unlock */


    If some one wants to write these functions so they can be
distributed publicly, please mail a separate file with them to me
and I will include them with these sources for others to use.

- HP150 function/cursor key support

    is now finished and working.