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C00002 00002 Some general ideas on a contextual editor:
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COMMENT ā Some general ideas on a contextual editor:
some context on contexts
I want an editor that knows (or can be easily made to know) how to
function within various contexts. Some such contexts might include
plain text
structured text
programming languages (LISP, SAIL, etc)
music manuscripting
circuit design
common traits among contexts
Each context will have the following common characteristics:
a cursor (which can be moved around)
a "current" object (the object that the cursor is closest to)
some primitive operations on the current object, like move, delete,
insert, etc
the ability to display all of the objects in the current context
windows as contexts
I like the idea of manifesting a context as a "window", as in Smalltalk.
When within the window, all the rules of the current context are in
effect. In a sense, the wondow not only defines the context, but
actually IS the context.