8:07 a.m.
I'm in the middle of the sad experience of talking someone who had
never used emacs before (and is new to Unix as well) through the
process of:
- launch xemacs
- open an html file
- make a trivial edit
(Her first comment: "good lord that splash screen is hidious!")
After getting past the horror that is the File/Open dialog ("oh,
don't ever use that, it's an abomination") the next roadblock she
had to contend with was the HTML mode you are using by default.
"Why is it asking me for my email address? I just want to edit
a file!" "Why does it keep opening a new file that says
'External entity not found'? Gaah, help!"
I'm frankly stunned that she hasn't given up yet.
That SGML mode is a total nightmare. Please please please turn
it off by default! Even fundamental-mode is better than this
for editing HTML.
For the record, this is what I use, and I think the default HTML
mode should do *no more than this* by default. If people want a
bondage-and-discipline mode with whacked out keybindings, then
let them load it explicitly.
http://www.jwz.org/hacks/jwz-html-mode.el
(Then, of course, it got even worse, because she's doing this
on OSX, and all the existing HTML files she wants to edit use ^M
as a line ending. Imagine the joy of explaining to an emacs newbie
how to do "M-x replace-string RET C-q C-m RET C-q C-j RET" and
what the hell that means and why it's needed...)
--
Jamie Zawinski
jwz(a)jwz.org http://www.jwz.org/
jwz(a)dnalounge.com http://www.dnalounge.com/
8:30 a.m.
Jamie Zawinski <jwz(a)jwz.org> writes:
That SGML mode is a total nightmare. Please please please turn
it off by default!
Hear, hear.
(Then, of course, it got even worse, because she's doing this
on OSX, and all the existing HTML files she wants to edit use ^M
as a line ending. Imagine the joy of explaining to an emacs newbie
how to do "M-x replace-string RET C-q C-m RET C-q C-j RET" and
what the hell that means and why it's needed...)
Doesn't --with-file-coding work on OSX?
8:35 a.m.
Simon Josefsson wrote:
Doesn't --with-file-coding work on OSX?
No idea -- that's the first I've heard of it.
Sure would be nice if xemacs just did the right thing on Macs...
I know that on Linux, xemacs conspires to hide from me the fact
that files have CRLF line endings (it is, in fact, a big hassle
to convert CRLF to plain LF, since it really very much wants to
just preserve them transparently.) Similar ^M DWIMity seems
indicated.
--
Jamie Zawinski
jwz(a)jwz.org http://www.jwz.org/
jwz(a)dnalounge.com http://www.dnalounge.com/
9:25 a.m.
Jamie Zawinski <jwz(a)jwz.org> writes:
Simon Josefsson wrote:
>
> Doesn't --with-file-coding work on OSX?
No idea -- that's the first I've heard of it.
Sure would be nice if xemacs just did the right thing on Macs...
At least --with-file-coding makes CRLF/LF just work for me under
linux.
I know that on Linux, xemacs conspires to hide from me the fact
that files have CRLF line endings (it is, in fact, a big hassle
to convert CRLF to plain LF, since it really very much wants to
just preserve them transparently.) Similar ^M DWIMity seems
indicated.
The minibuffer contains a indicator, and you can press C-x RET f
undecided-dos RET to save a LF file as CRLF, and C-x RET f
undecided-unix RET to save a CRLF file as LF. Perhaps this requires
--with-mule too. The usability aspects of this leaves some things to
desire; Emacs has a few menu items for the command, but I seem unable
to locate them in XEmacs, and I doubt non-emacs savvy people find
"file coding", "undecided-unix" or "undecided-dos" intuitive
terms.
Btw, it seems the command in XEmacs (both 21.4 and 21.5) is buggy, the
modified flag isn't changed in a buffer when I run this command, yet
if I make a change to the buffer, and undo it, and then save the
buffer, XEmacs does respect my CRLF/LF setting.
11:06 a.m.
Simon Josefsson <jas(a)extundo.com> writes:
The minibuffer contains a indicator, and you can press C-x RET f
undecided-dos RET to save a LF file as CRLF, and C-x RET f
undecided-unix RET to save a CRLF file as LF. Perhaps this requires
--with-mule too. The usability aspects of this leaves some things to
desire; Emacs has a few menu items for the command, but I seem unable
to locate them in XEmacs, and I doubt non-emacs savvy people find
"file coding", "undecided-unix" or "undecided-dos"
intuitive terms.
Emacs 21 has "dos" and "unix" in addition to the undecided-foo
variants. dos and unix means to just frob the EOL convention, but
keep the rest of the current file coding.
Maybe that would be a useful feature for XEmacs, too, maybe it is
totally irrelevant because of the different implementation, I'm not
sure.
--
This line is not blank.
11:23 a.m.
>>>> "Kai" == Kai Großjohann
<kai.grossjohann(a)gmx.net> writes:
Kai> Emacs 21 has "dos" and "unix" in addition to the
Kai> undecided-foo variants. dos and unix means to just frob the
Kai> EOL convention, but keep the rest of the current file coding.
We have these, at least in 21.5. I think also in 21.4, though.
However, this requires configuring --with-file-coding OR --with-mule.
--with-file-coding can no longer be turned off in 21.5, and on my Mac
I have never noticed any problem with newlines (and I import from
both Unix and Windows systems all the time). I have not yet built a
21.4 on the Mac.
I'm back from travel and will get on this one, it shouldn't be too
hard to whip into shape for 21.4.
I can't do anything about PSGML, though.
--
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
ask what your business can "do for" free software.
1:50 p.m.
On Wed, 11 Jun 2003 about 19:23 +0900 UTC Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
--with-file-coding can no longer be turned off in 21.5, and on my
Mac
I have never noticed any problem with newlines (and I import from
both Unix and Windows systems all the time). I have not yet built a
21.4 on the Mac.
There are 21.4 precompiled versions for OSX, and a number of folks report no
problems. For some reason I never could get 21.4 to compile and run
reliably on my Mac.
As for the newline problem, I don't see it with files at all, but Mozilla is
one application that places text in the cut buffer with '\r' rather than
'\n' which always has to be cleaned up after pasting.
One caveat is that I didn't have any legacy text files from the Mac to read
in. I use what old-school Mac users call "the Terminal" and "X11.app"
rather
than much of the traditional Mac GUI, so I might just not be seeing these
Mac-specific files. On the other hand, all the text files that Apple
included as part of the development system, and all the configuration files
have loaded correctly, and occasionally the coding system says NoConv in the
mode line. I have noticed that files which contain characters with
diacritical marks and the '\0\n' pair cause XEmacs (beginning with 21.5.b14)
to believe the text is Big5. It is possible that only the '\0\n' is the
culprit.
--
Dr. Robert Delius Royar Associate Professor of English
Morehead State University Morehead, Kentucky
Kill UGLY Corporate Radio
Tom Waits steals EVERYTHING, dood. Captain Beefheart once called him
and said "I want my voice back".
-Poot Rootbeer, in alt.religion.kibology
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participants (6)
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Andy Piper -
Jamie Zawinski -
Kai Großjohann -
robert delius royar -
Simon Josefsson -
Stephen J. Turnbull