Re: An 'ae' testimony
On Wed, 26 May 1999, Sven LUTHER wrote:
> On Sat, May 22, 1999 at 12:21:02PM -0400, Dale Scheetz wrote:
> > On Sat, 22 May 1999, Michael Stone wrote:
> >
> > > On Sat, May 22, 1999 at 07:49:11PM +1000, Craig Sanders wrote:
> > > > some version of vi is essential on a rescue disk, regardless of what some
> > > > windows using loudmouth happens to think (and no, i'm not referring to
> > > > you here joseph).
> > >
> > > That's just silly. If someone can figure out vi, they really ought to be
> > > able to figure out how to use an editor with on-screen help. We're not
> > > forcing anyone to write a book with it, just use it for a couple of
> > > seconds in an emergency.
> > >
> > > > ae is fine except for the vi emulation mode. it does the job, a simple
> > > > no-frills no-features text editor.
> > >
> > > I disagree: I think it's still more complicated than it needs to be.
> >
> > Complicated?
> >
> > > E.g., the big block of commands at the upper left is a bit too
> > > cluttered.
> >
> > Upper left? You _are_ refering to the help screen aren't you? This screen
> > coveres the top third of the screen, and includes every operation ae will
> > perform. How would you suggest that I make it less "cluttered"?
> >
> > The phrase, "a bit too cluttered" is not something I can convert into a
> > patch ;-)
>
> remove this help stuff, and have just some sort of help binding that will bring
> it up. That would be nicer, and let more space for editign.
In your last posting you asked for "more" help information. Now you are
asking for less. Is it any wonder that I have trouble satisfying the
divers needs of the editing community?
Your comments make it clear that you haven't used ae in a long time, if
ever. When you first enter ae, the help screen takes up the top third of
the screen. One of the items on that screen tells you how to toggle the
help screen on and off. If I set it up so that there is no help screen on
startup, how is the uninformed vi expert to know how to get the help
screen?
>
> >
> > > The prompts sometimes leave something to be desired (When I
> > > type ^X^C after changing a file, why does the prompt have n^H at the end
> > > of it?)
> >
> > This is a bug that both the author and myself have been unable to resolve.
> > It seems to be an artifact of key encoding, but, since the error isn't
> > obvious, it could just as easily be caused by something else (like a
> > curses difficulty of a completely different nature). As it is only visual
> > cruft, and doesn't effect the opperation of the program, I have not been
> > too frantic about it...
>
> yes, but someone who is editing his systems config file file be distrustfull to
> such garbage.
Send me a patch.
>
> >
> > > And it _is_ possible for people to get trapped in ae--but people
> >
> > While this was true for several "broken" releases of ae, this has not been
> > possible for a long time. The reason this missinformation remains in play
> > for so long is that folks continue to use old, broken rescue disks. The
> > current version of ae does not suffer from this problem, and hasn't for
> > some time.
>
> Sure this happened to me a long time ago, didn't try ae since because of it
> though.
>
So, whenever a program exhibits a bug, you stop using it? You must have a
very sparse system ;-)
Seriously, if you wish to be helpful with your comments it would help if
your understanding of the situation weren't ancient history.
Luck,
Dwarf
--
_-_-_-_-_- Author of "The Debian Linux User's Guide" _-_-_-_-_-_-
aka Dale Scheetz Phone: 1 (850) 656-9769
Flexible Software 11000 McCrackin Road
e-mail: dwarf@polaris.net Tallahassee, FL 32308
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