SUMMARY: User-friendly editors + excuse.

From: Morten K. Barfoed (morten@copernicus.dsri.dk)
Date: Fri Aug 19 1994 - 18:52:27 CDT


Dear Sunmanagers.

After posting the following request on the sunmanagers-list,
I was informed by a couple of people, that the sunmanagers-
mailing-list is for urgent matters. Having received many
answers, I feel I owe a summary of the answers that I got,
but I would like to excuse for the misuse of the list.

: > Dear sunmanagers.
: >
: > One of my colleageus complains about the rather primitive
: > editors for unix. Even if emacs is fine, it's not that
: > easy to setup and handle, compared to for instance the
: > Borland-editors of the PC. And how does one use the mouse...
: > and so on.
: >
: > So, do you know if there is such a thing as a user-friendly
: > editor for unix, publically available, preferably source-code ?
: >
: > Without X11...?
: > With X11...?
: >
: > I know, that this is to a certain extend a matter of 'religion'.
: > Ones favorite editor is always user-friendly, if nothing
: > else because it's user-unfriendly !

Thanks to many people, too many to list.

Answers:

tty-based:
1: pico of the pine-mail package. tty-based. I retrieved it,
   and it works fine. VERY easy to compile, and use. See xarchie
   for sites.

2: jove, available from csustan.csustan.edu. Haven't tried it, and
   it's not a spelling-mistake (theres another one called 'joe' !).
   One says, that they have tried it at his working-place as a sub-
   stitute for vi and emacs, but it was no significant improvement.

X11:
1: aXe: Haven't retrieved it, but it's recommended from a number
   of people. one says: "We are using it with a lot of very ignorant
   students quite successfully."

2: textedit, part of SunOS.

3: Emacs 19.xx comes with X-interface. Some like it very much, and one
   thinks it much better than the Borland-editors.

4: Lucid Emacs. (lemacs). Current version 19.10. Should be difficult
   to set up.

5: xed. No further information

6: xedit. No further information.

7: ce (Charles' editor). Is supposed to be very easy to set up.

tty or X11(not known):
1: joe (Joe's Own Editor). Has keybindings similar to Wordstar, which
   has inspired the Borland-keybindings. Is said to be fairly simple
   but not that powerfull.

2: nedit, available from fnpsbp.fnal.gov. 'It seems to have a PC-ish
   interface.'

Commercial Packages:
1: Aster*x, full featured office software package.

2: crisp. Emulates the PC-editor Brief. Is also available
   in a free version, but one says that it's just a demo.
   Version 2.2e should be free.

Best regards:

Morten Krabbe Barfoed

Danish Space Research Institute phone: +45 42 88 22 77 (switch-board)
Gl. Lundtoftevej 7 phone: +45 45 87 40 77 - 161 (direct)
DK 2800 Lyngby FAX: +45 45 93 02 83
Denmark TELEX: 37 198

                                        e-mail: morten@dsri.dk



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