[Info-vax] VMS editor uncommon option

[Marc Van Dyck]

Arne Vajhøj brought next idea :
> On 11/4/2024 6:19 AM, Marc Van Dyck wrote:
>> Arne Vajhøj was thinking very hard :
>>> So I did a first attempt on DCL, VMS Pascal and VMS Basic
>>> support.
>>>
>>> https://www.vajhoej.dk/arne/vmsstuff/jedit/
>>>
>>> has some instructions in content.txt and a
>>> jedit-bundle.zip with everything.
>>>
>>> Not everybody likes JEdit, but modern GUI editors
>>> for VMS is not exactly a crowded space. :-)
>> 
>> A naïve question : I have never been exposed, I must admit, to "modern
>> GUI editors". What more do they have to offer compared to, for example,
>> good old DECWindows LSE (with EDT keypad of course) ? Could you try to
>> convince me ?
>
> I don't know if I can convince you that JEdit is great.
>
> Maybe I can convince you that it is worth trying out.
>
> First a caveat. I don’t have much experience with LSE. I have seen both
> the VT interface and the DECWindows interface. But I never liked LSE. I
> was always an EVE person on VMS. My clear impression is that LSE was a
> good product in its time, but it has not evolved for 30+ years.
>
> Next the editor vs IDE discussion. I see it more as scale than as two
> buckets. So if I were to put various editors/IDE's on the scale it
> would be:
>
> editor <------------------------------------> IDE
> EDT    EVE   JEdit    LSE     VSCode      Eclipse
>
> Nice features in JEdit:
> * Support multiple horizontal and vertical split of screen.
> * Syntax coloring for a ton of languages - both old and new.
> * The BufferTabs plugin (as opposed to the builtin buffer switcher) is
>    pretty nice for working with lots of open files.
> * The JDiff plugin makes it easy to see difference in two files
>    side by side with color highlighting.
> * Can read and write files in all sorts of encodings.
> * Can convert tab characters to spaces.
> * Bracket matching.
> * Smart indent.
> * The XML plugin does nice auto complete for XML and HTML
> * There is a FTP/SFTP plugin to allow access to remote files. I have
>    never liked that though - I always prefer to edit locally and then
>    FTP/SFTP.
> * Anyone that has used a recent editor/IDE/wordprocessor on PC can
>    use JEdit. It comes with documentation, but there is really
>    no reason to read it. Menus, icons, right click context menu are
>    mostly as expected. I probably only use 20% of the functionality -
>    lots left to investigate, but if I need something I find it in the
>    menus.
> * Same UI on Windows, Linux, VMS, macOS, FreeBSD etc. (on
>    Windows and various *nix there are lots of editors to pick from,
>    but on VMS the offerings are more limited)
>
> There may not be many "must have" features, but I think there are a lot
> of "nice to have" features.
>
> Not so nice things with JEdit:
> * Slow startup time – so keep it open and close and open files
>    from within.
> * Rather ugly font.
> * Default RFM is STMLF not VAR.
>
> But besides all the objective pros and cons then editor choice also has
> a significant subjective aspect – some may love it – some may hate it.
>
> If you are in the market for a graphical editor on VMS, then it seems
> obvious to give JEdit a try and see if you like it or not. Worst case
> is that you don’t like it and you have wasted an hour or two of
> your time.
>
> Arne

I'm already convinced by the IDE concept. I tried to introduce that
in my company without success, total lack of interest. I was starting
from very far, though. People were (and still are, as far as I know)
FTPing files in and out to edit them locally on their desktop PCs.
So they didn't even let me start a proof of concept...

What I was more interested in your reply was the purely editing part,
and that seems to have some interesting points that I'd like to try.
But I'm still very much DECset oriented and will probably miss the SCA
features if I abandon LSE, though, so it will be a difficult choice.
I'm mainly programming in PASCAL, it that matters.

-- 
Marc Van Dyck