From: rittle@supra.comm.mot.com (Loren James Rittle)
Subject: Re: Cygnus Ed & Turbotext
Organization: Land Mobile Products Sector, Motorola Inc.
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 06:31:11 GMT
Keywords: n

In article <54427@dime.cs.umass.edu> barrett@scooby.cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett) writes:
>	Both are great editors from what I have heard.  I use TurboText.
>It's full of features, is totally customizable, and has *never* crashed for
>me.

I will echo this. ``Both are great editors from what I have heard.''
I use CED.  It's packed with features, is fairly customizable, and has
*never* crashed for me.  And CED has the much desired *unlimited* undo.
IMHO, all Amiga software that allows massive changes to be made to a
document (whatever type of doc it may be), should allow as close to an
*unlimited* undo as possible.  A one level undo doesn't cut it anymore
in my book these days.

>	No, TurboText does not have unlimited undo yet, but it's "on the top
>of the list" according to the author.  On the other hand, TurboText has

The problem is that it has been ``on the top of the list'' for at least
a year.  I recall soon after TurboText came out, supporters of the
program claimed that the lack of *unlimited* undo was no big deal
because the author was `about to add this feature'.  Dan, I don't doubt
you or that you heard this, but frankly, I'm skeptical of this claim
to say the least.

>one advantage over CygnusEd -- you can view and edit your macro definitions.

Well, this is only true of the 'keyboard/menu entered in real-time
macros' that you refer to below.  CED has allowed one to bind any
number of ARexx macros to any set of keys (w/ any set of qualifiers) since v2
came out.  I can view and edit these macros at any time.  See my ISpell
package for a set of macros for use with CED (one of which binds to the
space bar for use in a spell as you type system - I can view and edit
the macro definition).

>Even when you do a keyboard macro, TurboText converts it into an ARexx
>script that you can edit.  (Please correct me if I am wrong that CygnusEd
>has this limitation.)

OK, really score one for TurboText here.  CED v2.x can't convert a
'keyboard/menu entered in real-time macro' to ARexx.
And it doesn't allow you to edit or view the definition of this type
either.  CED has a limitation, but it surely allows one to view and
edit the plain 'ARexx bound to keys type macros'.

Due to this limitation, I only use this type of hand entered macro
for throw away programs.  All other macros, I open a window, write
the ARexx to do the problem, save (maybe bind to key), and run.

It is not really a big deal if you are an ARexx hacker and have the
CED manual handle ('status 78; name=result;' is not my idea of
readable ARexx code!).  For a novice, the TT method of convert to
ARexx on the fly is a much better idea.

>	My only real complaint about TurboText is that it is too
>asynchronous.  For example, between the time that I invoke the "OpenFile"
>command (to open a new file) and when the file requester appears, anything I
>type may or may not get lost, or appear in some unpredictable place.

My only real complaint about CED is that while an ARexx script is
running the screen gets updated after every action is preformed.
As you can imagine, this is a real bottleneck for some applications
of the macro power!  Some public screen items need to be fixed
(e.g. client windows on CED's screen can trash the titlebar).

>	I can't wait for the next version.  The author has been very
>response to suggestions for improvement.

In sum, both program could steal a little from each other.
Both programs could use an update.  According to the last I heard,
the author of CED is still on vacation (for over a year?) - what are
ASDG's plans with regards to CED?  Perry, it would be nice to know
if CED will ever get an upgrade.

Loren
--
Loren J. Rittle (rittle@comm.mot.com)
Systems Technology Research (IL02/2240)
Motorola, Inc.
(708)576-7794
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc