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From: barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: net.emacs
Subject: Re: Screen different from file for word processing?
Message-ID: <4996@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Aug-85 03:21:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.4996
Posted: Fri Aug 16 03:21:11 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 04:48:57 EDT
References: <161@ho95e.UUCP>
Reply-To: barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin)
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 22

In article <161@ho95e.UUCP> wcs@ho95e.UUCP (x0705) writes:
>Is there any way to get EMACS to display screen images other than the
>contents of the file?

Emacs doesn't display the contents of the file, it displays the contents
of the buffer.  There is no reason that the buffer has to contain the
same characters as any file.  You merely need to write new versions of
the file reading/writing commands which translate to/from the file
format to the text you wish to display.  For instance, we have a mode in
Multics Emacs in which the buffer displays the contents of the file in a
format similar to Unix's "od" output.  In such buffers ^X^W and ^X^S are
bound to object-mode-write-file and object-mode-save-same-file, which
translate from dump format to normal while writing out.  Another example
is Dired, which displays directories much differently from the way they
actually appear in the directory files.

In other words, your extension code has full control over what the user
sees in the buffer.
-- 
    Barry Margolin
    ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics
    UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar