Re: Text editors

[Martijn van Beers <martijn earthling net>]

On Wed, Jul 14, 1999 at 12:48:03PM -0400, Christopher Atlee wrote:
> It sounds as if you're suggesting designing a standard gnome text editor
> complete with syntax highlighting / source browsing / etc. and then have the
> user specify a set of key bindings that suit their preference.  This may not
> be a bad thing.  I could choose to use the vi key bindings, someone else
> could use the emacs key bindings, but we'd both be using the same editor.
> 
> As a first step, however, I think that a common interface should be designed
> (I haven't looked at Desktop::Editor) and that some popular editors be
> modified to use that interface.
> 
> I've got some random thoughts about what kind of things the interface should
> support:
> 
> Text insertion/deletion
done
> Information on cursor position, selection(s)
done
> Ability to set cursor position, selection(s)
done
> Text retrieval (in whole, or in parts)
done (needs improvements tho)
> Searching on text
done
> Formatting text (colours, underlines, indenting, etc)
> Provide support for file import/export filters to handle special file
> formats, compression and encryption
This should _not_ go in the generic interface, since we'd want to
support any editor out there. If you want more, you just write an
interface for the specific thing you have in mind, and you make
it available through GNOME::Unknown's QueryInterface method.
> Generate events.  Individual key-presses, word completion, line completion
> should generate events.

Martijn


-- 
Martijn van Beers
martijn@earthling.net

Zistance is Footile!