From: jcburt@gatsibm.larc.nasa.gov () Subject: Re: Let's write a wordprocessor. Date: 20 May 1993 13:16:55 GMT
In article <1tehqr$bkm@agate.berkeley.edu> garrett@sba70.berkeley.edu (Garrett D'Amore) writes:
>Hmmm... I've been thinking about this WYSIWYG editor idea
>for some time now.
>
>The following problems exist:
>
> 1) If we assume POSTSCRIPT output on the device, the
> editor needs to know how to emulate that on the screen.
>
> 2) Fonts??!? Either we need to make sure that X has all
> of the display fonts available that the user will want
> or we need to figure out how to generate and display
> postscript fonts on the screen. (Like ATM.)
>
> 3) If we really want to do WYSIWYG, there will be major
> problems with text based terminals. Simply put -- the
> text terminal people will be left out in the cold.
>
>My thoughts on solutions:
>
> Option 1) Create a WordPerfect-like (uugghh!) text interface,
> and allow the user to preview the results by calling up
> ghostscript. The output would naturally be postscript.
>
> Option 2) Implement the WordPefect-like text interface, but
> allow an X11 front end that worked in WYSIWYG mode. This
> would require building postscript interpretation right into
> the editor. The editor could be built around ghostscript,
> or around Display postscript if a free version can be found.
>
>I tend to believe Option 1 is preferable. To get WYSIWYG-like features,
>the user runs a "page-preview" mode that is just ghostscript. This could
>even be dynamically updated, in a window alongside the main editing
>window. Not as nice as MicroShafts Word for Windows, but a substantial
>improvement over plain old TeX. And we Unix people have to keep in mind
>that most of the Unix users in the world are not blessed with unlimited
>X-Windows access. (E.g. telnet or remote modem access...)
I'm confused here...it sounds like you've basically described my current
text processing environment on a UNIX system...I run X as my graphical
interface, then pop up an EMACS window to edit my TeX/LaTeX file. When
I finish a bit of editing I save the file and in another (xterm) window
I run TeX/LaTeX on the saved file. I also have a third window open which
is either XDVI or GHOSTVIEW (an X front-end for ghostscript), depending on
if the document has any included postscript files: if it *does* include
postscript graphics files, I use ghostview, if not I use xdvi. Nice thing
about this set up is that xdvi checks the .dvi file each time you change
pages (or possibly each time you do anything). If the .dvi file has changed,
then xdvi automatically updates to the new document version...this sounds
a *whole* lot like your option #1...basically I run on a 486/33 without
network or modem support. I have 3 windows open continually during the editing process:
1) Emacs to edit the .tex file. 2) xterm to issue the tex/latex command
and possibly the dvips command. 3) xdvi or ghostview to "page-preview"
the file, and provide essentially dynamic updating...
This set up came with the t series of diskettes for the SLS distribution.
it also included MetaFont which creates fonts on the fly for dvips
(needed to convert dvi file to ps files which ghostview can use...)
John