Aucbvax.4877
fa.editor-p
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!editor-people
Sun Nov 1 14:22:28 1981
Re: Integrating Editors with Programming Languages
>From Admin.JQJ@SU-SCORE Sun Nov 1 14:12:34 1981
When I say I want a picture editor, I at least want facilities like
those provided by SIL, e.g. simple commands to "draw a box at the
current point", or "move the current rectangular area left 5 spaces
and down one", or "delete the current box".
If I'm doing a "boxes and arrows" picture, I want to be able to type
a LISP form in standard READ format and have an approximation of the
picture produced automatically. Then I want simple commands to allow
me to modify the picture, e.g. equivalents of RPLACA and RPLACD. Of
course, the package can only perform an approximation, since based on
((X Y) X Y)
we don't know if the (X Y) list is shared. What I most certainly
don't want to have to do is type every character in the picture or
worry about what characters to use for line drawing.
Unfortunately, the "box and arrow" editor, though not hard to write
(especially if written in lisp) is only one of many special-purpose
picture editors imaginable. What I really want, then, is a general
purpose picture editor that is easily customized for such special
purpose tasks. But I also want to have a picture editor that is easy
for the novice to use, i.e. has a command set that seems "natural" in
some sense. I don't know what that command set would look like.
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