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From: "Ethan A. Gardener" <eekee57@fastmail.fm>
To: 9fans@9fans.net
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Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2018 16:11:18 +0100
Subject: Re: [9fans] What are you using Plan 9 for?
Topicbox-Message-UUID: d8271518-ead9-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025

On Thu, Jun 21, 2018, at 8:20 AM, Mart Zirnask wrote:
> On 21/06/2018, Ethan A. Gardener <eekee57@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> >... I no longer have a desk of
> > the right proportions to make mouse use comfortable, and can no longer =
bend
> > over a laptop for hours on end, (a Thinkpad with 3 buttons,) text editi=
ng in
> > Plan 9 has become unpleasant. I could patch Samterm and Rio to make it =
more
> > comfortable, but it's not worth it.
>=20
> Would you mind elaborating on these ideas?

Not at all. The first thing I would do is make it so Samterm keeps Sam's sn=
arf buffer in sync with Rio's. I know it's sometimes useful to have the two=
 separate buffers, but I so often want to copy between the editor and other=
 windows that for me, it's an immense pain. An alternate, possibly better i=
dea would be to add commands to Sam, equivalent to >cat>/dev/snarf and <cat=
</dev/snarf . I've only just thought of those commands, I think I'd try to =
implement them first, because synchronizing the snarf buffers is not entire=
ly straightforward (if I remember right,) and menus...

Menus! Grarrr I hate you, go away! Not entirely, I like them when they remi=
nd me of stuff, but every time I use one I have to Stop. And. Look. At. It.=
 Not wonderful when wanting to get on with the job, or to not lose my focus=
. It matters less now I'm trying to relax, but I have experienced pie menus=
 and found them a brilliant solution to exactly this problem, up to a point=
.=20

I would not want to jam window lists (Sam's or Rio's) into an infinite seri=
es of pie menus because, speaking from experience, nesting pie menus beyond=
 two levels more than negates the benefits. Given that I'd normally have pi=
e menus with 8 elements, for the button-3 menus of both programs I'd have 5=
 elements in a semi-circle attached to the side of a normal vertical menu c=
ontaining the window list. (It would have to warp the pointer so it comes u=
p in the center of the pie (or half-pie), there's no point making a pie if =
it doesn't do that.)

I'd also add ctrl-x/c/v, and perhaps a prefix key to enter control codes. (=
I guess alt-x nnnn works already, but I know the keys.)=20

I think that's all my actual requirements for making Sam comfortable. It's =
window management is a little fussy, but it doesn't annoy me the way Acme's=
 can. Acme makes assumptions about workflow which are only rarely valid in =
my usage, and I can't see how to improve it without scrapping its entire wi=
ndow system premise, and starting again. Sam might be improved with a simpl=
e paned arrangement, but not like acme in that the panes are relatively fix=
ed. Still, I prefer overlapping windows on a small screen, despite the extr=
a fuss of managing them. With the way my eyesight is going, that might soon=
 be any screen. (That reminds me, I never did get around to porting ESpeak =
to Plan 9. It's supposedly C++, but IIRC the only actual C++ was in the Ris=
cOS-specific parts. I remember very C-like code, anyway.)

Almost forgot: I also had an idea for a second control window for Sam. The =
idea is that you enter commands into it, but they're not executed immediate=
ly. Instead, when you button-2 click, the entire line is executed. In Acme,=
 I found myself frequently re-using commands. This would make that easy in =
Sam too -- or easier, rather. You can already snarf and send, but snarfing =
isn't so quick -- see above. 9front added chording to Samterm, but it's not=
 reliable when I use it; needs a bit of fixing.=20


Speaking of menus reminding me of stuff, sometimes I lc /bin/games to remin=
d me what games exist, which was my primary use for a launcher menu in Linu=
x. I don't play many of them often. I like Plan 9's hierarchical /bin. It's=
 a shame it's not very simple to union mount more than one level in Plan 9.

>=20
> Something I've been thinking along the same lines:
> Inferno's shell allows one to add custom buttons to a shell window.
> See more here:
> http://debu.gs/entries/interlude-inferno-at-work

A fun idea. :) Acme is similarly flexible, of course, and my Forth junk def=
initely will be.=20

Remarking on parts of that article:

"After that, starting up Inferno and hitting command-F (to run Inferno full=
-screen) makes the Mac look like an Inferno terminal. Perfect! I can lie to=
 myself about what=E2=80=99s actually running on the computer."
This is what I did with my Mac. :) I don't hate its native interface but it=
 is a bit dumb. Before I ever started using Plan 9 on it, I tried Linux but=
 it was more hassle than necessary, and some hardware didn't work. I put OS=
 X back on, (10.4, one of the best versions,) used its control panel, wifi =
setup, and nothing else except the X server full-screen. It was the best of=
 both worlds, I loved it! :) Later, I variously ran Inferno, P9P Acme, and =
drawterm full-screen, usually with an external mouse. (It doesn't do multi-=
touch.)=20

>=20
> This could be used to add shortcuts to common/more complicated text
> editing tasks in Inferno's sh + sam -d.
> I'm not sure if this would free one from using a 3-button mouse, though.

Didn't someone praise modern trackpads in this thread? In the dim and dista=
nt past, (at least a whole year ago,) I recall a multitouch patch appearing=
 for P9P. I think it entirely eliminated the need for a 3-button mouse. I'm=
 sure it could be reasonably applied to Inferno, and to Drawterm if it hasn=
't already.

--=20
I regret nothing except my new-found capitalization policies.