From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!npois!ucbvax!C70:editor-people Newsgroups: fa.editor-p Title: Re: too many commands in the editor environment Article-I.D.: ucb.1755 Posted: Thu Aug 12 02:25:17 1982 Received: Sat Aug 14 04:43:12 1982 >From DODDS@BBNA Thu Aug 12 02:22:49 1982 Is it possible that there are EMACS users out there who are not aware of the improved NOVICE library created by Jan Walker? It has been distributed generally, through MIT. This package was written to address precisely the learning problem that York mentions. It was done in conjunction with an elaborate interfacing of EMACS to the HERMES message system, but the only connection of the NOVICE library to HERMES is that the HERMES library for EMACS always tries in turn to load NOVICE. Many people here at BBN, including myself, found NOVICE such an aid in using EMACS that they set things up to load NOVICE whenever they run EMACS. I am now pretty adept at using EMACS, but continue to use the NOVICE library just for prevention of the disasters York writes of. I refer interested parties to the self-documentation of NOVICE for most details. Suffice it to say that NOVICE creates for the user a profile controlling which commands are turned on and off. The initial state includes about 15 of the most common and least destructive commands. When a key is hit for a disabled command (e.g., ^W when ^E was intended), an explanation of the command (in a few lines) is output, followed by a query as to whether the user wants to enable the key and its command, leave it disabled, or execute it this once and leave it disabled. By this and other means the user can learn about and enable (and disable) individual commands, to build a personal command set: my EMACS will only execute commands that I know about and want. There is also improved on-line help including menuing of enabled commands, to facilitate learning and finding the command for a desired function. I commend this excellent tool to all who would like to use EMACS but are a bit scared of its power; also to those who would like secretaries and others in their organizations to use the same good editor that the computer whizzes use. -- Doug Dodds