CompuServe Thread

Larry, We seem to agree completely. I would hazzard to believe that the majority of people on AmigaForum would agree. But let's not even mention Microsoft's idea of a Basic implementation for the Amiga should be, YECCCCCHHHHHHH!!!!! -RSL-

It's an exaggeration now because there aren't any applications built this way yet! But I think it's the same sort of difference – you go from manually feeding data between applications, and having every application build in it's own editing, comm, printing, graphics, etc modules to having things automaticly routed and connected together. It's a bit like having a powerful command line with pipes and filters ETC, but instead of invoking a single command and having various things run as a batch, all of the modules are continuously active and waiting for interactive commands. It will be a couple years before all the pieces come together, and it'll take bit of imagination to see the end result for a while. …cheath

You need applications that are designed with bringing a command set out to be programmed from the outside to do it, though once you get into rexx from an application you can let rexx run some batch type things with programs that don't have REXX support built in. . The best example now is using TxEd Plus along with AREXX and a new version of AmigaTeX that has AREXX support. I've built the TxEd Plus command language around using AREXX to make it easy to write quickie macros (IE, write the macro in the middle of some other stuff, cut to a scratch buffer, and invoke that buffer with a keystroke or menu selection) ; the macro can do things like "send the marked block of text to TeX, and process it, and then send the result to the TeX previewer; if there are any errors in TeX, come back to TxEd and jump to the line number where the error occurs". This turns TeX, a non-interactive but very powerful typesetting language, into an interactive system that lets you experiment with different layouts almost as quickly as the WYSIWYG page layout programs. . Another great potential application is telecomm programs, which you would invoke the macro "Get me some text into the clipboard", which will invoke your favorite editor (hope it's TxEd Plus C-:), and get the text, and close TxEd down returning control to the COMM program. Same thing could be done with the review modes, rather than having the COMM program allow a limited scrolling review buffer you can ship it out to an editor that is better designed to handle that kind of things. . The real neat thing is that it is all instant once you have set up a few macros, and you can cut out all the simple time consuming things you would otherwise need to do to get text from an editor outside a comm program. It takes a somewhat different orientation for the programmer – you can focus on creating the best of something smaller, rather than trying to implement everything every time you put together a new application. It's sort of an extension on using system functions, but the functions are higher-level things that use AREXX to smooth out the interface between modules and create a "seamless" combination of programs that works better than old "integrated" programs. …cheath

Should be able to do just that – Amiga-B to mark block, then do whatever to move the cursor to the final position. C-:

Marlene, I see Charlie has already answered, but I'll jump in too. Yes, you can mark, then search and copy or cut. You can even mark, then search backwards, make changes in the file while the block is marked, and probably much more. Regards, Larry.

I understand that it is a "memory hog". I wonder if power users would grow tired of the "user friendly" front end and want a more lower level control of the HyperStacks? -RSL-