Subject: Problems with setting default editor

From: Viswanath Gopalakrishnan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 14:32:45 -0400 (EDT)

Hi!

I am unable to set the default editor to vi, using the entry in my
.pinerc file. I am using pine 3.04 on Sparc10s, under AFS.

Any clues as to what I could be missing ?

Thanks

Vishy

===========================================================================
Viswanath "Vishy" Gopalakrishnan,	[email-masked]
Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network [CIESIN]
===========================================================================

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From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 11:49:33 -0700 (PDT)

You cannot set an alternate editor to be default.  You always have to use 
"^_" to get to it.  You also cannot use the alternate editor on the 
headers.  Sorry.

--
|\ |  |\/|  David L. Miller    [email-masked]  (206) 685-6240
|/ |_ |  |  Software Engineer, Pine Development Team   (206) 685-4045 (FAX)
University of Washington, Networks & Distributed Computing
4545 15tn Ave NE, Seattle WA 98105, USA

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From: Philip Hazel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 09:47:45 +0100 (BST)

> "^_" to get to it.  You also cannot use the alternate editor on the 

It would be very nice, though, if Pine were to enter your alternative 
editor automatically when you moved the cursor down into the text part of 
the message from the headers. (And when you are doing "reply".) I make lots
of mistakes trying to operate with two different editors. I'm quite happy
for it to go back to the default editor when you exit your alternative
editor.

Philip

--
Philip Hazel                   University Computing Service,
[email-masked]             New Museums Site, Cambridge CB2 3QG,
[email-masked]          England.  Phone: +44 223 334714

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From: Ian Dunkin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 11:33:56 +0100 (BST)

> for it to go back to the default editor when you exit your alternative

Yes, agreed exactly.  The automatic invocation to be an _option_, I
suppose.  And returning to the default editor on exit from the
alternative editor would let you review the header fields once more
before sending, and so on. 

  I.

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From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 08:10:31 -0700 (PDT)

Is a single keystroke really that objectionable?

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From: Philip Hazel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 16:13:44 +0100 (BST)

> Is a single keystroke really that objectionable?  

Not _objectionable_, but it is not an easy keystroke to make. You've been 
typing alphabetic things and pressing return to fill in the header; it 
would be nice to be able to go straight on without having to fiddle around 
to find ^_, which is not a key I can get at by touch-typing. I have to stop 
and look and it just feels uncomfortable. I'm clearly not the only person 
who feels this way.

... and, when replying, it is ANOTHER keystroke, after the millions of "Y"s 
you have to type to reply to everybody, include the original, use the 
"Reply-To" field, etc. I do tend to sit with my finger on "Y" when 
replying...

Don't get me wrong. I think Pine is very good. Like many people, I don't 
even bother to comment about things I think are lousy!

Philip

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From: Ian Dunkin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 16:24:55 +0100 (BST)

> Is a single keystroke really that objectionable?  

I think it's more a problem with confusion, as Philip Hazel remarked in
his original posting. 

>                                                                 I make lots
> of mistakes trying to operate with two different editors. 

The natural thing to do is to start typing away madly as soon as you get
into the text area, and it's easy to forget which editor you're in.  MY
alternative editor of choice for Pine is actually MicroEMACS (our own
slightly extended version).  So pico is similar enough to feel familiar,
and I _always_ pitch into word operations, marks, &c, till I realise
that pico is beeping madly at me to stop because it's had those
particular functions removed.  So it's just a Would-Be-Nice. 

    I.

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From: Philip Hazel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 16:54:04 +0100 (BST)

> particular functions removed.  So it's just a Would-Be-Nice. 

Yes. Precisely! Thank you. You have expressed it much more clearly than I
did.

Philip

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From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 09:03:30 -0700 (PDT)

What precisely do you want the behavior to be?  Would this be correct?

1. Compose/forward:  Start header editor.  When cursor down is hit from last
header line, alternate editor is entered on body of message. 

2. Reply:  Start Alternate editor on body of message. 

3. Exit alternate editor:  Start header editor.  When cursor down is hit from
last header line, alternate editor is entered on body of message.

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From: Philip Hazel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 17:11:36 +0100 (BST)

> last header line, alternate editor is entered on body of message. 

Yes, please. Thank you for thinking about it.

Philip

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From: Laurence Lundblade <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 09:53:41 -0700 (PDT)

When we were looking at making this work we looked pretty close at the way
Elm works and seriously considered it.  The main reason it was rejected was
because you can't easily edit a header line longer than the screen was wide. 
Ian's rational really makes sense and Dave's solution proposed here looks
pretty good. 

I've talked to Corey (Cc's here and not a Pine user) about this and he's
always suggested that Pine be extended to actually edit the headers with an
arbitrary editor using something something like TCL for Pine to interact with
the other editor. I've always thought it was an interesting idea, but it was
more than I was up for trying to figure out how to make work.  Corey please,
correct me if I've said something wrong. 

LL

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From: Jack Churchill <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1993 11:48:00 +1000 (EST)

> Is a single keystroke really that objectionable?  

No.  I think if the alternate editor is made automatic, it should be an
option only.  The defaults should be the current set up since most pine
users I know prefer to use pico than say vi.  Actually I use pico for
small messages like this one and vi for much larger ones that require
fancy cut and paste, etc.  I think the current ^_ (or sometimes ^shift_ on
some vt100 emulators) is good enough and there are much more important
issues that the pine developers should be working on (such as mailcap
awareness).

  Jack N. Churchill                         | [email-masked]
  CSIRO  Division of Exploration and Mining | [email-masked]
  PO Box 136  North Ryde  NSW  2113         | Phone:  +61 2 887 8884
  Australia                                 | Fax:    +61 2 887 8921

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From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 20:38:05 -0700 (PDT)

We are looking into adding an option to automatically enter the alternate 
editor.  There are some tricky design issues to solve though...

--
|\ |  |\/|  David L. Miller    [email-masked]  (206) 685-6240
|/ |_ |  |  Software Engineer, Pine Development Team   (206) 685-4045 (FAX)
University of Washington, Networks & Distributed Computing
4545 15th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98105, USA

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From: David Bradford <pail!cascorp!dbradfor>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1993 10:19:58 +0800 (PST)

On Sat, 24 Jul 1993, Jack Churchill wrote:

> users I know prefer to use pico than say vi.

pico is easily the most important reason we implemented pine here. Most of
our users couldn't use vi to save their lives.

- Dave

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From: Mike Brudenell <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 09:24:03 +0000

>                              I think the current ^_ (or
>   sometimes ^shift_ on some vt100 emulators) is good
>   enough

It is intriguing to note that some of our terminals (Wyse-85's) don't send
anything to the host for the ^_ keystroke!

I initially hacked the Pine code to use ^/ instead, only to find that some
terminal emulators on our PCs wouldn't cope with this either!  In the end I
disabled the suspend facility and nabbed ^Z for the Alternate Editor keystroke.
Sigh.

                                                        Mike B-)

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From: Ian Dunkin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 13:37:01 +0100 (BST)

On Sat, 24 Jul 1993, Jack Churchill wrote:

> option only.  

Jack,

Oh yes, I think everyone has agreed about that.

>                                          there are much more important

Agreed again.  I added my vote to the case for automatic entry of the
alternat editor, but I certainly wouldn't disagree that many things (like
mailcap) are more deserving of the Pine developers' time.

    I.

(I'm agreeing even _though_ you're in the .au domain, and England are
 currently 279-8)

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From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 08:17:47 -0700 (PDT)

Support for mailcap is definately scheduled for pine 4.0.  Changing the 
alternate editor behavior is merely being "considered."