Re: FVWM: FVWM on a high density screen -> XEDIT vs ISPF edit

On Sun, Aug 16, 2020 at 09:33:58AM -0400, Dan Espen wrote:
> Thomas Dickey <[email protected]> writes:
> 
> > On Sun, Aug 16, 2020 at 08:39:08AM -0400, Dan Espen wrote:
> > ...
> >> ISPF edit.
> >> I don't remember XEDIT well (1978), but I think the 2 editors are very close.
> >
> > not really (aside from running on the same hardware).
> >  
> > for your amusement
> >
> > https://invisible-island.net/personal/oldprogs.html#y1982
> 
> Interesting but I don't see where it shows great differences between the
> two.

I suppose it depends on how you used the tools.  ISPF had certain things that
it could do, and (possibly the systems programs could alter it), as a
user/developer on the system, I couldn't do that.  But XEDIT was easy to
program.

Your comment reminds me that it may have been possible to run user-defined
commands from the line-prefix.  But I didn't do that - most of my
macros/scripts were designed to be run via function-key (and using the cursor
position).

There weren't enough function-keys, so one of my scripts used F12 to page
through the macros that I wanted to use (like pine, which I encountered 10-15
years later).

> I see  XEDIT uses  the M/MM  convention like  ISPF Edit. Commands on the
> command line or over the sequence numbers.   Similar shift
> commands. I  see some commands  are quite different words  doing similar
> things. and some the same.  The screens themselves can look very similar.
> 
> I wrote loads of ISPF edit macros.  "G" for "ex all" followed by "find all Y",
> "!s" for a spelling checker.  "CC" for compile.
> 
> While I was working on S/34 and later Wang/VS I wrote an ISPF like
> full screen editor.  It may seem perverse, but I wrote the editor
> in COBOL.  Worked out quite well.
> 
> I didn't know you were a mainframer too.

I haven't programmed in COBOL though.

When I used VM/CMS, that was in CHILL (batch-compiling, etc),
though the XEDIT and EXEC2 stuff amounted about the same number of lines...

> Cool.
> 
> -- 
> Dan Espen
> 

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey <[email protected]>
https://invisible-island.net
ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net

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