The BEST QL Editor

[ql_freak]

Albeit I always liked DME (also programmable), the QL version of

MicroEMACS

is a dream!

Thank you Thierry Godefroy!

It's a very current version (4.x, most Windows versions are 3.x). There are some quirks as with all EMACS but this can be fixed thanks to EMACs builtin programming language (kind of LISP).

BTW: I don't think the Micro in MicroEMACS comes from its limited capabilities (compared to EMACS), but because it was (one of) the first version which also runs on micro computers (EMACS and its predecessors first only run on mini computers, like PDP-11, Vax, ...). MicroEMACS has most of the features of a real EMACS.

And the QL version is GREAT! The GUI Thierry wrote for it (QL Extended Environment GUI) is superb! It has even a Copy/Paste to/from Scrap which on QPC2 is also working with the clipboard of Windows :-))))))

p.s.: One thing which is annoying is, that you cannot close the current visible document (buffer in EMACS spoke). You must first switch to another buffer, before you can KILL (^X-K) the buffer. I think I must write an extension...

p.p.s.: ^-G <CTRL-G> always aborts the current command in the command line. A VERY IMPORTANT SHORTCUT if you don't know what's going on...

[swensont]

Back in my QHJ publishing days, I used MicroEmacs for creating the newsletter. It was portable in that MicroEmacs (3.X) on the QL ran similarly to 3.X on MS-DOS and the text files were quite portable. The syntax highlighting on 4.X is a nice feature for SuperBasic or C programming. MicroEmacs also has word wrap capability, so it is almost like a word processor. For doing bold or and larger fonts (Deskjet 500 printer) I wrote my own simple version of roff, to print out the QHJ.

Tim

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

QHJ was an excellent emag, I stil read now, all still relavent.

I likd MicroEmacs, a very good programmable editor thauses the Extended Environment, has colour keyword modes. But it does allow access to thd Thing system and excuting S*BASIC, no help on keywords...

Which is where QD comes in, with a Thing to run the S*BASIC programme in the editor, directly. The Qhelp syxtem allows definition of a help system to load help on keywords or assembler mnemonics.

Other good editors: QED, The EditorSE, MasterSpy, Elvis, are the editors I use.

[bwinkel67]

Is MicroEmacs full featured compared to UNIX/Linux Emacs? Does it support LISP, shell, full macro recording?

Does this work:

Esc-10, Esc-X Hanoi

First thing I usually try. I used that back in the 90s to test the terminal program I wrote for the QL to see if all my control charters worked properly. In fact, the whole point of creating the terminal program was so I could log into my work's UNIX server and use Emacs to get its full use (multiple shells, etc, all in a 24x80 terminal window).

[swensont]

> Is MicroEmacs full featured compared to UNIX/Linux Emacs? Does it support LISP, shell, full macro recording?

I've not use Emacs, but I don't think it and MicroEmacs are very similar. MicroEmacs does not use Lisp as a scripting language (luckily). IIRC, MicroEmacs does use the ESC key to access commands, like Emacs. I think there is a MicroEmacs for Linux. I used the MS-DOS version back in the 90's, which is still usable via DOSbox.

Tim

[RalfR]

I wrote my own simple version of roff, to print out the QHJ.

I'm interested. Would you mind posting the program here?

[NormanDunbar]

EMACS?
Micro_EMACS?

I feel the urge to port Vi/Vim to the QL!

I remember using Micro_EMACS on a QL with Trump Card and floppies way back in the very early 1990s, maybe late 1980s, and it was an evil bugger to get to grips with. I stopped using it shortly afterwards. It just didn't work for me. Years later, at work, I had to use Vi, so that's the side of that religious argument that I'm on.

However, the best editor for the QL is whichever one helps you get the task done most efficiently and without getting in your way. My own editor these days is VSCode or Sublime Text (paid for!) On Linux, then uploaded to QPC2. Works for everything except QL non standard characters like copyright, Euro and arrow key characters.

Cheers,
Norm. (Posting from outside the supermarket until we get broadband!)

[tofro]

Norm. (Posting from outside the supermarket until we get broadband!)

"Honey, I'll fetch my e-mail. Do we need anything from the store?"

Its amazing how dependent we have become from comms infrastructure.

On the topic:
"Back then", I never understood why someone would want to cope with such a software monster like ("big") emacs 25 years ago. Most of the people I knew when the choice was "emacs or vi" chose emacs, used like 5% of its features and had the machine suffer for CPU and memory. My acquaintance with vi begun as a love/hate relationship, but you simply had to learn it because it was everywhere, while emacs wasn't. Even today, most of the vi commands have left their traces in muscle memory.

[t0nyt]

Even today, most of the vi commands have left their traces in muscle memory.

I’m using QED on the QL and I still keep trying to use vi keystrokes even though I haven’t really used it since the early 00’s

[tofro]

Even today, most of the vi commands have left their traces in muscle memory.

I’m using QED on the QL and I still keep trying to use vi keystrokes even though I haven’t really used it since the early 00’s

I used to have a colleague whose text files sporadically had an arbitrary "ZZ" at the end for no apparent reason