NEdit (was: vi bindings for text widgets)

[Steve Hosgood <iisteve iiweeble swan ac uk>]

Gerald Combs - Unicom Communications <gerald@unicom.net>
> > I'm overjoyed to have finally escaped from Vi, just as I was happy to lose
> > 'ed' all those years ago...
> 
>   I agree wholeheartedly.  I've used Xedit on IBM big iron, Eve on VAXen,
> and vi on Unix boxes, and BBEdit on the Mac.  As far as I'm concerned,
> none of them compare to NEdit. I just wish it used GTK instead of Motif... 
> 

I seem to recall reading somewhere (probably here) that someone was doing
a Motif->GTK port of NEdit. Was that true? Also, there's at least one
GTK text editor out there (gedit).

Despite being my current editor of choice, NEdit does have a few problems.
It doesn't have as powerful a regular-expresssion parser as 'ed' or 'vi',
and it doesn't seem to have an equivalent of the 'g' (global) pattern-matcher.
So you can't say "for all lines matching pattern 1, substitute pattern 2 with
pattern 3".

What surprises me is that for normal day-to-day C-code writing, it doesn't
seem to matter as much as I'd have thought. The ability to be editing N files
at once with syntax highlighting and with split-windows on at least some of
the files makes up for it nicely.

Other problems with NEdit are that it is rather big (that's possibly Motif's
fault), and a bit slow (especially on scrolling the screen on my 486 at home).
I think it must be using MOUSE_MOTION events rather than MOUSE_MOTION_HINTS
in that it can get itself "left behind" during scrolls.

However, I can assure you all that as soon as an obviously better editor comes
along, I will move to it!

--

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