Textedit wars (was vi vs emacs in a student environment)

[Bruce G. Barnett]

In article <5071 at watcgl.waterloo.edu> lrbartram at watcgl.waterloo.edu (lyn bartram) writes:
|
|	...etc.   *Quad* clock?  4 quick clicks?  Why 4?  if there are any
|	other multiple clicks ( double, even single ) i can just imagine
|	the ease of making errors.

Not really. A single click:
	A) changes the insertion point
	B) Selects one character.

To select more than one character, you can use the middle mouse button
to modify (extend) the selection. 

This is a pain when you want to cut/paste a word or line, because you
have to precisely align the mouse before clicking.

SunView/textedit solves this problem by multiple clicking.

	2 clicks - word mode
	3 clicks - line mode
	4 clicks - entire buffer.

This makes it very easy to cut and paste words or lines.

To select a line:
	Move the mouse anywhere on the line and give the left mouse
	button three clicks.

To select several lines:
	Select the first/last line with three clicks
	Move the mouse to the last/first line and click the middle
	mouse button once. The selection 'rounds up' to whole lines.

The delay between selections are user-programmable.

I find the multiple-clicking easy to use and consistant as a means of
selection. The only time I have problems is when the system is bogged
down, the programmable delay is too large, and I do too many
mouse-ahead operations. And since I can immediately see the results
of the selection, I don't make too many 'disastrous' errors.

One subtle feature of the multiple clicks: 

	With most mouse editors, it is difficult to quickly place the
insertion point at the first/last character of a word/line.  With
multiple clicks, the insertion point is also 'rounded'. That is, if
you want to insert before a word, you position the mouse somewhere in
the first half of the word, and double click.  If you want to insert
at the beginning of a line, position the mouse somewhere in the first
half of the line and triple click. Same for insertions at the end of a
word/line. 
-- 
	Bruce G. Barnett 	<barnett at ge-crd.ARPA> <barnett at steinmetz.UUCP>
				uunet!steinmetz!barnett