Hi gang, I vote for a brainstorming session sometime this summer - re-writing vi or emacs would be a pain, but I suppose we need to think about that #1 point, and what should be different. Images? Bricks? I suppose we still need text underneath it all, though it would be cool if we didn't.
Ideally, I'd like to see a text editor where you could deal with code on a very granular level - individual characters, then words, then functions and definitions, etc. I'd like to see some visual organization based on that, such as indenting-as-you-type, coloring (and italics, bold, etc) and some design rules that define how text wraps on the screen. even better, how about coding in differetn shapes? Instead of a grid, you could code in an endless spiral, like zooming in and out of a black hole. Or in a reactangular maze, where your code followed some space-filling algorithm. Really, anything that isn't just left-to-right lines of text on a rectangular screen. Defining images as function, and combining them visually? (Now we're into scheme blocks territory). I was recently at the Electronic Literature conference in Naples earlier this year (http://elmcip.net/critical-writing/ole-officina-di-letteratura-elettronica-lavori-del-convegno-napoli-gennaio-2011), and one of the talks was on code and how its form cold be manipulated to be more relevant to its function. In fact, I was surprised there aren't more livecoders there (a few of them are from Finland - Jyväskylä to be precise - http://elmcip.net/people). Looks like we just missed the deadline for the next conference, but something to think about... Best, Evan On 30 Apr 2011, at 07:53, David Griffiths wrote: > Hi all, > > On Wed, 2011-04-27 at 20:33 +0100, evan.raskob [lists] wrote: >> There's a lot that needs to be done to get it working as a proper editor, >> IMHO. > > I would propose two approaches: > > 1) Working on an editor written in scheme where the focus is doing > things a bit differently from other editors. > > 2) Hacking a terminal emulator to provide a gl context in the background > - then we could use vi, emacs, joe etc etc and avoid having to rewrite > everything from scratch. > > I'm slowly working on 1 - the plan is to make an interchangable > text/scheme bricks editor. Currently this is the focus of the android > work, but the code will run on the PC versions as well. > > cheers, > > dave >
