Re: editors - open source - written in ADA?

["Nick Roberts" <nickroberts@adaos.worldonline.co.uk>]

"Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote in
message news:9tbdvi$4cv$1@nh.pace.co.uk...
> What about making a subprogram that takes an Unbounded_String as a
parameter
> and allows the user to edit the content of that string? A system dependent
> or user selectable editor could underly it - or perhaps some
> semi-standardized editor could be built under it and made in flavors that
> would work on popular platforms? Would this be a useful thing to have as a
> standard component?
>
> I could imagine two useful versions: One that just dealt with standard
> character data and one that dealt with XML. THere might need to be some
> other options as well with respect to how the editor is displayed &
> interacted with, but it seems like as nice utility to have around in some
> standard context.

In a GUI environment, this would be a widget?

What might be pretty handy would be for Ada implementations to add something
like:

   procedure Text_IO.Edit_Line (
      File : in     File_Type;
      Item : in out String;
      Last : in out Natural);

If File is an interactive terminal (or equivalent), this procedure would
initialise the line to Item(first..Last) and then allow the user a
reasonable set of editing facilities (e.g. cursor left/right, insert,
delete), before returning the result in Last and Item(first..Last). If File
is not interactive, the procedure would simply behave as
Get_Line(File,Item,Last). I don't suppose this is a new idea.

Are there any open-source 'screen' packages (which allow at least clear
screen, cursor addressing, and restricted-field data entry), written in Ada?

--
Best wishes,
Nick Roberts