The editor 'aee' (another easy editor) is intended to be a simple, easy to use terminal-based screen oriented editor that requires no instruction to use. The intended audience for aee ranges from people who are new to computers to experienced software developers.
Modifications include: changes to the make file and new_curse to enable building on modern systems, removal of xae, and, finally, removal of new_curse.
Based on the source version from the gitlab mirror of freebsd's ports.
Legal stuff:
THIS MATERIAL IS PROVIDED "AS IS". THERE ARE NO WARRANTIES OF
ANY KIND WITH REGARD TO THIS MATERIAL, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Neither Hewlett-Packard nor
Hugh Mahon shall be liable for errors contained herein, nor for
incidental or consequential damages in connection with the
furnishing, performance or use of this material. Neither
Hewlett-Packard nor Hugh Mahon assumes any responsibility for
the use or reliability of this software or documentation. This
software and documentation is totally UNSUPPORTED. There is no
support contract available. Hewlett-Packard has done NO
Quality Assurance on ANY of the program or documentation. You
may find the quality of the materials inferior to supported
materials.
This software may be distributed under the terms of Larry Wall's
Artistic license, a copy of which is included in this distribution.
This notice must be included with this software and any
derivatives.
Any modifications to this software by anyone but the original author
must be so noted.
The editor 'aee' may be built on most UNIX systems by simply
entering 'make' at the shell prompt in the directory where
the source is located, followed by make install.
You can try using the curses option if you don't have ncurses.
new_curse has been excised because it isn't very useful in the modern era
If you would like to try it, it's available via a link above.
If you find it necessary to change the
options you build with, (and you might), simply edit the makefile
and/or install/uninstall scripts.
The editor 'aee' (another easy editor) is intended to be a simple, easy to use terminal-based screen oriented editor that requires no instruction to use. The intended audience for aee ranges from people who are new to computers to experienced software developers.
aee's simplified interface is highlighted by the use of pop-up menus which make it possible for users to carry out tasks without the need to remember commands. An information window at the top of the screen shows the user the operations available with control-keys.
aee allows users to use full eight-bit characters. If the host system has the capabilities, aee can use message catalogs, which would allow users to translate the message catalog into other languages which use eight-bit characters. See the file aee.i18n.guide for more details.
aee relies on the virtual memory abilities of the platform it is running on and does not have its own memory management capabilities.
For a text editor to be easy to use requires a certain set of abilities. In order for aee to work, a terminal must have the ability to position the cursor on the screen, and should have arrow keys that send unique sequences (multiple characters, the first character is an "escape", octal code '\033'). All of this information needs to be in a database called "terminfo" (System V implementations) or "termcap" (usually used for BSD systems). In case the arrow keys do not transmit unique sequences, motion operations are mapped to control keys as well, but this at least partially defeats the purpose. The curses package is used to handle the I/O which deals with the terminal's capabilities.
While aee is based on curses, I have included here the source code to new_curse, a subset of curses developed for use with aee. 'curses' often will have a defect that reduces the usefulness of the editor relying upon it.
The file new_curse.c contains a subset of 'curses', a package for applications to use to handle screen output. Unfortunately, curses varies from system to system, so I developed new_curse to provide consistent behavior across systems. It works on both SystemV and BSD systems, and while it can sometimes be slower than other curses packages, it will get the information on the screen painted correctly more often than vendor supplied curses. Unless problems occur during the building of aee, it is recommended that you use new_curse rather than the curses supplied with your system.
If you experience problems with data being displayed improperly, check your terminal configuration, especially if you're using a terminal emulator, and make sure that you are using the right terminfo entry before rummaging through code. Terminfo entries often contain inaccuracies, or incomplete information, or may not totally match the terminal or emulator the terminal information is being used with. Complaints that aee isn't working quite right often end up being something else (like the terminal emulator being used).
aee, new_curse, and Xcurse were developed using K&R C (also known as "classic C"), but they can also be compiled with ANSI C. You should be able to build aee by simply typing "make". A make file which takes into account the characteristics of your system will be created, and then aee will be built. If there are problems encountered, you will be notified about them.
aee is the result of conflicting design goals. While I know that it solves the problems of some users, I also have no doubt that some will decry its lack of more features. I will settle for knowing that aee does fulfill the needs of a large number of users. The goals of aee are:
- To be so easy to use as to require no instruction.
- To have enough functionality to be useful to a large number of people.
aee is a superset of 'ee', a simplified text editor that is (as of this writing) available with various free UNIX distributions (FreeBSD and Linux).
Hugh Mahon |___|
[email protected] | |
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