7:13 a.m.
Installed the latest beta from cygwin with the sumo package so I wouldn't have
to go through all the hassle of finding little packages and installing them.
1) there's no .xemacs directory
I discovered this when I tried to edit the initialization file and save it. I
also discovered
2) saving a file when the director doesn't exist apparently causes xemacs to hang.
Fortunately if I killed the process and restart, I can save configuration files.
Sorry about discovering so many problems but I am one of those people that makes
things break.
On packages, why doesn't it say or at least tell you which package repository
was selected.
When I try to update the package index with sumo loaded, EFS is start up and
then I get, in a terminal window:
53 [main] xemacs-21.5-b28 5124 exception::handle: Exception:
STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION
918 [main] xemacs-21.5-b28 5124 open_stackdumpfile: Dumping stack trace to
xemacs-21.5-b28.exe.stackdump
3165 [main] xemacs-21.5-b28 1660 exception::handle: Exception:
STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION
4097 [main] xemacs-21.5-b28 1660 open_stackdumpfile: Dumping stack trace to
xemacs-21.5-b28.exe.stackdump
3 [main] xemacs-21.5-b28 4428 exception::handle: Exception:
STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION
1563 [main] xemacs-21.5-b28 4428 open_stackdumpfile: Dumping stack trace to
xemacs-21.5-b28.exe.stackdump
3 [main] xemacs-21.5-b28 188 exception::handle: Exception:
STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION
535 [main] xemacs-21.5-b28 188 open_stackdumpfile: Dumping stack trace to
xemacs-21.5-b28.exe.stackdump
690 [main] xemacs-21.5-b28 4968 exception::handle: Exception:
STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION
2589 [main] xemacs-21.5-b28 4968 open_stackdumpfile: Dumping stack trace to
xemacs-21.5-b28.exe.stackdump
150 [main] xemacs-21.5-b28 4456 exception::handle: Exception:
STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION
13105 [main] xemacs-21.5-b28 4456 open_stackdumpfile: Dumping stack trace to
xemacs-21.5-b28.exe.stackdump
32 [main] xemacs 5512 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before
initialization, retry 0, exit code 0x600, errno 11
The stack dump reveals:
esj＠jumper ~
$ more xemacs-21.5-b28.exe.stackdump
Exception: STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION at eip=61020137
eax=10423F00 ebx=6123F6D4 ecx=7584783F edx=00273440 esi=00000000 edi=0022FA14
ebp=61020890 esp=0022C7E4 program=C:\cygwin\bin\xemacs-21.5-b28.exe, pid 4456, t
hread main
cs=001B ds=0023 es=0023 fs=003B gs=0000 ss=0023
Stack trace:
Frame Function Args
End of stack trace
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8:53 p.m.
>>>> Eric S Johansson <esj(a)harvee.org> writes:
Eric> [...]
Eric> Sorry about discovering so many problems but I am one of those
Eric> people that makes things break.
"Those people" are called users! If it breaks for you it likely breaks
for others as well. So in this rep ect, keep it up! (see below for a
possibly more pragmatic way to get the job done!)
I don't know who maintains the cygwin xemacs beta and if our
distribution makes that job easy or not. Some of your problems might
come from that.
I normally build both XEmacs and the packages from sources on both
Linux and Windows. 21.5 works pretty well on Windows if you roll your
own. But then I guess you might not be considered a user anymore but
almost half a developer! This might be a path worth taking for you
until we have the time to look into getting all these install issues
into place.
Yours
--
%% Mats
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12:06 a.m.
Mats Lidell writes:
almost half a developer! This might be a path worth taking for you
until we have the time to look into getting all these install issues
into place.
Remember, Eric can't type (or at best it's very painful for him), and
as I understand his situation one reason for his interest in XEmacs is
that voice control is almost as difficult for him at present. He's
looking for a way to gain more control over his environment through
XEmacs. While he's willing to put in a lot of effort, he says, he
still needs our help. This is good for us too IMO.
How much any given developer wants to help is a personal matter, of
course, but I hope people will keep in mind that the returns to making
it easier for Eric to get these "trivial" "startup" tasks done are
more than just helping him; it will be a much smoother XEmacs
experience for all new users.
BTW, I try not to think of people as *being* users or *being*
developers. Rather at any given time a person *acts as* a user or as
a developer. Of course some people are most visible on this list in
their developer role, and others as users. But *everybody* is a
contributor, and everybody uses XEmacs or is interested in it for some
reason.
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2:14 a.m.
On 2/7/2011 7:06 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
Mats Lidell writes:
> almost half a developer! This might be a path worth taking for you
> until we have the time to look into getting all these install issues
> into place.
Remember, Eric can't type (or at best it's very painful for him), and
as I understand his situation one reason for his interest in XEmacs is
that voice control is almost as difficult for him at present. He's
looking for a way to gain more control over his environment through
XEmacs. While he's willing to put in a lot of effort, he says, he
still needs our help. This is good for us too IMO.
Like most RSI injured developers, it's painful all the time ranging from
moderate to severe depending on level of use. What may take you (collectively) a
small number of hours to type will take me a half a day to type or a small
number of hours to speak if and only if accessibility features are present.
Control means there is a task specific interface in place. For example,
something like trace route would need some way of incrementally building the
commands, memorizing it with a specific name and then an argument which
translates a name to a hostname. So I could say something like
Trace numeric Harvey which would generate
traceroute -n harvee.org
But if I did something like
Trace route raw
(Display UI for selecting options)
Remember as something simple
after the command is built, saying "trace something simple truly free Emacs"
should generate the right command. Haven't figured it all out but I think this
is the way it can work.
How much any given developer wants to help is a personal matter, of
course, but I hope people will keep in mind that the returns to making
it easier for Eric to get these "trivial" "startup" tasks done are
more than just helping him; it will be a much smoother XEmacs
experience for all new users.
There are two levels of help I need. Obviously there is the "let's get things
running better and this startup problem I'm having I'm trying to keep notes so I
can put it into the documentation. The second level is starting to do
"interesting" things. I don't know whether to do them completely independent
of
Emacs because I do need a particular edit control if I'm going to edit using
speech recognition. The concept I'm trying to exploit is putting a
transformation filter between the environment holding non-speakable data and a
speakable editing environment. Outbound, it translates to an English like format
and the return is the inverse (Idemopotent transform)
There are multiple contexts where this would be useful. In theory, we could do
everything inside of Emacs as long as I could write the code in Python. :-)
although we would need the core of the vr-mode working.
I need to go back over these concepts and think about what does it mean when the
editing environment is on a remote machine and the speech recognition
environment is local. I'd like to be able to run a remote Emacs so that things
like Shell and other tools could be used with whatever accessibility features
are developed.
I'll close with, if we can make some serious headway with incorporating
something like Select-and-Say within Emacs, and other accessibility features, it
would be greatly appreciated by a number of developers and a great example to
show nuance that they can't do what we need for accessibility and should support
independent efforts.
BTW, I try not to think of people as *being* users or *being*
developers. Rather at any given time a person *acts as* a user or as
a developer. Of course some people are most visible on this list in
their developer role, and others as users. But *everybody* is a
contributor, and everybody uses XEmacs or is interested in it for some
reason.
But but but, I'm a really destructive user. :-)
---eric
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9:06 a.m.
Eric S. Johansson writes:
Control means there is a task specific interface in place. For
example,
something like trace route would need some way of incrementally building the
commands, memorizing it with a specific name and then an argument which
translates a name to a hostname.
I assume you can access menus?
One thing that's been on the agenda for a while is a menu editor. A
Lisp menu is just a sequence of sequences, something like
(defconst default-menubar
;; This is backquoted; a lambda with a preceding , will be byte-compiled.
`(("%_File"
["%_Open..." find-file]
("Open with Specified %_Encoding"
:filter
,#'(lambda (menu)
(coding-system-menu-filter
(lambda (entry)
(let ((coding-system-for-read entry))
(call-interactively 'find-file)))
(lambda (entry) t)
t)))
"-----"
["%_Save" save-buffer
:active (buffer-modified-p)
:suffix (if put-buffer-names-in-file-menu (buffer-name) "")]
("%_Edit"
["%_Undo" undo
:active (and (not (eq buffer-undo-list t))
(or buffer-undo-list pending-undo-list))
:suffix (if (eq last-command 'undo) "More" "")]
"----"
["Cu%_t" kill-primary-selection
:active (selection-owner-p)]
["%_Paste" yank-clipboard-selection
:active (selection-exists-p 'CLIPBOARD)]
["%_Delete" delete-primary-selection
:active (selection-owner-p)]
)))
This is very complicated, it's a selection from the main menubar code.
It doesn't get more complicated than that. :-) But Lisp is very good
at editing structures like this, and we should be able to create a
menu editor that navigates the menus just like selecting a command.
It would be substantially easier if it didn't need to handle features
like:active and :suffix.
XEmacs also has a "keyboard macro" facility, but it could use some
improvement for your purposes.
Emacs because I do need a particular edit control if I'm going to
edit using
speech recognition. The concept I'm trying to exploit is putting a
transformation filter between the environment holding non-speakable data and a
speakable editing environment. Outbound, it translates to an English like format
and the return is the inverse (Idemopotent transform)
[snip]
I need to go back over these concepts and think about what does it
mean when the
editing environment is on a remote machine and the speech recognition
environment is local. I'd like to be able to run a remote Emacs so that things
like Shell and other tools could be used with whatever accessibility features
are developed.
I'm not sure how that would work. XEmacs does have TTY and
stream-oriented consoles (it's painful, but you can actually work with
XEmacs using only stdin and stdout ... it's actually not unreasonable
for playing "doctor" or "dunnet"). Maybe the stream-oriented console
could attach to the voice recognition.
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3:37 p.m.
On 2/8/2011 4:06 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
Eric S. Johansson writes:
> Control means there is a task specific interface in place. For example,
> something like trace route would need some way of incrementally building the
> commands, memorizing it with a specific name and then an argument which
> translates a name to a hostname.
I assume you can access menus?
One thing that's been on the agenda for a while is a menu editor. A
Lisp menu is just a sequence of sequences, something like
(defconst default-menubar
;; This is backquoted; a lambda with a preceding , will be byte-compiled.
`(("%_File"
["%_Open..." find-file]
("Open with Specified %_Encoding"
:filter
,#'(lambda (menu)
(coding-system-menu-filter
(lambda (entry)
(let ((coding-system-for-read entry))
(call-interactively 'find-file)))
(lambda (entry) t)
t)))
"-----"
["%_Save" save-buffer
:active (buffer-modified-p)
:suffix (if put-buffer-names-in-file-menu (buffer-name) "")]
("%_Edit"
["%_Undo" undo
:active (and (not (eq buffer-undo-list t))
(or buffer-undo-list pending-undo-list))
:suffix (if (eq last-command 'undo) "More" "")]
"----"
["Cu%_t" kill-primary-selection
:active (selection-owner-p)]
["%_Paste" yank-clipboard-selection
:active (selection-exists-p 'CLIPBOARD)]
["%_Delete" delete-primary-selection
:active (selection-owner-p)]
)))
This is very complicated, it's a selection from the main menubar code.
It doesn't get more complicated than that. :-) But Lisp is very good
at editing structures like this, and we should be able to create a
menu editor that navigates the menus just like selecting a command.
It would be substantially easier if it didn't need to handle features
like:active and :suffix.
the trick is coming up with a simpler notation the way I did with akasha (speech
recognition friendly web framework). Personally, I like a spatial specification
of menu hierarchy
view
Shrink window to fit --- C-x -
( Function argument argument argument)
narrow
Narrow to region --- C-x n n
( Function argument argument argument)
Narrow to page --- C-x n p
( Function argument argument argument)
go to line -- M-g
( Function argument argument argument)
Is something off the top of my head. This notation allows you to control the
menu hierarchy and associate a function with each argument. It may be too
simple. But it certainly is something one could speak and edit within xemacs
given Select-and-Say functionality.
XEmacs also has a "keyboard macro" facility, but it could
use some
improvement for your purposes.
True but it's okay. I really don't mind keeping all of the speech control
outside of XEmacs and minimizing the control interface to the essentials.
I'm not sure how that would work. XEmacs does have TTY and
stream-oriented consoles (it's painful, but you can actually work with
XEmacs using only stdin and stdout ... it's actually not unreasonable
for playing "doctor" or "dunnet"). Maybe the stream-oriented
console
could attach to the voice recognition.
Some form of RPC using Emacs as a server? Maybe a hack on the the client
interface? Yes, I am going to push heavily on "interesting solutions". Please
don't kill me. I have some stories I want to write. :-)
Here's how I think the action should go:
I say "new method name"
The system should gather all of the method names associated with the object from
which you've created the instance. That list of method names and the given
method name should be handed to an external program (how? Really fine magic).
The external program operates on the data and passes back the new method name.
The editing environment replaces the old method name with the new method name.
We are done
In the Windows environment, and I suspect most GUI editors, moving the data from
one application context of the other happens using the paste buffer. It also
counts on another side effect which is the act of pasting text replaces the
selected region. In our environment, we will need to do a kill region and then
inject the new name. This raises the question of maybe after we do it kill
region, we should inject the new name into the kill ring and then yank it back
into the buffer.
In our context, we obviously need to be a little more sophisticated like a
message passing mechanism or a return before done RPC mechanism. I haven't
figured out if a simple call and return will work or if it's necessary for the
application to query Emacs for additional things about the program state. I
think we can do most of what we need one way if the language mode is smart about
names and their relationships.
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5:08 p.m.
>>>> Stephen J Turnbull <stephen(a)xemacs.org> writes:
Stephen> Remember, Eric can't type (or at best it's very painful for
Stephen> him), [...]
My apologies to you Eric if you feel offended. It was certainly not my
intention. Quite the contrary. I thought I tried to encourage you to
keep it up to break things because if it breaks for you, others will
find themselves in the same poor situation as well. So it is good that
you show the weak spots. We want users (and developers) to have a
pleasant experience using XEmacs.
However, at the same time, I didn't want to give you the false hopes
of speedy fixes. I myself have filed a bug report about the package
system years ago, with the intent to fix it myself, without getting
any way near in doing anything about it. That is a sad fact.
If anyone will look into these issues I will be most delighted of
course. When I feel that I'm done with the GPLv3 et al issues I might
even try it myself ;-)
Yours
--
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12:46 a.m.
Mats Lidell writes:
>>>>> Stephen J Turnbull <stephen(a)xemacs.org>
writes:
Stephen> Remember, Eric can't type (or at best it's very painful for
Stephen> him), [...]
My apologies to you Eric if you feel offended.
And my apologies to you, Mats, if you took the meaning that you were
being offensive. Your reply was helpful in both fact and in your
intention, but I know from my own experience working with Ben that
it's hard to understand the full implications of these handicaps
without experiencing them. That's all I wanted to imply.
course. When I feel that I'm done with the GPLv3 et al issues I
might
even try it myself ;-)
Well, from what you say, it sounds like your part is done. I have a
budget to present on Saturday, after that I should have considerable
free time to look at XEmacs, in particular run one more pair of eyes
over your work. If things go well in the preliminary committee
meeting tomorrow, maybe Friday and Saturday. But based on past
experience and rumored last minute budget requests, I won't bet on
it.:-(
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4:10 a.m.
On 2/8/2011 7:46 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> My apologies to you Eric if you feel offended.
And my apologies to you, Mats, if you took the meaning that you were
being offensive. Your reply was helpful in both fact and in your
intention, but I know from my own experience working with Ben that
it's hard to understand the full implications of these handicaps
without experiencing them. That's all I wanted to imply.
Matt, I wasn't offended. don't worry about it.
Part of what Stephen is referring to Is that much of the user experience I'm
trying to characterize and bring to life is so far outside of what we know so
far that it is difficult at times to describe and empathize with. I apologize
for doing that everyone. :-) however, please try to wrap your head around it.
--- eric
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11:03 a.m.
>>>> Stephen J Turnbull <stephen(a)xemacs.org> writes:
Stephen> Well, from what you say, it sounds like your part is done.
I think you might need some support etc so I plan to be available for
assistance, test etc during your release work!
Yours
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