From: soh@tmp_ip_003.trl.OZ.AU (Soh Kam Hung)
Subject: Re: Good, cheap text processors
Keywords: word processing, text processing
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 04:18:30 GMT

hugh@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca (Hugh D. Gamble) writes:
>In article <1992Jul21.222823.21252@trl.oz.au> soh@tmp_ip_003.trl.OZ.AU (Soh Kam Hung) writes:

>Does PasTeX have a good previewer?  You could probably use the one
>from the Demo version of amigaTeX.

PasTeX comes with ShowDVI.  That previewer is quite good, though there
seems to be some poor interaction between it and Arq1.66 (a requester
program).  I'll observe the problems a bit more before reporting it.

>>5. Mouse support for marking, blocking, cut, copy and paste.

>emacs may not be the best at that, but it's there.

I can set the point with the mouse pointer, but I don't know how to
select a block with only the mouse.  The generic emacs documentation I
have doesn't go into detail on this.  How would I do this on the
Amiga?

>There is a "front end" wp for TeX that works with PasTeX, I've seen
>posts about, and it's on one of the latest fish disks.  emacs in LaTeX
>mode is just fine for me.  You might want to customize some of the
>functions to work with PasTeX, likely using AREXX.

That might be ``TeXt Plus Professional V4.00''.  From the brief
description in the article I have, it seems to generate TeX code.
I'll have a look at it.

>[Emacs ] 1.25 is around, and 1.26 is in beta test.  There's some nice, user
>friendly Workbench support. Drop your doc on the emacs icon, and away
>you go.

I know of V1.25, but I haven't been able to find it on our local mirror
(archie.au mirror of wuarchive.wustl.edu).  So far, V1.24 hasn't
crashed on me, so I'm content with it.

>You want M-x auto-fill-mode.  If you want it by default, set it in the
>text mode hook in your emacs startup file and it will automatically
>be active when you're in text mode, latex mode, etc.

Unfortunately, the auto-fill-mode I have does not reformat text when I
delete characters or words which are not on the rightmost column (as
defined by the fill-column variable).  I had a look in the comp.emacs
FAQ, but to no avail.  Perhaps you could point me to the appropriate
ELISP source I can use.

>>multiple spacing, and mouse and Amiga ANSI console support is minimal.

>Multiple spacing is probably doable, but why not just assign a
>function key to texify the buffer and put up a preview screen with the
>output?  Then you get exect WYSIWYG at the push of a button, but not in
>the file you're editing where it can get in the way IMO.

True WYSIWYG is not very useful for writing stories.  When writing a
manuscript, my fianc\'ee wants is a souped up typewriter with simple
editing features.  N-spacing makes documents easier to read.  Features
such as underline and bold lets her highlight portions of text for
editing.  Occasionally, she'd want a quick printout to edit by hand.
All that is required during the editing process is a fast, simple
editor.

When a final draft is available, I can run a beautifier on the text
file for printing.  To submit a manuscript electronically (say by
disk), I may have to remove all control codes.  So, for the purpose of
writing manuscripts, WYSIWYG features are at best superfluous.

>I think you're on the right track with gnuemacs and TeX, but
>there are lots of inexpensive WYSIWYG wp/dtp packages for the Amiga
>that may be easier to use, and fine for simple things. If you settle
>on something else for your wife, don't give up on emacs for you. ;-)

Of course, if there is a cheap WYSIWYG package which has fast draft
editing features, we'd also be interested.  I use [La]TeX because it is
in a readable format, freely available, portable and progammable.

>P.S. Add ispell to you emacs setup, there's even an interactive spell check
>as you type and auto word completion capability.
>And the emacs newsreader, mail reader, directory utility, tetris,
>psychoanalyze-pinhead ...

Yes, emacs can be amuzin'.

Regards,

---
Soh, Kam Hung, Network Management Research,     |  h.soh@trl.oz.au  
TRL, POB 249 Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia  |  +61 3 253 6638