Re: saved replacement texts?

[jeremy@sw.oz.au (Jeremy Fitzhardinge)]

Chris Siebenmann bubbles:
>  Automatic placement of new windows probably isn't the default because
> Pike didn't have a good way to do it, especially in sam (it's also
> somewhat against the model). I don't really see how to fix that.

An interesting paper to read by Pike is the one on his "Help" system.
He takes quite a different approach based on "sensible defaults" and
"minimal actions".

This means that there is no click to type, because the click used to type
has no purpose, other than as a click.  Likewise, there are no menus,
because pulling up a menu is a waste of a click.

Clicking on a word selects the word, rather than having to drag, since
selecting words is the default action to match the most common operation.
Selecting words is also the way you perform operations.  If you want
to open a file, you select the word "open" anywhere it appears, and do
something to act upon it (can't quite remember).  Therefore, if you
want a menu, you open up a text buffer, and type the menu you want.
Text buffers can be linked to underlying programs, talking through
a special file heirachy (plan 9, of course).  "Underlying programs"
means normal tool-type programs, with rc scripts doing any glueing needed.

"Sensible defaults" also means automatic placement of windows.

While it's very much a prototype with heavy experimentation, it looks
very usable.  There was talk of it being distributed with the academic
Plan 9 release.  Is this so (Matty?)?

	J