on 02/26/2001 01:48 PM, Bruce Van Allen at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Bruce, I have to thank you for bringing this point to life as eloquently as
you did. Couldn't have said it better myself. :)
> 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.
> Of course they're related; if MacPerl's built-in happened to have a
> richer set of features, perhaps many of us would use it more rather
> than using other editors, depending on what other tasks we do with
> our other editors.
Indeed, it all depends on what I'm doing.. Typically I do most of my editing
in BBEdit Lite since it has the tabbing, left/right-shifting of text blocks,
line soft-wrapping, line numbers, and convenience of drag-and-drop (which I
forgot to mention in my earlier 'suggestion box' post in this thread) into
windows or between windows.
Otherwise I'm using the internal Editor in MacPerl to do my testing and
syntax checking, as I've run into a few instances where the combination of
the two programs ate all my changes (or wouldn't let me save them) and I
lost everything I'd worked on for the previous 20 minutes and had to
re-create it.
I've played it safer since then but lost some of the convenience. :(
[snip]
> I think it's great that Jim Correia, programmer of BBEdit,
> participates in this discussion. Several times in this thread, Jim
Agreed. This is one reason I love companies like BareBones. :) (and why I
would probably go on to purchase the full version at some point)
[snip]
> this interchange? Especially given Robin's wise caution against
> editor wars, the only useful bit for this discussion was that
> something was identified that could be improved in MacPerl's editor
> situation, namely ABC.
Anything that improves the interaction between the two is a good thing, but
only if someone takes note of the end-result of the discussion, true. (:
> So regarding MacPerl vis a vis external editors, I suggest that the
> goal of any discussion be to smoke out the limiting factors of
> MacPerl. Not to add more to Alan et al's assignment, but if such a
> list were on hand when they delve into MacPerl's internal editor,
> maybe opportunities related to external editors could be seized.
"Say hello to your Uncle Bingo!" =8)
> Now regarding the internal editor. I'm so used to working with an
> external editor that I doubt a few improvements to MacPerl's editor
> qua editor would attract me back. Much more interesting to me would
> be to strengthen those aspects of the internal editor that make it an
> interface to MacPerl execution. Others have suggested, or we already
> have, command line, <STDIN>, <STDOUT>, <STDERR>, ways to use the
> power of Perl in the editor with installed scripts, simulated
> execution (syntax check), access to the symbol table, etc.
indeed, drag-and-drop support to a <STDIN> window to input large blocks of
text would interest me too :) the one-liner feature of MacPerl is
interesting but I don't find it overly useful per-se.. I'd prefer a floating
inputline along the lines of ircle, frankly. <http://www.ircle.com/>
> I'm not even sure what could be added to this list, but in the
> abstract I'd say I want MacPerl's editor to be as programmable as
> possible. I want instant ability to test in various ways. I want to
> blurt input and see output. How about the editor window having a
> console pane in which I can type a quick command that would be
> executed on what I have in the text pane?
Damn, nice idea!
I'd really love the ability to add plug-in capability to the internal editor
ala perl scripts or AppleScripts. In fact I'd also love to be able to drop
perl scripts into BBEdit's scripts menu to do things to/with the text too :D
[snip]
--
Scott R. Godin | e-mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Laughing Dragon Services | web : http://www.webdragon.net/
