Thus, every program had to be learned individually and its complete user interface memorized. Insert sometimes toggled between overtype and inserting characters, but some programs used it for “paste”. F1 was often help but in WordPerfect that was F3. Some programs used End to go to the end of a line, some used it to complete filling in a form. Some programs used Escape to cancel an action, some used it to complete one WordPerfect used it to repeat a character.
Software applications used today, where their User Interface are Is that emacs's user interface is rather esoteric, involving arcane Majority, perhaps greater than 95%, do not use emacs.Ī major difficulty among programers who do not use or like emacs, Those who makes a living primarily by writing code), i think, a vast
If you take a survey of all professional programers (defined as Light publishing needs such as table layout, simple line graphicsĭrawing, embedded images, math formulas.
Powerful editor that also does styled text, formatting, and sundry Have simple text editors bundled that will satisfy majority ofĬomputer users, which are non-professional computer users.įor the few professional computer users (secretaries, graphicsĪrtists, scientists, engineers, game developers, 3D-modelers, systemĪdministrators, programers), a majority will need a easy to use, yet Used by some 90% of computer users worldwide. For example, emacs is notīundled on the popular operating system Windows, which are Spring up here and there even though they don't have as much power or Same is true on other operating systems, and new editors In many cases, they are willing to pay money for it. Integrated development environment such as Will be more than happy to use any of other graphical editors on the
Than happy to use editors other than emacs. If emacs is such a great and powerful text editor why relatively few people use it? Vast majority of people who need to write will be more (Technically it does not qualify because a OS implies management of hardware.). Some calls emacs as a Operating System as a joke. These seemingly wild functionalities are employed in production daily by a significant number of programers around the world. And, besides text editing, it is also used as a email reader, newsgroup reader, ftp client, irc client, web browser, shell interface, file management application, scientific calculator, calendar and personal info management application, lisp language system, among other things. It is perhaps the most powerful and most versatile text editor.