Text Editor for Linux 3408

That *is* the benefit to using (X)Emacs. The fact that anyone doesn't make use of any given facility is *not* a detriment. It just means that whatever it is you want today is there today, and whatever you need in the future will be there too.

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That is a mindset problem on your part, not an editor fault.

What difference does it make if the program has functionality that you don't make use of? I don't use it for those purposes either. I do understand why some people literally use Emacs for a login shell, but that certainly does not suit my style.

Neither you nor I are *forced* to use (X)Emacs that way.

I could simply care less about running a subshell or looking at directories from within Emacs. Like you, I am comfortable with unix utilities and the cut-and-paste capabilities of X are preferable to those of Emacs.

But none of that detracts from Emacs as a text editor.

I use GNUS to read mail and usenet. There simply is no suitable replacement. I run ispell and Internet dictionary searches on my email (and in *exactly* the same way on words in C programs!). I use the many major-minor modes for C, shell, awk, TeX, Makefile, and other types of files (I commonly use 24 different file type modes).

Additionally, I don't like toolbars, and don't have an icon on my display. I do like text menus for odd things that I can't remember, and have a customized set of menus. I have many customize keybindings, and have roughly 100K of "init" file programming that customizes XEmacs and-or Emacs. Interesting functionality included are such things as a modification of the boilerplate mechanism (if I open an empty file with a ".c" extensions, my editor asks if I want the boilerplate text inserted) that boilerplate has a file creation and file modification datestamp which is automatically updated any time the file is modified and then written to disk. The datestamp is enclosed in C comments, and looks like this,

* File created: Fri Apr 22 06:02:43 2005 * Last updated: Fri Apr 22 06:02:52 2005

The first line was there when that file was opened, and the second line was added when it was written to disk, and will be updated anytime that file is modified and again written to disk. For http, Makefiles, shell scripts, TeX or other files files, the appropriate "comment" delimiters are used.

There are dozens and dozens of such conveniences built into (X)Emacs. I don't use half of them, and that is *not* a problem. The half that I do use is the *incredible* benefit to using (X)Emacs.

I don't happen to like the mode style operation of vi, but it is just as capable of doing what I do with (X)Emacs. Less of it comes pre-built, but anyone who uses vi for a couple decades would be just as able with vi macros.

The point is that both vi and emacs *do* have capabilities that you don't use, which is good. And bad... is any text editor you can learn well enough to use most of the capabilities... because it is then restricting your ability to edit text.

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