Re: [9fans] how people learn things (was architectures)

[Ralph <ralph@inputplus.demon.co.uk>]

Hi,

> Me, too.  I think it would be useful to have a program (script?) that
> invoked a text editor ("sam" in my case) and whenever the source file
> was modified (sam "w" command), fire up troff|proof or whatever
> (including troff macros, etc.) in a *separate* window to show the
> current formatted result.  The idea is to not interrupt the editing
> session to view the result.

This is effectively what I've done in the past on Unix.  Either
instruct your version of vi to execute a command on every write of the
file or have a script watching the file which does `groff ... >x.ps'.

gv, a GhostScript viewer, already has an option to refresh when the
PostScript file changes.  This has the advantage that you remain at the
bottom of page 5 rather than a new window opening on page 1.


Ralph.