Monday, January 10, 2000, 3:16:50 PM, Owen wrote:
> I just wish The Bat!'s mail editor matched the windows paradigum (sp?)
> by default
Paradigm. It does match it. The Windows way of doing things is to have
different editors built into each application. Sure, they have *some* keys in
common (the CUA keys) but how they behave, what capabilities they have above
the "basic" editor differs, what keys they used for those capabilities differ,
etc.
That is the problem, though. Since the end user is forced to use the
"internal" editor each time they have to learn as many editors as there are
programs they use, really. They don't see it that way, though. When I have
suggested in the past on the PMMail list of dropping the internal editor
completely (something I recommend to TB! as well, btw) and using only an
external editor they all balked. Why? "What, we'd have to learn a /new/
editor?" They had to already, they just didn't realize it. OTOH if they had
an external editor dialog by default they'd get used to the idea of text
editing and mail reading as two separate tasks and get into the idea of using
a single editor across multiple applications.
My newsreader is SLRN, my news editor is vim.
My Unix mail reader is mutt, my mail editor is vim.
My previous Windows mail reader was pmmail, my windows mail editor was
vim. It would be again if TB! supported external editors.
My scripting language of choice is perl, my script editor is vim.
Here's a fun one. In Windows I have to configure it using the "registry
editor." With Linux the same is, guess what, vim.
Now for the true power of that way of doing things. Before vim I used joe
extensively. Joe for news, mail, scripting and configuration editing. When
my editing needs changed I was able to replace it with a better editor and all
my applications were "improved" by it at the same time.
Try that in Windows sometime.
> And we're all Unix support engineers, used to coping with stuff like vi,
> emacs, etc.. It's not that we don't appreciate what is being attempted, we
> just have to make hard choices about where to invest our 'geek knowledge'.
> And there you go, potential customers lost, although they all agree that
> technically it's good.
OTOH, I have no respect for anyone who calls themselves a "Unix Support
Engineer" and complains about an editor. Personally, I could really do
without TB!'s editor, but I'm stuck with it. However, in one day I can switch
from CUA (the "Windows standard") to joe to vim to plain vi. If I put my mind
to it I could go to Emacs as well if it were even remotely sane (which it is
not). My only requirement for an editor is that it has an obvious help
system. I can't stand vi keys but I can use vim because it has a decent help
system. Learning a new editor takes only a few hours for me, at most.
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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