Re: [9fans] Small program "PlanKey" (paraphrase of DOSKey)

[erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net>]

> > How about turning acme to universal UI, in the style of old Oberon?
>
> Acme very deeply believes that everything's just text. It would be
> substantial effort to get it to be any more universal than that. I'm
> aware of at least two independent efforts by very smart people who
> stalled at about the same place.

i was hoping to avoid this discussion and keep things simple.

the problem with adding graphics to acme is kind of interesting
though.  text pretty much does it's own layout.  that is, you can
teach acme how to layout and wrap text by hard coding the rules.
tabs get the width of $tabstop characters, etc.  when you add
graphics, things get a bit more interesting.  the easy (but inflexible)
way of doing it is like 9term, either text or graphics.  that's a step.
faces and stats could run in acme.  but hard to extend.  or,
a bit bolder way to go is to give acme a boxes-n-glue layout device.
then Mailfaces could put the face in a left column and the
standard information in the right column.

that's enough hand waving for this month.

- erik