[9fans] using sam

[Digby Tarvin digbyt@acm.org]

>From digbyt Sun Aug 23 19:04:20 1998
>Received: (from root@localhost)
>	by cthulhu.dircon.co.uk (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA22656
>	for digbyt (9fans@cse.psu.edu); Sun, 23 Aug 1998 19:04:19 +0100 (GMT/BST)
>X-Envelope-To: <cthulhu@popmail.dircon.co.uk>
>Received: from TDC.dircon.co.uk (root@tdc.dircon.co.uk [194.112.34.200])
>	by popmail.dircon.co.uk (8.8.8/8.8.7) with SMTP id RAA04008
>	for <cthulhu@popmail.dircon.co.uk>; Sun, 23 Aug 1998 17:02:29 +0100 (BST)
>Received: from popmail.dircon.co.uk by TDC.dircon.co.uk with SMTP id AA11114
>  (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for <digbyt@tdc.dircon.co.uk>); Sun, 23 Aug 1998 17:02:28 +0100
>Received: from mail.acm.org (mail.acm.org [199.222.69.4])
>	by popmail.dircon.co.uk (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA03975
>	for <digbyt@dircon.co.uk>; Sun, 23 Aug 1998 17:02:24 +0100 (BST)
>Received: from cse.psu.edu (majordom@claven.cse.psu.edu [130.203.3.50]) by mail.acm.org (8.8.5/8.7.5) with ESMTP id LAA28758 for <digbyt@acm.org>; Sun, 23 Aug 1998 11:53:26 -0400
>Received: from localhost (majordom@localhost) by cse.psu.edu (8.8.8/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA09668; Sun, 23 Aug 1998 12:02:04 -0400 (EDT)
>Received: by claven.cse.psu.edu (bulk_mailer v1.5); Sun, 23 Aug 1998 12:01:54 -0400
>Received: (from majordom@localhost) by cse.psu.edu (8.8.8/8.7.3) id MAA09648 for 9fans-outgoing; Sun, 23 Aug 1998 12:01:49 -0400 (EDT)
>X-Authentication-Warning: claven.cse.psu.edu: majordom set sender to owner-9fans using -f
>Received: from caldo.demon.co.uk (none@caldo.demon.co.uk [194.222.207.148]) by cse.psu.edu (8.8.8/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA09644 for <9fans@cs.psu.edu>; Sun, 23 Aug 1998 12:01:42 -0400 (EDT)
>From: forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk
>Message-Id: <199808231601.MAA09644@cse.psu.edu>
>To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
>Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 16:52:34 BST
>Subject: Re: [9fans] using sam
>Sender: owner-9fans@cse.psu.edu
>Reply-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
>Precedence: bulk
>X-UIDL: 387fb39663bac79bb532d125b36f666d
>
>last night in a hurry i wrote
>
>> up/down movement in non-proportional text is included --
>
>of course i meant proportional (-spaced) text not non-proportional.
>cursor keys make some sense when things are laid out
>on a fixed-sized grid (including menu items),
>which is why they made sense in
>the vt100 and DOS worlds, from which they were imported
>into the bitmapped world.
>
>>my decision was to make it the null selection. there's also
>>the question of which end of the selection to use. i chose to
>>always use q0 (the start), but could see an argument for using
>
>that's what i did when i enabled left/right movement as an
>experiment, to see if it made people happier.
>the world is still a vale of tears, the weather here is worse than ever,
>and i conclude the experiment was a failure.
>
I should probably add that, when I was asking about cursor
movement, I was not really asking for 'arrow' or function keys.

I would use arrow keys in preference to a mouse if I just wanted
to skip over one character in a line, but in general I shun
binding functions to these keys on other editors. I avoid PC
keyboards when I can, so prefer not to assume they exist,
and it is a pain to find arrow/function keys on some laptops.

On emacs, I am happy with control-f/control-b/crontrol-p/control-n,
and on modal editors like vi, I usr hjkl to move around.

Perhaps I could get by with something like having ESC take me
to the sam window, from which I could move my cursor and then
return. That would still be easier than trying to align a mouse
pointer on a laptop in a bumpy train...

(although the lack of a standard for positioning things like escape,
tab, control etc is another source of frustration :-/)

Regards,
DigbyT
-- 
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk