Date: Sun, 29 Jan 1995 13:59:04 -0500
From: davis AT amy DOT tch DOT harvard DOT edu ("John E. Davis")
To: dliu AT rice DOT njit DOT edu, gold AT ccr-p DOT ida DOT org
Subject: Re: Wild Crashes? hmmm...
Cc: davis AT amy DOT tch DOT harvard DOT edu, djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu

>    Dong> If you fell emacs is too large, get jed386, it can read the info
>    Dong> files just fine.
>
>Could you tell us a bit about jed386?  I'm looking around for an editor, and
>I haven't heard about this one.

Briefly, jed is an emacs-like, extensible, color-syntax highlighting editor
for MSDOS, OS/2, Unix, and VMS.  It is very small in comparison with emacs.
For example, it can be run off of a 360K floppy.  As a demonstration of its
extensibility, the info reader is written entirely in the extension language.
(Incidently, jed's info reader does not suffer from the problem that emacs
has: one can modify the info files and still read them with the jed's info
reader.)

jed is available from amy.tch.harvard.edu in pub/jed.  The latest version is
0.97-2.  Version 0.97-3 is available in pub/jed/test and supports the mouse
under MSDOS and Linux (via GPM mouse server).  So far, there have been no
real problems reported for 0.97-3 so I will probably move it into the main
directory soon.

The distribution (either .zip or .tar.gz) comes with FULL source.  The .zip
versions include jed.exe (real mode, bcc compiled) and jed386.exe (djgpp
compiled) for MSDOS.

The editor will compile under MSDOS, OS/2, VMS and almost all Unix systems.
In addition, `make xjed' will produce an XWindows executable.

Also in the distribution, you will find the source to a REAL recursive
highlighting grep that is able to grep through a directory tree, e.g.,

    C:\SRC> rgrep -r -x c spawn \djgpp\
    
will search through ALL .c files under \djgpp for `spawn'.    

jed is extensible in a language that I call S-Lang.  This language should be
easy to grasp for most C programmers--- certainly far easier to grasp than
lisp.  For example, this function when loaded by jed will format a buffer:

    define format_buffer ()
    {
       push_spot ();                             % save position
       bob ();                                   % beginning of buffer
       do indent_line_cmd (); while (down (1));
       pop_spot ();                              % return to previous place
    }
    
A manual about slang is available in the distribution directory.  The
extension language can also be embedded into other programs.  Look at
\slang\src\calc.c and \slang\demo\*.c as well as \slang\doc
after you unpack the the jed distribution. 

S-Lang is more than just a language--- it is also a platform independent
programmer's library.  It includes functions for screen management, GNU-like
readline, etc...  [For example, the screen management functions provided by
slang will replace ncurses in the next version (0.53) of the linux dos
emulator (dosemu)].

Here is a brief list of the editors main features:

    Emacs*, wordstar*, EDT* emulation
    C*, FORTRAN*, tex*, text editing modes
    
           * Color Syntax Highlighting in C, TeX, and FORTRAN on
	       ALL systems--- not just XWindows.  This means that you can
	       get color syntax highlighting through a dialup terminal
	       (e.g., MS-Kermit connected to a remote host).
           
    User configurable (bind keys, write functions, etc....)
    Region highlighting
    8 bit clean, edit binary files too.
    
           * The editor is able to recognize the difference between files
	     that have MSDOS (CRLF) style line endings and Unix (LF) style.
	     This means that one can safely edit files on a Linux DOS
	     partition from the Linux side or one can edit files on a Unix
	     file server using the DOS version of the editor.
	     
    Rectangular (box) cut/paste
    Backup and autosave files
    Full undo
    Regular expressions
    Calendar*
    Mail*, elm like rmail*
    Dired directory editor*
    Automatic horizontal pan/scroll  (configurable)
    Parenthesis matching/blinking
    Filename, buffername, function name completion
    Menu driven for novice users*
    Incremental search/replace*
    One can search/replace across ALL files loaded into the editor.
    Sorting
    No hardcoded buffer/line limits
    Multiple windows and buffers
    Keyboard macros with macro query feature.
    Buffer mode lines are configurable, e.g., display time, line number, etc...
    Ispell*
    Shell commands and ``interactive'' shell*

* Note:  these functions are written in the extension language.

    
--John