Dear jed team,

I am looking for a simple editor that accepts vi bindings and supports
syntax highlighting.  Reading the jed-extra package description, I find

| Enhancements include:
[...]
|  * new or enhanced editor emulation modes for:
|      Vi, Cua, Brief

so it looks like this might fit the bill.  But xjed(1),
/usr/share/doc/xjed/README{,.Debian,.Debian-startup}, and
/usr/share/doc/jed-extra/README{,.Debian} provide no guidance that I
can see how to use.

xjed itself does not support vi keys and even hitting ^C to send it
SIGINT does not result in any intuitive response (it says "Quit!" and
just sits there expectantly), so I decided to kill it and avoid
starting it again rather than expect guidance from that corner.

Would it be possible to add some note to some README.Debian to help
ex-pats from other editors to start out?  Ideally, this would be a
comment along these lines: "To switch the default editor emulation
mode for jed system-wide, run 'dpkg-reconfigure -plow jed'.  To change
it for a particular user, run 'jed-setup'."  But if such a front-end
is too much trouble, magic incantations to add to some file would be
fine, too.

I look forward to your thoughts.

Happy new year,
Jonathan

Jed configuration is completely done in (commented) configuration files.
Debian keeps them at /etc/jed.d/. The solution for your problem is in
/etc/jed.d/05jed-common.sl.

In the Debian default configuration, (x)jed emulates emacs.

There are hints in README.Debian but I agree that these are only indirect.

Would it help to replace the heading "Startup scheme" with "Configuration"?

Should we add "How do I select a different emulation mode?" to the FAQs?


Günter

G. Milde wrote:

 _Jed_Default_Emulation = "vi"

there.  There is a comment that says “% already set in site.sl”, but
I am hoping that does not matter.

Now if I run xjed, the bottom line says

 -**-----(Jed 0.99.19U) Vi: -INSERT-  : *scratch*      ()  All   2:05am-----

so I assume I am in vi mode.  But hitting escape does not exit insert
mode, so it is not clear how to move around, exit, or give any other
command.

This reminds me: previously I tried writing

 () = evalfile("vi");

as my entire .jedrc and experienced the same result.  I assumed I
must be doing something wrong and forgot about it, but now I think the
source of confusion must have been the strange way vi mode works.

Maybe the README.Debian could mention this.  I am imagining something
like

 In the Debian default configuration, (x)jed emulates emacs.  To exit,
 press control-X followed by control-C.  This system default can be
 modified in the /etc/jed.d/05jed-common.sl file.

Some elaboration might also be helpful:

 To set the emulation mode for an individual user, add something like

  () = evalfile("vi");

 to the ~/.jedrc file.  Possible emulation modes are "brief", "cua",
 "emacs", "edt", "ide", "jed", "wordstar", and (with jed-extra) "vi".

but this probably belongs in the jed(1) man page instead, since it
is not distribution-specific.

Hmm.  I do like that heading more, but I did not find the content under
that heading so helpful.

| Debian Jed's startup scheme provides for startup code from other packages.

This sentence seems targetted more at Debian developers than users.
So this section did not have a very strong "information scent" for me.
Couldn't it just be removed?

| Instead of a config file, we use a config directory: At startup, Jed will
| evaluate all "*.sl" scripts in /etc/jed.d/.

Makes sense.  I could not find a document describing the syntax or
expected values in a jed startup file.  If I wrote a jedrc.5 file
based on examples/jed.rc.gz, would that be useful?

I also could not find any documentation describing jed.conf.
Would that work for setting a system default here?  Is there a
document describing it somewhere?

My feeling is that this is less FAQ material than basic information.
Without knowing the key bindings or how to make them more familiar, it
can be hard to start using jed.  So ideally I would hope to see this
information in the manpage.

Thanks again for the help,
Jonathan

clone 563237 -1
retitle -1 Provide way for esier configuration
reassign -1 jed-common
severity -1 wishlist
quit

Hello Jonathan,

Jonathan Nieder hat am Fri 01. Jan, 10:28 (+0000) geschrieben:

What's so difficult in going to the file menu and selecting quit there?

This doesn't work, because Jed is not customizable through debconf, and
it will never be, because this would be a misuse of debconf, i.e. it's
not an essential configuration needed to run the editor.

This would be a valuable extension. We have to think about it a little
bit, but I would say we should add it. Or Günter, does jed-extra provide
such a script?

Bye, Jörg.

retitle 563662 Provide way for easier configuration
submitter 563662 !
found 1:0.99.19-1
stop

Hallo G.,

G. Milde hat am Mon 04. Jan, 22:13 (+0100) geschrieben:

My idea of this feature request was something like Zsh's first‐time‐
configuration. When you start the Zsh and don't have the file ~/.zshrc
you get a dialog with prompts to make rudimentary customizations like
enable completion and other stuff.

I thought we can extend the text of the scatch buffer to say something
like “To make some rudimentary customizations press ESC x and enter
config.”

The config function can give a dialog that asks questions like
• the prefered emulation and color scheme,
• enable/disable menu keys,
• create backup files

The jed-extra config file might add it's vi mode to the list of possible
emulations and might add more questions.

From the answers, the file Default_Jedrc_Startup_File should be generated
or extended.

Maybe we can extend this to modes and the like.

Bye, Jörg.