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Grex > Coop7 > #63: Using gate as Grex's default text collector? | |
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popcorn
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Using gate as Grex's default text collector?
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Jun 12 15:09 UTC 1995 |
Jan Wolter wrote this nifty program called gate. It does word wrap for
Picospan. It looks just like the regular Picospan text collector,
except that it has some additional features, including word wrap. It
would be very easy to make this the default text collector on Grex, and
most people wouldn't notice the difference.
See agora item 172 for more info about this program.
Is it OK for me to make this the default?
What kind of notification should we give people about the change?
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| 50 responses total. |
remmers
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response 1 of 50:
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Jun 12 15:30 UTC 1995 |
Seems like a good idea to me. I've already made it my own default text
collector.
I'm unclear on some of the technical details of how it would become the
default in a way that would work for everybody and not mess some people
up. Is there some way of doing it other than putting "set edalways"
and "define editor gate" in Picospan's global rc file? If it's done in
the global rc, will that override a "define editor" command in a
user's cfonce file? And if so, will people "lose" their full screen
editor if they don't set the EDITOR environment variable?
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janc
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response 2 of 50:
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Jun 12 16:57 UTC 1995 |
Is there some way in the rc file do do something like:
define EDITOR 256 $editor
define editor gate
I don't know enough picospan syntax for this, but if you copy the editor
setting (if any) to the EDITOR environment variable before setting editor
to gate, then that would avoid the problem.
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ajax
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response 3 of 50:
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Jun 12 21:16 UTC 1995 |
I think making it a default is a good idea too, as is the idea of enabling
people to override the default. Also, waiting another week or two for bugs
to crop up wouldn't hurt...looks rock solid to me, but you never know.
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selena
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response 4 of 50:
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Jun 13 00:47 UTC 1995 |
Definetly provide an override.
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davel
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response 5 of 50:
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Jun 13 01:07 UTC 1995 |
I just tried it. *VERY* nice.
I *think* I found a bug, but am not sure. I did : to go into vi and
make a change; when I returned my last line seemed to be gone. I may
have been wrong about where a line break was, though.
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amoco
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response 6 of 50:
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Jun 13 01:43 UTC 1995 |
Okey.
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rcurl
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response 7 of 50:
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Jun 13 06:47 UTC 1995 |
re #5: if I have just started a line in the current text collector,
but then suspend to doing something in a unix shell, when I fg
back, what I had started is no longer there. It *might* be, in
general, the last line....I haven't paid that much attention, since
I always go into the editor when I return.
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popcorn
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response 8 of 50:
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Jun 13 15:29 UTC 1995 |
Yup, it's the last line.
Re 2: I think the system rc file is run first, before the user's .cfonce
file. So, if the global rc file had "define editor gate" and "set
edalways", and an individual had, say, a "define editor foobar" in their
.cfonce file, that person would end up in the foobar editor every time
they tried to make a response. Not good.
Hm. This bears more thought.
Re 4: There's an override. Put a line in your .cfonce file that says "set
noedalways" and one that says "define editor yourFavoriteEditor".
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janc
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response 9 of 50:
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Jun 13 16:15 UTC 1995 |
I'm not sure that I understand #5 and #7.
I don't see how it could lose the last line after a : escape. It doesn't
do anything line oriented there. Can anyone reproduce this?
If you do a ^Z in the middle of a line in PicoSpan's text gatherer, the part
of the line you have already typed would probably be lost. Gate should be
doing this a bit better. No line is ever written out to the file until you
finish typing it and hit return, but if you suspend in the middle of a line
and resume, you should find yourself right back in the middle of the line you
were at.
Anyway, the best plan may be just to set up newuser to create new accounts
with "gate" and leave existing accounts alone. Of course, that would mean
giving everyone a .cfonce file.
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scg
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response 10 of 50:
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Jun 13 17:32 UTC 1995 |
I think newuser already does give everybody a .cfonce file, or at least it
used to. If I'm remembering right, the .cfonce I had when I first started
Grexing was empty except for a comment saying it was the place t add
customizations.
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rcurl
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response 11 of 50:
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Jun 13 18:43 UTC 1995 |
Give everyone a .cflist too, while you're at it (with some goodies).
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davel
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response 12 of 50:
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Jun 13 21:04 UTC 1995 |
Re #9: I couldn't reproduce it either. Probably my error.
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popcorn
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response 13 of 50:
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Jun 13 22:01 UTC 1995 |
Newuser already gives everyone a .cfonce file. It would be easy to add
gate to it. But there are a number of current users who perhaps would
benefit from Gate, too, so I think it's worth considering how to add it
globally.
I wonder how hard it would be to redefine Picospan's "define editor"
command, so that the one in people's .cfonce files sets the environment
variable EDITOR rather than setting a Picospan variable. This is sort
of the corrolary of Jan's idea in response #2.
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davel
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response 14 of 50:
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Jun 14 11:06 UTC 1995 |
Valerie, wouldn't that have the result that if someone had gate set as
picospan text editor (with edalways) it would be *impossible* to go
to pico or vi or something else with :e? IMO that would really be bad.
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popcorn
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response 15 of 50:
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Jun 14 12:27 UTC 1995 |
Nope, it would work fine. Gate looks at your EDITOR environment
variable to decide what editor to put you into when you do :e.
However, it would make it Very Difficult to set edalways with some
other editor than Gate.
Hm.
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janc
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response 16 of 50:
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Jun 14 16:34 UTC 1995 |
I don't really see any way to put this in the system rc file. Almost everyone
with the bbs shell has a .cfonce that does something like:
define editor pico
We'd mess up all those people. I'd say configure it into newuser, and tell
people how to reconfigure their account (maybe even write a reconfigure
script) and leave it to them.
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ajax
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response 17 of 50:
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Jun 14 19:52 UTC 1995 |
Sounds reasonable. How would folks feel about having a script
modify all the .cfonce files on Grex that have neither a "define
editor" nor "set edalways" commands in them? Seems kind of
invasive to modify files in people's directories, but maybe with
some advance notice, it would go over ok?
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janc
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response 18 of 50:
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Jun 14 22:50 UTC 1995 |
I thought about that. I don't think it is a good idea.
I also thought about modifying conference rc files instead of the globabl
ones. That might work better because I think they get executed after the
users .cfonce file. Or it might not. In any case, it would be gross.
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popcorn
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response 19 of 50:
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Jun 15 12:16 UTC 1995 |
Re 16: Actually, people with bbs shell have a .profile file that sets
their editor. The default .cfonce file that they're given doesn't have
an editor setting in it.
I like the idea of adding gate to the .cfonce file for all new users,
and telling old users to run a script called "set_gate" (or something
like that) that adds the necessary lines to their .cfonce file.
Hm.
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remmers
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response 20 of 50:
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Jun 15 12:52 UTC 1995 |
That sounds workable.
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popcorn
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response 21 of 50:
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Jun 18 13:25 UTC 1995 |
I'm going to do it. Here goes....
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popcorn
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response 22 of 50:
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Jun 18 13:46 UTC 1995 |
Okey dokey. New users now automatically get word-wrap. (Yay!)
Old users can enable word-wrap by typing "!use_gate" (without
the quotes; that's an underscore between the words) from Picospan.
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remmers
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response 23 of 50:
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Jun 18 15:29 UTC 1995 |
(They then have to exit and re-enter Picospan for this to take effect.)
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lilmo
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response 24 of 50:
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Sep 5 20:54 UTC 1995 |
has there been much reaction from older users?
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