Emacs Language Sensitive Editing

Emacs Language Sensitive Editing

[Stephen Leake]

For those who might have missed it, here is the announcement of a
version release for Else, which has excellent support for Ada. It was
posted on comp.emacs.sources.


Emacs Language Sensitive Editing (ELSE). Access to the package can be
obtained from http://www.zipworld.com.au/~peterm

keywords: template, skeleton, abbreviation

ELSE is a minor mode for Emacs that provides code
templates/skeletons/abbreviations for whatever language major mode is in
force in the current buffer (assumes that you have a set of ELSE template
definitions for that language, of course! :-)). Very similar in concept to
the template, skeleton and others but more powerful and (hopefully) easier
to understand for people who are not Elisp experts because:

a. ELSE template definitions are written in an ASCII format rather than
Elisp style (with all those "gotchas" of missing closing braces etc :-));
and

b. comes with extensive documentation (40+ page manual).

ELSE comes with language templates for C, Python, Ada (83 and 95), Emacs
Lisp, C++ and Java. These template files are in varying degrees of
"completeness" and "usability" so choosing just one to trial ELSE may not
necessarily be fair to the mode :-). For instance, the C++ and Java
templates are in a very primitive state. I don't program in either of these
languages so they are pretty much first passes from a program I have written
that generates ELSE templates from EBNF. I am only publishing these language
templates in the hopes that they can give someone a starting point for
further development :-) I know of one developer who has started to use the
C++ templates and his changes are available on the web site (in
C++-cust.lse).

I consider the Python and Ada templates the most complete sets. The C
templates are from a very early era when I first started coding with ELSE
and thus reflect a fairly primitive set of templates. I am back into a C
environment now but in a maintenance role, so they don't get much of a
chance to get a work out :-).

This version has been a very long time in gestation. Users of ELSE will
appreciates some of the small, but significent changes that have been made
to the package.

As always, if there are any questions, comments, suggestions or requests for
help, feel free to contact me at peter.milliken@gtech.com :-) I am more than
happy to help people understand and use the package.

Peter



-- 
-- Stephe

Re: Emacs Language Sensitive Editing

[Peter Hermann]

Stephen Leake <stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:
> For those who might have missed it, here is the announcement of a
> version release for Else, which has excellent support for Ada. It was
> posted on comp.emacs.sources.
[snip]

nice to hear this.
unfortunately, I never familiarized with emacs
in spite of a number of initial attempts:
The major obstacle are those unspeakable special keystroke sequences
which I can not map on my different keyboard brands (PC, DEC, SGI, Sun).
I wonder how people are using their specific keyboards.
(e.g. where is "The Meta Key", where the ESC, gold, etc. etc.)
Advice is welcome.

-- 
Peter Hermann Tel+49-711-685-3611 Fax3758 ica2ph@csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de
Pfaffenwaldring 27 Raum 114, D-70569 Stuttgart Uni Computeranwendungen
http://www.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de/homes/ph/
Team Ada: "C'mon people let the world begin" (Paul McCartney)

Re: Emacs Language Sensitive Editing

[Jean-Marc Bourguet]

Peter Hermann <ica2ph@iris16.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de> writes:

> Stephen Leake <stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:
> > For those who might have missed it, here is the announcement of a
> > version release for Else, which has excellent support for Ada. It was
> > posted on comp.emacs.sources.
> [snip]
> 
> nice to hear this.
> unfortunately, I never familiarized with emacs
> in spite of a number of initial attempts:
> The major obstacle are those unspeakable special keystroke sequences
> which I can not map on my different keyboard brands (PC, DEC, SGI, Sun).
> I wonder how people are using their specific keyboards.
> (e.g. where is "The Meta Key", where the ESC, gold, etc. etc.)

The meta key is the one with a diamond on my Sun keyboard.  On
keyboard not having a meta key, usually the Alt key is used instead.
On PC, I've seen one of the "windows" key used as meta key as well.

The ESC key is the one labelled with Esc on most keyboards (sun, pc at
least). I've seen some Dec keyboards without it.  It is always
accessible as CTRL-[ and was also available as one of the function key
(F11 is memory serve) on those Dec keyboards.

I don't remember having see mention of the gold key with emacs.  When
I used some editor on VMS on VT100 it was one of the function key above
the numeric keypad, but I don't remember which.

I've added comp.emacs to the distribution list and set the follow up
there.

-- 
Jean-Marc

Re: Emacs Language Sensitive Editing

[Aidan Skinner]

 On 31 Oct 2001 08:50:04 GMT, Peter Hermann
<ica2ph@iris16.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de> wrote in
<9rodvs$2kh$1@infosun2.rus.uni-stuttgart.de>:

>  The major obstacle are those unspeakable special keystroke sequences
>  which I can not map on my different keyboard brands (PC, DEC, SGI, Sun).
>  I wonder how people are using their specific keyboards.

I remap the keyboards I use when possible to have the buttons on either side
of the space bar (alt on pc style) be meta and the button to the left of the
a key (caps lock on pc style) to be control. It's a ltoe more comfortable
than having to reach down with my pinie to hit the control key.

- Aidan
-- 
aidan@velvet.net  http://www.velvet.net/~aidan/  aim:aidans42
finger for pgp key fingerprint: |----------------------------
01AA 1594 2DB0 09E3 B850        | VII  XXIII |'i am a small
C2D0 9A2C 4CC9 3EC4 75E1        |   XLII     | trapped quote'

Re: Emacs Language Sensitive Editing

[Stephen Leake]

Peter Hermann <ica2ph@iris16.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de> writes:

> unfortunately, I never familiarized with emacs
> in spite of a number of initial attempts:
> The major obstacle are those unspeakable special keystroke sequences
> which I can not map on my different keyboard brands (PC, DEC, SGI, Sun).

Actually, the default Emacs keystrokes only require the control key
and the ASCII keys. They were specifically designed to not require
modification on _any_ system; they work over telnet, for example.

However, most people prefer to use the "meta" or "alt" keystrokes,
instead of the equivalent control keystrokes, because they require
fewer motions.

If you do that, you do have to learn how to configure your computer to
generate the keycodes Emacs expects when you hit a key. Sometimes you
can do this within Emacs, sometimes you must use OS or Windowing
system commands.

I have a complete set of function key bindings that I carry with me to
each machine that I use Emacs on. It can take a couple hours to figure
out how to adapt it to the new keyboard/Windowing/OS. Then I'm up and
running, with nothing more to learn. You can see my Emacs setup at
http://users.erols.com/leakstan/Stephe/emacs/index.html . 

But most of the time I'm using my Windows PC on my desk, with an X
window open on another system, running Emacs there. So the keyboard
handling is always the same; makes it easier. When I actually have to
type on a Sun keyboard, my fingers get confused! I long for the day
when all computers will have infrared interfaces to keyboards, and I
can carry mine around with me :).

> I wonder how people are using their specific keyboards. (e.g. where
> is "The Meta Key", where the ESC, gold, etc. etc.) Advice is
> welcome.

The easiest way to find out what keycodes each key emits is to start
Emacs, hit the key, and then hit C-h l. This shows the last hundred or
so keystrokes, in terms that Emacs understands. You can also use C-h k
to see the definition of a particular key.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: Emacs Language Sensitive Editing

[David Bolen]

Stephen Leake <stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov> writes:

> Actually, the default Emacs keystrokes only require the control key
> and the ASCII keys. They were specifically designed to not require
> modification on _any_ system; they work over telnet, for example.

I'm not sure I quite agree - there's lots of relatively core
functionality even in a default Emacs configuration that really needs
the Meta key.  For example, you can move around a character at time
with Ctrl sequences, but if you want to move by words you need to
involve Meta.  Not to mention that M-x is a pretty major prefix for
entering in any particular command.

But that doesn't mean you need a dedicated key, since any Meta-xx
sequence can be typed as two keystrokes with ESC - serving as a
virtual Meta-shift - and xx, and except maybe for some IBM terminals,
ESC is pretty much on any keyboard anyone is likely to use (albeit as
someone else mentioned, on some DEC keyboards it masqueraded as F11).
And it works fine over any remote protocols, since it's just a
standard individual ASCII code.

This is in large part because the original systems in use during the
first developments of Emacs did have dedicated META keys.

In fact, I've never gotten in the habit of actually using whatever key
on a system serves as the Meta key (at least in terms of using it as a
shift-like key like Ctrl), probably because the earliest systems I
used Emacs on didn't have one.  So instead I just always use ESC first
for such commands, and that's proven portable with no relearning (or
retraining fingers) on every system I've used over the past 15+ years.

--
-- David
-- 
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 \               David Bolen            \   E-mail: db3l@fitlinxx.com  /
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Re: Emacs Language Sensitive Editing

[Florian Weimer]

David Bolen <db3l@fitlinxx.com> writes:

[ESC]

> And it works fine over any remote protocols, since it's just a
> standard individual ASCII code.

Not quite true.  Some keys are represented by escape sequences, and if
network quality results in delays between the ESC and the following
characters, funny things can happen.

Re: Emacs Language Sensitive Editing

[Ted Dennison]

In article <uofmnweh9.fsf@ctwd0143.fitlinxx.com>, David Bolen says...
>But that doesn't mean you need a dedicated key, since any Meta-xx
>sequence can be typed as two keystrokes with ESC - serving as a
>virtual Meta-shift - and xx, and except maybe for some IBM terminals,
.
>In fact, I've never gotten in the habit of actually using whatever key
>on a system serves as the Meta key (at least in terms of using it as a
>shift-like key like Ctrl), probably because the earliest systems I
>used Emacs on didn't have one.  So instead I just always use ESC first
>for such commands, and that's proven portable with no relearning (or
>retraining fingers) on every system I've used over the past 15+ years.

Same here. As far as I'm concerned, "Meta" = ESC (press and release). Its been a
damn long time since I used a Sun keyboard.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. 
However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: Emacs Language Sensitive Editing

[Georg Bauhaus]

David Bolen <db3l@fitlinxx.com> wrote:
: Stephen Leake <stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov> writes:
: 
:> Actually, the default Emacs keystrokes only require the control key
:> and the ASCII keys.
: 
: I'm not sure I quite agree - there's lots of relatively core
: functionality even in a default Emacs configuration that really needs
: the Meta key.

Meta = ESC = Ctl-[

Georg

Re: Emacs Language Sensitive Editing

[Georg Bauhaus]

Peter Hermann <ica2ph@iris16.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de> wrote:

: The major obstacle are those unspeakable special keystroke sequences
: which I can not map on my different keyboard brands (PC, DEC, SGI, Sun).

The editors sam, acme, and wily, have readjusted my personal
ways of using Emacs. If your interface includes a mouse or similar,
try them, then go back to Emacs and start using the mouse.

Also, viper mode it good for your fingers. :-)

Georg

Re: Emacs Language Sensitive Editing

[David Bolen]

Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> writes:

> David Bolen <db3l@fitlinxx.com> writes:
> 
> [ESC]
> 
> > And it works fine over any remote protocols, since it's just a
> > standard individual ASCII code.
> 
> Not quite true.  Some keys are represented by escape sequences, and if
> network quality results in delays between the ESC and the following
> characters, funny things can happen.

A valid point, but I've found that more theoretical than realistic in
my experience.  Its really quite rare to have a terminal driver get
confused between autogenerated ESC-prefixed sequences (which almost
invariably end up in a single frame or packet or PDU across the
network or have ms gaps over a serial interface) versus my human
response time key sequence which easily has hundreds of ms between ESC
and the next character.  

Besides which most such key sequences have more than ESC in common
(e.g., ESC [) and reduce the chance of collision with something you'd
type.  And making it even less likely is that I rarely use such
special keys in Emacs anyway, since, as you say, I've got Ctrl and
ESC/Meta to perform anything I want.

--
-- David
-- 
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 \               David Bolen            \   E-mail: db3l@fitlinxx.com  /
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