For the love of dogs, Xah, try to keep up. Aquamacs is an Emacs distribution that, which not there yet, is at least half way between "classic" Emacs and a modern Mac UI. You sound ridiculous, like if you were complaining about Windows not being really graphical, based on experience with Windows-386 in the era when 95 was already around.
On Jun 17, 5:13 pm, Xah Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [this post is a excerpt from > The Modernization of Emacs, Xah Lee, 2006-04 > athttp://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html > ] > > The Modernization of Emacs > > ---------------------------------------- > THE PROBLEM > > Emacs is a great editor. It is perhaps the most powerful and most > versatile text editor. And, besides text editing, it also serves as a > email application, newsgroup application, ftp application, irc > application, web browser, shell interface, file management > application, programable calculator, calendar and personal info > management application, lisp language system, among other things. > These seemingly wild functionalities are employed in production daily > by a significant number of programers around the world. Some calls > emacs as a Operating System as a joke. (Technically it does not > qualify because a OS implies management of hardware.). > > If emacs is such a great and powerful text editor why almost nobody > knows about it? Vast majority of people who need to write will be more > than happy to use editors other than emacs. Ask a Microsoft Windows > user. She'll be more than happy to use Microsoft Word↗. If he doesn't > have MS Word, he'll use NotePad↗ or WordPad↗. If he is a programer, > most will be more than happy to use any of other graphical editors on > the Windows platform or any of the Integrated development > environment↗. Same is true on other operating systems, and new editors > spring up here and there even though they don't have as much power or > flexibility as emacs. For example, there are NEdit, JEdit, Eclipse, > Xcode↗ , or the various associated with languages or third party > language software, such as Visual Basic or Borland C++. > > Many reasons can be made out of this. For example, emacs is not > bundled on popular operating systems such as Windows or Mac, which are > used by some 99% of computer users worldwide. Windows and Mac both > have simple text editors bundled that will satisfy majority of > computer users, which are non-professional computer users. (NotePad > and WordPad on Windows, TextEdit↗ on Mac) For the few professional > computer users, a majority will need a easy to use, yet powerful > editor that also does styled text, formatting, and sundry light > publishing needs such as table layout, simple line graphics drawing, > embedded images, math formulas. They will choose and adopt Microsoft > Word for their needs. The tiny percentage that might be interested in > emacs, are programers. Even among professional programers, a majority > shy away from emacs. > > A major difficulty among programers who do not use or like emacs, is > that emacs's user interface is rather esoteric, involving arcane > terminologies and keystrokes. This is in sharp contrast to the > thousands of software applications used today, where their User > Interface are similar and familiar to today's computer users. > > ---------------------------------------- > THE COMMON USER INTERFACE > > The following is a excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Common User > Access↗: > > CUA was a detailed specification and set strict rules about how > applications should look and function. Its aim was in part to bring > about harmony between MS-DOS applications, which until then had > implemented totally different user interfaces. > > Examples: > > * In WordPerfect, the command to open a file was [F7], [3]. > > * In Lotus 1-2-3, a file was opened with [/] (to open the menus), > [W] (for Workspace), [R] (for Retrieve). > > * In Microsoft Word, a file was opened with [Esc] (to open the > menus), [T] (for Transfer), [L] (for Load). > > * In WordStar, it was [Ctrl]+[K]+[O]. > > * In Emacs, a file was opened with [Ctrl]+[x] followed by [Ctrl]+ > [f] (for find-file). > > Some programs used [Esc] to cancel an action, some used it to complete > one; WordPerfect used it to repeat a character. Some programs used > [End] to go to the end of a line, some used it to complete filling in > a form. [F1] was often help but in WordPerfect that was [F3]. [Ins] > sometimes toggled between overtype and inserting characters, but some > programs used it for “paste”. > > Thus, every program had to be learned individually and its complete > user interface memorized. It was a sign of expertise to have learned > the UIs of dozens of applications, since a novice user facing a new > program would find their existing knowledge of a similar application > absolutely no use whatsoever. > > ---------------------------------------- > SIMPLE CHANGES > > In the following, i describe some critical changes that are also very > easy to fix in emacs. If emacs officially adopt these changes, i think > it will make a lot people, at least programers, like emacs and choose > emacs as their text editor. > > * Change the keyboard shortcut of Copy & Paste to ctrl-c and ctrl- > v as to be the same with all modern applications. > > * Change the undo behavior so that there is a Undo and Redo, as > the same with all modern applications. > > * Get rid of the *scratch* buffer. > > * Change the terminology of “kill” to “cut”, and “yank” to > “paste”. > > * Change the terminology of Meta key to Alt. > > * Make longlines-mode the default editor behavior for any file. > > Things emacs should do now, even though it eventually will do. > > * When opening a HTML document, automatically provide highlighting > of HTML, CSS, and Javascript codes. Similarly for other multi-language > files such as PHP, JSP, et al. This behavior must be automatic without > requiring user to customize emacs. > > Possible Documentation Change Proposals > > * Reduce the use of the word “buffer” in the emacs documentation. > Call it “opened file” or “unsaved document”. > > * Switch the terminology of Window and Frame so it is more > standard. That is, Emacs's “Window” should be called Panes or Frames. > While Emacs's “Frame” should be termed Window. > > * Change the terminology of keybinding to “keyboard shortcut” in > emacs documentation. Use the term keybinding or binding only in a > technical context, such as in elisp documentation. > > Xah > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ∑http://xahlee.org/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
