Softpanorama (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)

Eastern Orthodox Editors(XEDIT/KEDIT/THE...)

The introductory paper Orthodox Editors introduced some ideas on which this page was build. Here is the abstract of the paper:

This paper tried to introduce a new concept: orthodox editors as a special category of editors. All of them have command line set of commands and respective glue macrolanguage. We have found two such families:

• Eastern Orthodox family represented by such editors as Xedit, Kedit, THE. It uses REXX as a glue macrolanguage.
• Western Orthodox family represented by vi and its derivatives with VIM 6 as the top representative of the category. They have ad-hoc macro language (primitive in VI, better but still ugly in VIM) but have unique and unmatched ability to use shell as an extension of the command set.

We define the notion of  "orthodox editors" as having at least three distinct features:

• They have a command line editing support and respective glue macro that be some common scripting language (TCL, REXX) or unique for the application (YASL  - yet another scripting language) like in vim 6
• They support of folding (all command in XEDIT and its derivatives; folding capabilities in vim6 )
• They permit doing any editing task using keyboard (although mouse can speed up or simplify many of those tasks).

This article is a modest attempt to create a basic classification useful for further studying this important class of editors. The author argues that this class of editors can serve as viable mid-weight editors for programmers (see a companion paper A Note on Size-based Classification of Text Editors for this further discussion of related ideas).

Read more

Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov

Notes: Those pages are written by people for whom English is not a native language. Some amount of grammar and spelling errors should be expected. This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site. It cannot replace the best teachers and the best books. The site contain some obsolete pages as it develops like a living tree... Some links on older pages are broken. Please try to use Google, Open directory, etc. to find a replacement link (see HOWTO search the WEB for details). We would appreciate if you can mail us a correct link. Search Amazon by keywords:     Open directory Research Index

Old News ;-)

[Jul 11, 2007] Corrected link

• *****  Supporting stuff for The Hessling Editor -- Franz-Josef Wirtz (nospam-contact@gut-wirtz.de) page. This is probably the best page about EOE. Highly recommended.

The Old Joel on Software Forum - Highly programmable non-Emacs editor

I really like Visual Slickedit ( http://www.slickedit.com ).

It has a fantastic expanded regular expression engine. It's also heavily extendable by programming macros in Slick-C (interpreted C like language). In reality, the whole editor is written in Slick-C and the binary code is just the Slick-C interpreter.

Mark Smith
Wednesday, December 24, 2003

Extreme programmability is important for several reasons.  The first is that it offers up a lot of options, letting you do things that the author hadn't thought of.  For example, I often use non-mainstream programming languages that would benefit from being syntax colored in non-standard ways (certain types of lines colors a specific way, rather than just keywords).  I'd also like to be able to extend an editor to context-sensitive tab completion; build custom, interactive project management systems, etc.  All of this stuff is business as usual in Emacs.  But Emacs is a relic of the past otherwise.

Text munging is easy.  We have entire programming languages devoted to it.  An editor just needs to be a thin interface with hooks to routines written in such a language.  It shouldn't be a monlithic application.  I'm surprised that no one has followed this road, other than Stallman's Emacs.

Junkster
Wednesday, December 24, 2003

SlickEdit 10 Cool Features At SlickEdit we believe that there is only one thing cooler than our software - the developers who use it. To get the most out of the 15-day trial for SlickEdit v10, check out these cool features. 

• Code Navigation—Use (Ctrl+.) to jump from a symbol to the symbol definition. Use (Ctrl+/) to list all of the references for the current symbol and optionally jump to the first reference. These operations set a bookmark that can be popped to return you to the previous location (Ctrl+,).
• Symbol View—Select the Symbol window to display the definition of the current symbol in the editor window, allowing you to see the definition without having to open a separate buffer.
• References View—Displays the list of references for a symbol when you use (Ctrl+/).  You can also use the Symbol dropdown list to enter a symbol or access recently viewed symbols.
• Syntax Expansion—Expands common block structures when initial keywords are typed. When “if” is typed followed by a space, SlickEdit completes the rest of the statement. This works with other common structures, such as: for, while, do, and try. Additional structures can also be defined.
• Surround With—Use to surround existing lines of code with a new structure such as: if, for, while, and try. The existing code is automatically placed inside braces and indented. Additional structures can also be defined for Surround With.
  Completions—Along with the usual tag-driven completions, you can use the complete-prev command (Ctrl+Shift+,) and complete-next command (Ctrl+Shift+.) to search backward or forward in the current buffer for a matching string. Use the complete-more command (Ctrl+Shift+Space) to insert additional text from the matching location.
  
  Editable, Dynamic Diff Tool—Use to compare directories and files. When two files are displayed, you can edit the content using many of the editing features available in SlickEdit. The file is automatically updated as you edit.
  
  Aliases—Define short names that can be expanded to insert text into a file or directory paths in SlickEdit, with (Ctrl+Space).  Aliases can automatically insert the date, time, cursor placement and prompt for parameters.
  
  SmartPaste—Use to automatically indent the code selection you are pasting to match the indentation format of the new location. If the selection contains multiple lines, each line is correctly formatted to match the new location.
• Backup History—Use to store each version of each file when it is saved, enabling you to view, compare, and restore previous versions without having to use source control.
• Smart Line Selections—Line selections are pasted above or below the current line of code (depends upon Option settings), saving you from tediously positioning the cursor at the beginning or end of a line prior to pasting your line of code.
• Syntax-driven Searching—Use to reduce the number of false positives in your searches by restricting searches based on program syntax. For example, you can limit a search to find or omit comments, as well as restrict or omit string literals.
• Emulations—Choose from thirteen keyboard emulations for other editors. Emulations contain the key bindings and behaviors necessary to emulate another editor.
• Recorded and Programmable Macros—Use macros to automate frequently repeated tasks. Recorded macros capture a sequence of operations as you apply them and can be executed at a later time. Programmable macros use the SlickEdit Slick-C programming language to customize and extend the functionality of SlickEdit

[Nov 18, 2004] IBM Releases Object Rexx as Open Source

A few weeks ago, IBM quietly released Object Rexx to the open source community. RexxLA — the REXX Language Association — targeting the first release of Open Object REXX for early 2005.

The "ooRexx" project has been established on SourceForge, says Davis, and the code and documentation are being converted from IBM internal formats to open standard formats. While IBM is involved in the transfer, it does not intend to be formally involved in the project. A number of current and former IBMers have signed on to help with the project on their own time, however, including Rick McGuire, the primary architect and author of Object Rexx. IBM Fellow Mike Cowlishaw, who created the REXX language, "is very interested in seeing Open Object Rexx succeed," says Davis. "His expertise and counsel are immediately available should we need it."

[Jun 21, 2003] allfold - View selected lines by folding away the rest vim online. A very interesting emulation  of Xedit all command in vim 6  by Marion Berryman. Highly recommended.

The allfold scripts implement a feature set which allows VIM users to view ALL interesting lines in a buffer and FOLD the rest away.  Lines are selected to be interesting in one of the two following ways:

1. They match a regular expression pattern.
2. They are in a block of lines delimited inclusively by a line that matches
   a beginning RE pattern and a line that matches an ending RE pattern.

Sets of lines matching different selection criteria can be combined using logical "and" and "or" operations. The selections may be inverted so that lines not matching the selection criteria are actually selected.

Beyond these basics other features do such things as manipulating lists of selection commands and using the raw selection "bit-map" directly to enhance the capabilities and ease of use of the scripts.

[Jun 20, 2003]  ROSCOE Editor information

Subject: Comments from a Softpanorama reader
Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 14:20:01 -0800
From: Brad Wilmot 
To: postmaster@softpanorama.org

... Another editor that grew out of xedit, which was IBM mainframe (MVS - S/390) based was a commercial product named ROSCOE. (not an acronym).

I've used xedit, kedit and ROSCOE for just about as long as they've been out.

Although kedit has numerous advantages over xedit (kedit is a GUI interface as opposed to xedit being a green screen technology), ROSCOE is much richer than xedit, which also is a green-screen based editor.

xedit, kedit and ROSCOE have many similar features, look and feel. I really like ROSCOE and miss its feature rich environment on UNIX and Windows.

ROSCOE began in a now defunct company called Applied Data Research, probably in the 1980 period. It was sold to Ameritech who later sold the product to Computer Associates (CA). Until the CA purchase, ROSCOE was a growing and dynamic product. Since then, it is stagnant on new features, but still actively maintained (and overcharged for) by CA. ROSCOE is currently in use on several thousand mainframe computers and has 10's of thousands of users today!

The reason I'm writing, is that your discourse on editors went on at length about xedit and kedit, but failed to describe/mention the contribution of ROSCOE which way-out performs xedit, and in certain ways kedit, within the limits of a text-only UI.

Some of the features of ROSCOE that make it highly productive:

• The target of operations is line-number based. xedit and kedit utilize the concept of "current-line" (and relative number of lines), where as the ROSCOE command syntax allows for the user to easily specify the scope of operations, in an more natural manner.
• ROSCOE has built in a concept of libraries so that multiple users can collaborate on projects, and therefore manage access to files. This concept is lost in a peer-to-peer environment when using kedit. The scripting language is easier and more natural for programmers from common procedural languages such as COBOL and FORTRAN to learn and use. (My opinion). Rexx (and in ways, Clists) are awkward and not as well integrated with the editing environment.
• Viewing files, as opposed as editing files is a natural extension to the editor. A rich command set, including all xedit commands. Most important: INCL (like the kedit ALL command) and the EXCL (the opposite of INCL).
• If you can see it, you can copy/manipulate it with ROSCOE.
• Very rich hex or text mode editor
• Has application interface to create UI screens with entry fields and the ability to interact with a user. In fact, users can be totally controlled from point of sign-on via a scripted series of screens. Has easy to use, (optional of course) menu lists of libraries or directories.

As a footnote on kedit; Mansfield has discontinued any further enhancements to kedit. They still actively market their product, but expect no future enhancements. kedit was authored by a single programmer (owner) who has now retired.

[Sep 3, 2002] SourceForge.net Project Filelist Version 3.1

[Mar 20, 2002] THE links were updated (THE Hessling Editor is now on Sourceforge).  There are now 3.0 RPMs, including Red Hat 7.2 RPM. For more information, see RPM of Group Applications-Editors

[Jan 17, 2000] THE 3.0 is now available

Subject:[THELIST] THE 3.0 released
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 18:07:58 +1000
From: Mark Hessling <m.hessling@qut.edu.au>
To:  THELIST@POSTOFFICE.CSO.UIUC.EDU

THE 3.0 has been released! PDCurses has also been released, so if you intend building the X11 port of THE, please use the released version of PDCurses 2.4. You can download THE via my Downloads page at:
http://www.lightlink.com/hessling/downloads.html

Over the next month or so, I will attempt to upload more binary ports of THE. Contributions for the binary ports are welcome.

Cheers, Mark

Recommended Links

XEDIT Summary -- XEDIT was the first implementation of EOE.

***** THE Hessling Editor  the official page for THE editor. I really admire the author M.Hessling@qut.edu.au. and think that he is much underappreciated open source software developer in all this current Linux-related frenzy. He definitely deserves more support from community.

• *****  Supporting stuff for The Hessling Editor by Franz-Josef Wirtz (nospam-contact@gut-wirtz.de) page. This is probably the best page about EOE. Highly recommended.

• Intro to the (The Hessling Editor)

***** X2 Programmer's Editor by Blair W. Thompson

• Toby Thurston -- collection of REXX macros for X2, and a document describing how to write X2 macros.

www.kedit.com -- the development is stalled. Version 1.5 is the last one available and was written n 1996 or so. The last maintainance release is KEDIT for Windows 1.5 Service Level 3 (January 1998).

• KEDIT Hints and Tips Top 10 Underused Features

• KEDIT V1.5 for Windows Fact Sheet by Mansfield (PDF Document Size 87K)

• KEDIT for Windows Questions & Answers

Rex Swain's Home Page

• Rex Swain's KEDIT/KEXX Summary  - a lot of interesting info. most in applicable to any member of the family.  

• Rex Swain's XEDIT Summary

• REXX Summary

Open Directory - Computers Programming Languages Rexx Scripts

Xedit

Xedit is the originator of the family. Mostly used of VM/CMS -- an extremly interesting OS, based on the concept of virtual computer. I some respects much more interesting than Unix. I do not know exactly about AIX implementation, but suspect that it probably exists too. 

VM Download Library Packages -- useful macros, especially for users who like author have some VM/CMS experience...

Kedit

KEDIT is a first DOS descendant of VM/CMS XEDIT.  It is commercial editor and it is considered to be a flagship of this category. The current version for Windows (1.5) has many advanced features making better use of GUI (initial Xedit was command line only) and useful extensions of command-line functionality. This is Win32 only product developed by Mansfield Software Group (MSG). 

You can download KEDIT for Windows DEMO to test what KEDIT is. Text mode KEDIT for DOS and OS/2 is older and  weaker (demo should be available too, just ask MSG's Technical Support). Combination of REXX and editing primitive produce an amazingly powerful product -- essentially this is a text processing environment similar (but somewhat more convenient for complex reorganizations of text) to Perl in which you can program pretty complex tasks. I once written USENET messages catalog creator in Kedit that was used content generation of Softpanorama bulletin from 1995 till 1997. Many additional macros from user community exists: 

• Michael A. Golub's KEDIT macros -- a very nice page with a lot of useful macros. Will be especially interesting to TeX users (suggested by Tom Moran  July 12, 1999)

• ENHSRCH.ZIP - Contains a new collection of macros to implement extensions and enhancements to the ALL and CLOCATE commands.

• KLDSAMP.ZIP -- Sample KEDIT Language Definition files for PERL, TeX/LaTeX, Oracle PL/SQL, NetRexx, IBM JCL, IBM BAL, MASM, batch files, and Progress 4GL files.

• KEDIT for Windows Download Library

• User-Supplied Macros and Utilities for KEDIT for Windows

SlickEdit

SlickEdit - Home

Visual SlickEdit Gets Even Better

Programmers' editors such as SlickEdit's Visual SlickEdit 10 have become much more than manual tools for working with source code text. The March Version 10 update of Visual SlickEdit, a long-standing eWEEK Labs Analyst's Choice, provides impressive real-time analysis and display of program structure. Improvements include expanded tools for code refactoring as well as edit-time flagging of Java syntax errors.

Many tasks will benefit from Visual SlickEdit 10's capacity to edit files up to 2GB in size and to run not only on Windows but also on several Unix variants, including Mac OS X (with X11 support installed). Combined with fully integrated FTP facilities, this versatility rewards the investment of tailoring the editor to personal tastes.

Speaking of investment, though, the Windows-only named-user version of Visual SlickEdit 10 is no casual purchase at $284; the multiplatform package rings in at $799. Even so, that's not much in terms of developer hours, which is the proper perspective.

SlickEdit Studio An IDE in the Rough

Games from Within Are We There Yet SlickEdit's C++ Refactoring

Re Slickedit features in Emacs

Python and SlickEdit

Visual SlickEdit ( v. 10 ) - license - Comparison shopping at ZDNet Reviews -- prices for v.10 starting from $255.

THE

THE Hessling Editor -- GPLed editor that is probably best free alternative for users who know Kedit or Xedit or want to learn (it's not that difficult and macro language is much better than in Emacs ;-) . This implementation can be improved by community efforts.  See THE Reference - Table of Contents

The author Mark Hessling has other interesting products (see Mark Hessling's Home Page).

Additional links: 

• Contributions to The Hessling Editor 

  You will find here useful stuff when using The Hessling Editor by Mark Hessling. This editor is a free text mode editor basing on the concept of the IBM-mainframe editor XEDIT or its PC-world clone KEDIT. The editor uses REXX as it's easy to learn scripting language and thus, THE enables you to either work on files in an automated way by extending REXX with the editing functions or to extend the editor by using REXX macros. That way, you can change the behaviour of THE totally. So THE may be a versatile tool for manipulatinmg text files either interactively or by batch.

• Collection of THE macros Michael A. Golub's  They provide cyrrillization, formatting, text form Regina REXX documentation, more accurate KEDIT-like (but customized) behavior, smart TeX support and many other things. The latest version is  !THE.zipp (371528 bytes) dated November 02, 1998. 
• Word Processing and Text Editors -- short reference for THE
• Intro to the (The Hessling Editor)

X2

• X2 Programmer's Editor (suggested by Tom Moran  July 12, 1999)
  • The X2 Editor is an ASCII text editor suitable for editing any flat text file. There are versions available for the OS/2, DOS, Windows NT, Windows 95, AIX 4.2, and Linux operating systems. A beta version is available for Sun Solaris SunOS 5.6.
    The OS/2, Windows 95, and Windows NT versions are 32 bit VIO (full screen) applications, which can be used either from a full screen session or from a VIO window. The Unix versions are X-Windows applications, although a fullscreen CURSES version is also available for Linux. In features the X2 Editor is most similar to the EOS2 editor, although it has some important differences from that editor, including:
    • The ability to selectively exclude and show file lines (folding)
    • User definition of comment delimiter strings and keywords for highlighting on the display
    • REXX macro support
    • The maximum line length has been increased to 50000 characters
    • Display and edit (not insert/replace) of binary files
    • X2 provides an unlimited Undo/Redo stack
    • X2 provides several popup windows showing information about the edit session
    • Writing custom functions is done through a standard language (REXX). This makes macros easier to write and understand, but more files must be copied to use the same editor on another PC.
  • Toby Thurston has a collection of macros, and a document describing how to write X2 macros. He's also got a nice package call XMail, which uses X2 as a base for a simple POP mail client. Here is documentation Macros for the X Editor. Collection is probably easily portable to other members of the orthodox editor family. 

Sedit

• SEDIT --  commercial clone of XEDIT for Unix platforms. GUI-based version ( MOTIF or OPENLOOK X Window manager) also exists.
• Treehouse Software Inc. Products & Services SEDIT

uni-Xedit

• uni-XEDIT
• Brief Guide to the Uni-Xedit Editor

Last modified: February 28, 2008