> I had made queries in the past about the editor and was told that it > would be very difficult to make the editor work in a more standard > fashion and yet maintain its current behaviour as an option.
Model/view would have made it easier to support the current behavior in the first place. Model/view is such standard practice, and good design, that it is taught to computer science students everywhere. Any user interface software that lacks a model/view distinction is difficult to change once it is written. > The current features being a really free caret, being able to reflow > quoted material, being able to work so easily with indented text. > It's similar to the frequently expressed desire to be able to use > variable width fonts with the editor. I see none of that incompatible with model/view in any way, and indeed model/view would support all of them superbly. > Text editing is too fundamental an area for an e-mail client to be > giving newbies a culture shock. IMO, it should ideally be the aim > that what the prospective user is accustomed to is initially > presented Agreed. > I don't know if this is the case with the editor even though I so > like its current feature set. I only disagree with those who wish > for changes/enhancement only with regards to their claim that the > editor is broken or backward. Brokenness is in the eye of the beholder. My personal feeling is that it is broken. Having to press Alt-L every ten seconds tells me there is something the computer should be doing for me automatically. And I detest that floating cursor which eveyone else views as a "feature." I get the impression of a "bug" every time I accidentally invoke it. I end up with re-drawn I-beams all over the screen, or scrolled off into no-man's land when I try to select text. So one man's feature is another's bug. > It's simply different in approach Washboards and Maytag washing machines are simply different approaches too, but one is a lot easier. > I, and others have said this much to the developers who have agreed > and are receptive to suggestions. Great, thank you. Personally I would just drop in something like this: http://textcontrol.com/tx/features/overview_activex/ http://www.arssoft.com/products/index.htm?awp or Bat could incorporate some open-source code like http://www.scintilla.org/ http://synedit.sourceforge.net/ http://syn.sourceforge.net/ http://www.anyedit.org/ http://personalpages.tds.net/~edream/front.html http://sourceforge.net/projects/keynote/ http://led-editor.sourceforge.net/ There are over a thousand projects in the "text editor" category at SourceForge.net. Many of these also support things far beyond Bat's present capability -- like HTML editing, Linux, and collapsible tree views. (I hope for a Linux version of Bat someday, though it is unlikely.) Some of the projects have GPL licensing but others have commercial-friendly licensing. Bat could use this third-party code, modify it, wrap it with ActiveX, whatever they need to do. Just a suggestion, not a demand here. Mark ________________________________________________ Current version is 1.62 | "Using TBUDL" information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
