Many thanks to everyone for their views, comments and contributions
to the 'MacPerl Editor Wish List'. I won't answer any of them in
detail at this moment, but I have filed all of them away to refer to
and to think about in the coming weeks and months.
Please keep comments coming either to me or the 'macperl-porters'
list as and when you think of something. Suggestions from newcomers
to MacPerl are particularly welcome, since a major objective is to
make MacPerl as easy as possible for first-time users.
May I echo Bruce's comment however:
At 10:48 am -0800 26/02/01, Bruce Van Allen wrote:
>I think we really have two threads to this: one has to do with
>MacPerl's built-in editor, and the other with external editors.
>Let's keep it straight.
In all the letters on this subject the unanimous opinion was that the
built-in editor should remain. The built in editor makes it that much
easier for the newcomer and experienced programmers all use it from
time to time for one reason or another.
I am going to attempt migrating the editor code from MacOS TextEdit
to WASTE functions. This seems to be feasible, but whether I shall
succeed is quite another matter.
The objective will be to keep the MacPerl editor simple but
effective. It would be quite impracticable to try to emulate all the
multifarious features of professional text editors and arguably it
would be undesirable (on grounds of size) anyway.
I shall certainly some help on 'C-ish' problems. I would be very
grateful to any native 'C' (and 'C++') speakers who might be prepared
to answer questions and point me in the right direction from time to
time. Debugging and making sense of 'MacsBug' reports is going to be
one difficult area for me. Any volunteers would be really, really,
welcome -- please write (maybe off-list?).
Many thanks,
Alan Fry
