DreamWords [was: pipe dreams]

["Harrison, Shawn" shawn_harrison@xxxxxxxx]

Several people have expressed that such a discussion as what we would
like in an editor *is* appropriate for the list. So here goes, for those
who are interested. Annie might want to rev up her nifty e-mail filter at
this point.

Leslie Bialler said:
≪it seems to me that devising a word processor that
emulates XyWrite when we already have XyWrite reminds me very much of
the Borges story in which a cartographer attempts to draw a map of his
region on a scale of 1:1.≫

T. Baehr said:
≪ What am I missing here? ≫

Very good points. Tim, your not missing much. XyWrite is an outstanding
editing tool. In particular, it is fast, clean, easily customizable,
powerful, and has those two marvelous features, the command line and the
expanded/visual view modes. But Leslie, we're not just talking about
emulating XyWrite. Here are a few thoughts about what XyWrite is missing.

1) An interface which integrates more naturally with a GUI operating
system. The XyWin interface is not a fully integrated windows interface.
For instance, it is constrained to 8.3 naming. The taskbar icon doesn't
work as expected. At heart XyWrite is a DOS program. The ideal editor
would be a native GUI program, albeit with powerful command-line
functionality available.

2) Cross-platform. I want to be able to use the same editing tool on
whatever platform I happen to be working on. I don't necessarily mean the
exact same program code should execute, as Sun would like Java to do;
ports will do nicely. (I'm thinking of GNU Emacs, which has been ported
everywhere -- but the interface! ugh.) The same editing tool would also
mean the same macro/scripting language.

3) Extensibility and Usability with other tools. In the dream editor you
could create a new menu or a new set of dialog boxes with corresponding
commands, hotkeys, and menu-accelerator keys as easily as writing and
running a macro. You could also very transparently run external programs
-- other tools -- and use the results of those programs directly. Some of
the discussion recently has had to do with the inability to use XyDOS to
spawn a separate DOS session. In general, it is difficult to integrate
XyDOS with other tools. As an example, I run TeX frequently, which
involves compiling an ASCII document with formatting into a binary file
and then launching a viewer to look at it. I would like to be able to set
a hotkey which does this whole sequence with one simple CTRL-t. XyDOS
can't handle doing those things from a macro.

4) User-friendly macro language, with a full set of flow-control
structures (if/then/elseif, while, for, foreach, switch, procedures which
take arguments and return values, recursion, etc.), and the ability to
define new commands -- to extend the macro language itself. It is
difficult to extend XPL itself, and as powerful as it is there are some
very unfriendly things about it.

5) Syntax highlighting. This is a standard feature in programmer's
editors. In the dream editor, formatting syntax would be highlighted in
expanded mode, while the results would be shown (as in XyWrite) in
"visual" mode. (Of course, we're talking about formatted text -- in a
*writer's* editor. If the file is a computer program, the code would be
highlighted using standard syntax highlighting patterns.)

6) Flexibility in terms of the underlying formatting tags. I would like
an editor in which you could define new sets of tags for it to use in
creating its onscreen formatting. So that, if you choose "HTML format,"
it'll create text which is formatted as an HTML file -- the underlying
formatting tags are HTML markup -- but you see the results, as in a web
browser. If in a different document you specify "TeX format," and it'll
use TeX formatting tags and show you results. You could also define a set
of tags according to an SGML DTD, or even a "Xy format," which reads,
displays, and edits XyWrite documents naturally. Combine this with
expanded/visual view modes (available in no other editor but XyWrite so
far), and you've got a powerful tool for directly editing files with
various formatting/markup languages. In XyWrite presently, or in most any
other editor, I can create sets of key-bindings for other formatting
languages. But there isn't an editor available in which I can specify the
formatting tags that the editor will use to generate what I see in
"visual" mode. This great feature would not be impossible, as it may
sound (I can think of how to do it in Tool Command Language (Tcl), for
instance).

7) Background running of macros. I'd like to be able to edit a file with
a macro without having to see it happening, or even to wait for it while
it happens. -- a multi-tasking editor (that should really be another
item).

8) Able to be used in a non-interactive manner. I'd like to be able to
tell the operating system "edit  " and have it run my
editor in the background and perform the  on whatever  or
 I have specified. I imagine this function is related to
the previous one.

9) Open source. With openly available sources, those power users who want
to extend the program (people like Robert, Annie, and Tim) could easily
do so -- they could get into the guts of the thing and change it if they
wanted to. They wouldn't have to overlay patches on something that is not
satisfactory -- they could rewrite it! No need any longer for frustration
that the people who own the software aren't responsive to the requests of
its users. No more grumbling about TTG or anyone else. If you want a
feature, you can write it. That is the intrigue of the software
development process that open source software generates. I have
benefitted very much from the open source software that is available.

There are a lot of editors available, and several of them come close to
this wish list. But none of them gets the prize. TextPad is an
outstanding editor for some purposes. XyWrite is still the best for
day-to-day work, in terms of its mix of power and features. NoteTab has a
great user interface. I would love to be able to take one of those
editors as a starting place and build on it --- why should I reinvent the
wheel? But the sources are not available, so neither I nor anyone else
(except the editors' owners) can do that.

Again, T. Baehr said:
≪But I'm also aware of what an immense undertaking it is to
write, debug, rewrite, debug, document, optimize, debug, redocument....
any
program, and especially one that is as rich as XyWrite. So I'll continue
to
use it as-is and tweak it with XPL till they pry it out of my cold, dead
hands. ≫

And Robert Holmgren said:
≪you are NEVER going to write an editor (not
you, not nobody) with as much polish and power as XyWrite unless you're
prepared to
spend, well, 15-16 years on it. ≫

Tim B. and Robert H., you are right -- writing a word processor is an
incredibly huge task. But I don't think it has to take as long as you
think. I am aware of at least one whole operating system which has come
into existence since 1991 and is at this point one of the most powerful
and stable OS's available. I have every reason to think that an editor
could be done in similar fashion in correspondingly less time, an editor
being a correspondingly less complex program than an operating system. I
think the answer to this goes back to why R.T. and I are interested in
the open source approach (Rafe -- you still haven't said why you want
open source). Under that model, the job of writing the editor can be
handled by a distributed bevy of programmers and writers (and dreamers).
The interest in such an editing tool as I have described would go far
beyond this friendly XyWrite bunch, so Robert's concern about there not
being a "real programmer" among us is not at issue.

≪So get crackin'.≫

Robert, your sense of humor is inimitable.

≪Meanwhile, I'm using XyDOS.≫

Well, me too. But I'll wager it won't take someone 15 years to write
something better.

Cheers,
Shawn

+===================================================================+
| Shawn Harrison       | "One does not discover new lands  |
| Associate Editor      | without consenting to lose sight of |
| Tyndale House Publishers  | the shore for a very long time."  |
| shawn_harrison@xxxxxxxx |          --Andre Gide   |
+===================================================================+