Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!rochester!PT.CS.CMU.EDU!andrew.cmu.edu!mp1u+
From: mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Editor Flame (MicroEmacs)
Message-ID: 
Date: 11 Dec 87 03:49:45 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University
Lines: 30
In-Reply-To: <1579@ssc-vax.UUCP>

>Actually, it WAS time that the Amiga had some sort of Emacs-based
>editor when the new release of Amigados (1.2) came out.  If you look
>on the Extras disk that came with the upgrade to 1.2, you will find
>a very nice emacs editor complete with pull-down menus, the ability
>to spawn a new cli from the editor, etc.  (The cursor even moves
>when you click the right mouse button ;-}).
>I use emacs exclusively as a text editor for writing C programs, and
>I find it to be a very nice editor.  

Yeah, I know all about the Emacs that came with the 1.2 Extras disk.  But the
fact of the matter is that the 1.2 Extras Emacs is less powerful than any of
the Emacses currently available for the Amiga.  You can't rebind keys in it,
there is no such thing as M-x, etc.  The mouse interface is very nice, as is
the ability to switch between regular/interlace display modes, but I find I
can't use it for very long due to its lack of features.

What I really want is an Emacs with an Intuition interface plus an extension
language.  I really like being able to point the cursor where I want it to
go, and to "mouse off" a block of text.  I also want the editor to indent my
C code for me, too, and I would like to run a CLI in an Emacs buffer.  Sure,
I can just switch to a CLI window and run the two concurrently, but having
the results of a compliation in an Emacs buffer gives you a "softcopy" of
your compilation errors, plus instant history of CLI commands and
command-line editing for free.  Currently, there is no Emacs on the Amiga
capable of doing all of this at the same time.

It may sound like I'm flaming (which I am), but I'm also expressing
puzzlement that some other Emacs freak hasn't remedied the situation already.

			--M