Stan writes:
>Alida writes:
>> 2. For most purposes, the user interface of HP EDIT [epithet deleted]
>
>One word:  QEDIT
>
>Ok, two more words:   buy it.
 
A few more words...
 
I use an HP3000 port of STEVI, a public-domain version of vi that works in
the MPE environment. I also use QEDIT.
 
QEDIT is a full-screen editor only in the loosest sense of the word.
Unfortunately it has no choice, given the environment it works in.
 
My preferred editing environment, at least when I can't use offline editing
on the Mac, is several large windows with different source files, command
line environments, etc., open at once. I use two editors: an HP 3000 port
of STEVI (a public-domain version of VI), and QEDIT.  STEVI is more
full-screenish but is suited only to a system with a small number of users
because of the way it must do I/O. It's also not very MPE-savvy, making
only variable-length record files, and it's quite impolite in the way it
deals with files it doesn't like. On the other hand, it's pretty much
full-screen as long as you don't get too close to the bottom.
 
QEDIT allows me to put the terminal emulator in block mode and use the
terminal's native editing features. This is a rather limited set of
features, as you might imagine. QEDIT also has to deal with an MPE
limitation: large windows result in large block transfers, which don't work
in VT (over a network). On the other hand, QEDIT is highly MPE-savvy,
leaves my files with the characteristics with which it found them, is very
polite and very careful with files it doesn't understand, and allows me to
do a lot of things in MPE that I can't begin to do with STEVI. QEDIT is
also rock-solid and comes with excellent support (infinitely better
support, in a mathematical sense, than STEVI).
 
So I usually use STEVI for small-to-medium size source files -- less than
about 1,000 lines -- and QEDIT over a serial port with a Telamon Type-Ahead
Engine for everything else: bigger source files or more exotic files of any
size. Unfortunately, there's no one best tool on the 3000. Nick Demos
([log in to unmask]) has introduced a product that allows PC-style
editing of HP 3000 files, but it seems to have some birth pangs.
 
Good luck!
-- Bruce
 
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