Re: $history on plan 9

Re: $history on plan 9

[Scott Schwartz]

Sam and 9term are indeed pretty neat, but (deep breath) I think emacs
is generally better, at least in a Unix environment (cautious exhale).

-- Scott (discordian at large)

Re: $history on plan 9

[Arnold Robbins]

The "history" part is that you can scoot back with the scroll bar or page-up
key, *edit the text in the window*, and then resubmit it (highlight the
whole line and use "send" from the middle-button menu).  This becomes
incredibly natural in a very short time.

The "hold mode" stuff is pretty neat too, although I don't use it nearly
as much as I should.

The Unicode fonts are copyrighted, and Matty has not yet gotten permission
to distribute them. Sigh.

Re: $history on plan 9

[Darrell Schiebel]

> P.S. The '9term' program gives the look and feel of 8.5 in an X environment.
> ftp to ftp.cs.su.oz.au:/pub/matty/9term and get the stuff there. It's neat.


	Thanks for all of the information. I compiled '9term' and it is pretty
	nice. However, I haven't been able to find a "history" mechanism that
	would warrant removing the '$history' hook... perhaps I've missed it.
	The only thing that is close is the 'bkwd' search on the third button,
	and it doesn't seem to support regular expressions. I like the 
	GNU-readline approach much better.

	It seems that the most interesting part of '9term', unicode support,
	is not available, at least I assume it is not. The missing piece seems
	to be the fonts, the protection on 

		'ftp.cs.su.oz.au:/matty/unicode/libXg.utf.fonts.tar.Z'

	is '-rw-------'. Too bad.

	If I've missed something here, please let me know. 

								thanks,
								Darrell Schiebel

Re: $history on plan 9

[James Matthew Farrow]

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    From:	dschieb@muse.CV.NRAO.EDU (Darrell Schiebel)
    Message-Id: <9306041753.AA10693@muse.cv.nrao.edu>
    Subject: Re: $history on plan 9
    To:	rc@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu
    Date:	Fri, 4 Jun 1993 13:53:33 -0400
    
    
    > P.S. The '9term' program gives the look and feel of 8.5 in an
    > X environment. ftp to ftp.cs.su.oz.au:/pub/matty/9term and get
    > the stuff there. It's neat.    
    
    	Thanks for all of the information. I compiled '9term' and it is pretty
    	nice. However, I haven't been able to find a "history" mechanism that
    	would warrant removing the '$history' hook... perhaps I've missed it.
    	The only thing that is close is the 'bkwd' search on the third button,
    	and it doesn't seem to support regular expressions. I like the 
    	GNU-readline approach much better.
    
    	It seems that the most interesting part of '9term', unicode support,
    	is not available, at least I assume it is not. The missing piece seems
    	to be the fonts, the protection on 
    
    		'ftp.cs.su.oz.au:/matty/unicode/libXg.utf.fonts.tar.Z'
    
    	is '-rw-------'. Too bad.
    
    	If I've missed something here, please let me know. 
    
    							thanks,
    							Darrell Schiebel

I'm currently trying to avoid legal wrangles over whether or not I'm
allowed to distribute the font images.  I mailed Charles Bigelow a
few weeks back but have not had a reply yet.  I'm about to mail him
again to find out what's going on.  Meanwhile at least some images
won't have that problem because I'm preparing some myself.

I've found with history that most of the time you're working in
the immediate context, so you can see the command or it's only a
page away.  For the times when it's not I have a simple command (gh --
grep history) which greps the history file associated with the current
window and a global file for this month and prints hits.  Either way
it ends up on the screen and you can just edit it and `send.'

I've found that I couldn't (or wouldn't like to) do away with
$history for the second reason.  It's too convenient.  I've found
9term and 8.5 seem to be incredible useful from the point of view of
the `malleability' of the text on the screen.  (How many times have
you just wanted to add that `-g' flag to a 5 line cc line output by
make and been foiled by xterm inserting CRs at the end of each line?)
You still want the history, 'though, for the commands slip that out
of your local context.  I know not having history when I log in on
Plan 9 is a pain although I'm still using Unix more than Plan 9 at
the moment so I can't say what a different it makes.  It just seems
awkward not having it there when you're used to it.

					Matty.
--
James Matthew Farrow                    | "For in that moment I beheld the ruin
matty@cs.su.OZ.AU                       | of my existence.  My world fell dark
Basser Department of Computer Science   | and my life became a shallow dream.
Sydney University - FAX: +61 2 692 3838 | `Odi et amo. Excrucior.'" - Tlindah

Re: $history on plan 9

[mycroft]

> (How many times have you just wanted to add that `-g' flag to a 5
> line cc line output by make and been foiled by xterm inserting CRs at
> the end of each line?)

Never, since I started using X11R5.  Must be about 21 months now.

Re: $history on plan 9

[Scott Schwartz]

On the other hand, sometimes those long command lines won't fit into
the tty input buffer.  

Re: $history on plan 9

[Byron Rakitzis]

Don't worry. I personally feel strongly about (1) backtracking on
existing features, and (2) $history in particular. I think the labs
people have strange priorities. Why was $history there for so many
years in the first place if it was not useful? It's not like 8.5 is
much different from any of the other 7.5 window systems that Rob has
written... (I am thinking of the mux UI in particular)

Re: $history on plan 9

[Arnold Robbins]

8.5 is part of Plan 9. Plan 9 can be licensed by universities.  Contact:

	Neera Kuckreja
	rm 2C557
	ATT Bell Laboratories
	Murray Hill, N.J., 07974
	U.S.A.
	+1 908 582-3855
	neera@research.att.com

No, we don't have it yet. Yes, I wish we did.

Arnold

P.S. The '9term' program gives the look and feel of 8.5 in an X environment.
ftp to ftp.cs.su.oz.au:/pub/matty/9term and get the stuff there. It's neat.

Re: $history on plan 9

[Darrell Schiebel]

> Earlier in the week I believe someone said that $history support has been
> removed from the plan 9 version of rc because 8.5 gave the users all the
> history they need. I hope Byron doesn't follow suit at some point in the
> future: one of the facilities I like most about rc is that its history can
> go back *months* if you can spare the disk space....

	Does anyone know if the source to this '8 1/2' window system 
	is available somewhere via FTP, or the chances of porting
	it to something like X??

							thanks,
							Darrell Schiebel

$history on plan 9

[Steve_Kilbane]

Earlier in the week I believe someone said that $history support has been
removed from the plan 9 version of rc because 8.5 gave the users all the
history they need. I hope Byron doesn't follow suit at some point in the
future: one of the facilities I like most about rc is that its history can
go back *months* if you can spare the disk space....