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Aucb.368 fa.editor-p utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!C70:editor-people Wed Feb 3 14:09:57 1982 DED -- another structure editor >From Admin.JQJ@SU-SCORE Wed Feb 3 14:01:07 1982 Some time ago this mailing list was the scene of an active discussion of structure-oriented editing. One editor that we did not discuss at the time was DED, a display-oriented version of the Interlisp editor developed by David Barstow (Barstow, 1981). That editor apparently features a 2-window mode of operation in which one window echoes the typical EDITF dialog while the other displays an up to date prettyprinted version of the current expression or its immediately enclosed expression. Among the features that interest me are

- Use of highlighting to delimit the current expression. - Abstraction of levels of detail (subexpressions below a specified level are displayed as "&"), with automatic zooming. - Use of arrow keys as a pointing device for changing the current expression.

Has anyone had experience with actually using this editor? I would be particularly interested in comments comparing it with ITS EMACS/LEDIT, with the ordinary Interlisp editor, with the EMACS/Interlisp editing package, and with the Cornell PL/I program synthesizer. To what extent could such an approach be plausibly integrated with an existing text editor (especially a Lisp-based editor) such as EMACS?

Since we have already discussed the general issues of structure editing in this forum, perhaps it would now be useful to discuss issues of practical technology and user interface.

REFERENCES

Barstow, D.R. Overview of a display-oriented editor for Interlisp. In IJCAI-81. Vancouver, B.C.: International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1981. -------

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