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From: earleh@dartvax.UUCP (Earle R. Horton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: MicroEMACS bulletin, Mac sources to be in 3.9
Message-ID: <6693@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 16-Jul-87 22:05:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: dartvax.6693
Posted: Thu Jul 16 22:05:24 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Jul-87 00:49:51 EDT
Organization: unorganized
Lines: 50
Keywords: we hope, fingers crossed


     I have mailed Dan Lawrence a copy of all the Macintosh sources
(developed by Dave Burnard and myself) and he has told me he wants to
incorporate them into the general distribution.  It appears, then,
that 3.9 will include the Macintosh sources, and one will be able to
create the executable merely by setting the appropriate switches in
the header file "estruct.h".  All of the 3.8 (Lightspeed C) copies I
have posted or mailed out include support for serial printers, code to
guard against out of memory errors, and the usual Macintosh interface,
minus selection of text.  You can readily tell if you have one of the
Lightspeed C copies, as opposed to a compiler I used to use, by
obtaining a copy of System 4.1.  If your copy crashes the Mac when
System 4.1 has been booted, then you are not running the copy I
compiled using Lightspeed.  The copy I sent to Lawrence supports the
Macintosh clipboard, thus allowing text to be copied and pasted
between the program and other programs and desk accessories.  This I
think to be a significant improvement in the program, and it only took
two hours to add!  I must admit that I didn't attempt clipboard
support before because I thought it would be too hard, but I find it
to be fairly straightforward.  I also gave in to temptation and added
a popup menu.

     As I see it, the Macintosh part of the program is in a fairly
complete state except for two issues.  First, some of the details of
the Macintosh interface are not really implemented.  These include the
ability to get to another window using the mouse, selection of text,
and more dialog boxes.  As an emacs user, I don't really care about
these, and leave their implementation to purists.  Second, the
Macintosh can scroll text which has been drawn, which would greatly
improve the appeal and speed of the program.  I don't want to attempt
this until Lawrence adds this functionality to the routines in the
main program, since it would appear to require some fairly drastic
surgery to do it right.

     If Lawrence manages to integrate what Dave Burnard and I have
done into the general distribution, then this is going to be a plus
for users of the program, especially those who use the program on two
or three different types of machine.  If you have a copy that works
for you, then I advise waiting for the 3.9 general distribution to
come out before you get a new copy.  I have been doing a fairly brisk
business in sending out the sources (for free) to people who send me a
disk, mailer, and stamps.  I don't mind doing this, in fact I rather
enjoy it, but you can probably save yourself the price of some stamps
by waiting for 3.9 to appear.

Earle
-- 
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*Earle R. Horton, H.B. 8000, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755   *
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