James Freer <jessejazza3.uk@gmail.com> writes:
On Sun, 6 Jan 2013, ken wrote:
On 01/05/2013 04:05 AM James Freer wrote:
On Fri, 4 Jan 2013, Loic J. Duros wrote:
dkcombs@panix.com (David Combs) writes:
Sun (er, oracle) makes that type of keyboard, but
also makes one with the control key immediately left
of the "A" key, where it was on the original
teletype-like machine (name escapes me now, but it
ended in "33").
What's the difference with moving the ctrl key to the caps lock key on a
standard keyboard?
http://emacswiki.org/emacs/MovingTheCtrlKey
It's not a big difference... just preference - less far to stretch the
fingers. Capslock always used to be the location of the ctrl key on
early keyboards which happened to suit those that use the wordstar
keybindings (which are the most efficient in professional writers
opinion... and mine). A lot of emacs users like them swapped for emacs
bindings. Although i've got used to using the right ctrl key for
wordstar mode.
james
Amen (or +1 if you prefer) on both counts. Having learned to type
on an actual typewriter and having started into computers with those
old teletype machines, and then into PCs with DOS 1.0, I appreciate
being able to have the Ctrl next to the 'A' key. That's where it
was on the first PCs and where it stayed until, perhaps just
coincidentally but perhaps not coincidentally, Microsoft came out
with Word. At the time Wordstar was the top editor. But because
using Wordstar entailed using the Ctrl key a lot, moving it to the
keyboard's hinterlands made it difficult to use and it thereby lost
a lot of market share to Word. Isn't it wonderful how a market
economy can even rearrange your keyboard?
The second Amen/+1 goes to Wordstar keybindings. Somebody put a
whole lot of thought into them and made them the most intuitive of
any editor of that time and since. You could easily learn how to
move around all around in a file you were editing in under an hour
and then remember all of the keybindings the next day. Most all the
Wordstar keybindings for navigation were also language-independent;
that is, you didn't have to know English for them to make sense and
so be easily memorable. If I was just starting out in computing and
wasn't already so accustomed to emacs keybindings, I'd definitely go
to something like joe\jstar for an editor.
Jstar when i'd discovered it was excellent for me. I started using
wordstar in the 80s... that's how old i am! But i use an editor for
text not coding... alas jstar doesn't have emacs "visual line mode" or
softwrap as some folk call it.
Never tried it (or wanted it), but:
http://penguinpetes.com/b2evo/index.php?p=144
HOWTO make Emacs use soft word wrap like other editors!
All the graphical editors seem to and
so does vim with "set linebreak". Emacs also does 'hotch' (as i call
it - i think it's called 'mid screen cursor positioning' or something
like that) - one's typing and gets to the bottom of the
screen... automatically it moves up half a screen - that is so
useful. Not appreciated until you've used it.
What Emacs does is completely customizable.
You should not find this surprising.
Jstar does that but it's
a shame about the softwrap. The author is doing some development again
on Joe.
Emacs does all so that's why i'll stick to it. I'd prefer a cut down
version or being able to remove ALL the functions from the menu i
don't want. The games and calculator... all that stuff i don't
want. But i'm still learning emacs... quite a lot of learning! I'd
love a basic word processor included... something that just does the
basics with an rtf file for letters and memos.
I think you'll eventually find the menus can be modified.