A83: Re: Poll


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A83: Re: Poll





> Hi. Just a quick poll here. Which editor do you prefer? Windows Notepad,
DOS Edit, or other?

For z80 asm?  Assembly Studio 86.

For text?  Notepad, since it has wordwrap and uses the windows clipboard.

For C/C++ when I don't have VC++ or Borland C++Builder?  DOS edit.

Most other general editing?  DOS edit version 2.

> I am trying to incorporate the best features of each into my program.
> For example, Edit has a free moving cursor. That is, you can move the
cursor to any part of the screen and just start
> typing away. But in Notepad, the cursor must follow the text. You can't
just click at a point on the screen and start
> typing there. However having the cursor follow the text is sometimes
better for browsing through files. So which style
> would you prefer? I can do either. Right now I'm doing the Notepad style,
so if more people would rather have the Edit
> style, tell me now!

That's not entirely true.  For notepad, you can only add new text somewhere
in an existing line, or at the end of a line.  With DOS edit, you can start
adding text anywhere in the middle of a line, and it will automatically fill
the line with spaces to that point from the old end of line.  It also has an
extra blank line past the current end of file.  You cannot just start adding
text _anywhere_.  Only on existing lines and one line past that.

> Edit doesn't have a word wrap feature, but Notepad does. I've already
included a word wrap feature in my program.
> Notepad has selectable fonts, Edit doesn't. My program has two selectable
fonts, and both have full ASCII character
> sets.

Is this for the calc?

> Edit has selectable tab sizes. Notepad doesn't. Right now my program has
tabs fixed at 8 spaces. If enough people want
> it, I'll try to make it variable though.

There are at least two ways to implement tabs.  The first way, that DOS edit
uses, is to simply insert spaces for the tab size.  As you'll notice in DOS
edit, you cannot backspace or cursor through tabs.  And, when you change the
tab size, current tabs stay the same.  I like this behavior, unless of
course I have to open a program that used the other method.  The second
method is to use the actual tab character and store that, in which case you
just display the text with spaces for the tab size.  This has the advantage
of letting you delete entire tabs and cursor through them.  The major
disadvantage is that if you open the text in a different program that uses
different tab sizes, it is totally screwed.  Might be nice to implement both
:)

> Neither Edit nor Notepad has a goto line: x feature. This I want to
implement as well.
> There are lots of little things that make a good editor, and I'll try to
include as many of them as I can. What are your
> favorite editor features?

Ever used HomeSite or ColdFusion Studio?  Now there is a real editor (for
HTML).  One of my favorite features is unlimited undo, even AFTER saves.
Unlimited undo and redo are very nice to have, especially when programming.




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