Re: simple editor required

[Paul Edwards]

"Bruce Ingalls" <bingalls@CUT-this-SPAM-BLOCK.fit-zones.com> wrote in message 
news:6V2Da.96131$h42.53153@twister.nyc.rr.com...
> Paul Edwards wrote:
> > I'm wanting to use emacs as a substitute for vi.
> >
> > I'm after the following features:
> >
> > 1. When I press the "a" key I want an "a" to appear on the screen
> > (that rules out "vi").
>
> Add http://cream.sourceforge.net/ to your vi.
>
> http://emacro.sf.net/ is the equivalent for emacs. However, you may
> find yourself turning off features.
>
> > 4. When I attempt to mark a block of text, I don't expect a find or
> > a goto to lose my marker (that rules out Xemacs 20.4).
>
> Rules out most editors.
> I would expect to copy or cut selected text, before moving on to another
> command.

emacs 20.7.1 behaves as I expect.  I do ctrl-escape to start
marking, and then I can find or goto to get to the spot where
I want the block to end, and then I go ctrl-w to cut.

xemacs loses my marker.

> How do you expect to unselect text?

ctrl-g.

> Emacs is designed to be powerful, not simple.
> Try nedit or pico for less featureful editors.

I'm already familiar with the emacs commands, it's just that I
seem to get different results with every new emacs I encounter.

It's like they keep changing the defaults just to annoy me, and I
need to find some arcane thing to put it back to normal.

BFN.  Paul.