From: lee@ceg.uiuc.edu (Chris Lee)
Subject: Re: DM vs. xterm
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 16:12:19 GMT


In article <1992Nov9.192837.17737@bcars6a8.bnr.ca>, djf@bnr.ca (Duane Fowler) writes:
> [...] I'm interested in knowing what people see in Domain pads, editor,
> etc.  Sure the ability to search back through the pads was nice, but the 
> functionality exists with Xterms -  just not as gracefully.

Sure it exists with the xterms...then again, my terminal emulator
on MS windows also has scrolling features built into it too...

There are 5 things that I haven't found a solution to in X that are REAL
easy and trivial on DM.

1. I can save the transcript of the pad ANYTIME.  I think such an option
   exists with xterms (from the xterm log menu), but my experience has been
   it only logs what you type and see AFTER you enable logging, i.e
   if I just issued a bazillion commands, and I say "oh...I should log
   this", only the commands issued after the log will be included in
   the Xtermlog file.  With DM, I can issue a 'pn filename' command anytime
   and the whole pad will be saved.  Not just a bit of it.  Speaking of which,
   I can actually give the name of the file I want to log to...

2. The HOLD key has some really useful features as well.  Since you can
   cut/paste between anything, there are times I just grab a glob of commands,
   put it in hold mode, and edit the commands as they are pasted to the
   command buffer (the input pad)...or as another example, someone sends you
   a mail file with a 'howto'...which, yes, can be saved in a file, and 
   executed with csh, but that's not the point :-).  I've been told 
   something like this is sorta doable with KSH.  However, I don't think 
   these people have used the DM, and don't really understand what I'm 
   talking about :-).

3. In a word, rectangular cut/paste.  Sure, let's put emacs on top of this
   so you can do this.  As an example to (2), say you have in you window
   a list of stuff you've done that you need to do again.

      PROMPT> cp this_very_long_file_name /user1/file1
      PROMPT> chown user1 /users/file1
      PROMPT> chmod /users/file1 700

   Now, suppose you have to do this for many users.  You can retype the 
   whole thing, or just do a rectangular cut with the right columns and 
   do a paste.  Sure, you can use the CSH modifiers or use a loop in 
   CSH, but isn't this much more 'intuitive'?
  
4. With 1 keypress (I count control/shift key as 1 key press), I can 
   move a window to any part of the screen while simultaneously resizing
   it.  I'm using MWM right now, and this is one feature I really miss.
   Sure, alt-F7 and alt-F8 do givee me move/resize, but I have to then
   use the arrow keys to move the window, and then the arrow key again 
   to resize the window.  In my apollo startup files, I have the numeric
   keypad defined to move the windows to designated spots, i.e. 
      7 - windowsize=quarter of screen, move it to top left
      9 - windowsize=quarter of screen, move it to top right
      4 - windowsize=half of screen, move it to left half
      etc.etc.etc.etc.
   Tell me how I can do this with Xwindows and any window manager, and
   I'll be forever happy (well..at least until I need to do a rectangular 
   cut/paste).

5. the DM command tni (to next icon).  My mwm session has alt-esc/alt-tab
   defined to go to the next/previous window, but it does not distinguish
   the windows (is it iconified, is it a window etc.).  It just goes to
   the next physical thing on the screen.  I have F0 bound to 'tni', and
   that works just fine for jumping between only iconified objects.

And one final note.  DM is quite small for such a plethora of features.
How much disk space would a (not-so)'comparable' system use?  X11R5+emacs
(or epoch)...40-70M?  But then again, this is sorta what you'd expect
since DM has everything integrated into it -- and is proprietary...
just like MAC/OS using not too much space vs. DOS+WINDOWS eating
globs of space.

And just to be fair, there is 1 thing that absolutely drives me crazy
on the DM that I can't do anything about.  The DM editor is very mouse
sensitive.  If the mouse moves as you are editing something, your cursor
will move.  I don't know about others, but REALLY, I want my cursor
where I left it.  IMHO, the cursor should only move with a button click
or something like that.  This is where I think X is better.  A cursor
AND a mouse pointer.

just my $.02
-- 
Chris Lee
University of Illinois Urbana
lee@ceg.uiuc.edu
(217)244-2903
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo