4 ms·

Thats maybe true for the vims and emacses of the world, but these new editors come with a fancy pants thing called a GUI. These GUI thingys adhere to certain st

by brodo 13y ago

Thats maybe true for the vims and emacses of the world, but these new editors come with a fancy pants thing called a GUI. These GUI thingys adhere to certain standards and customs that are set by the OS. I do some web development work from time to time and therefore I have multiple browsers installed on my machine. I can switch between them without having to dig through a manual! I have to learn hardly anything!

vidarh 13y ago
I don't know how long Emacs has had a GUI, but it's at least 20 years. I don't remember what the graphical capabilities of GNU Emacs are like, as I only use the command line version, but XEmacs at least also has extensive support for bitmaps graphics in buffers that far exceeds most of these "new editors".
- craigching 13y ago
  GNU emacs can show bitmap images. I'm on the latest version 24.x and just tried it out, so I'm not sure when it was added.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    It's hard to track down when it was introduced, but it looks like there was at least some bitmap support as far back as Emacs 18, which predates the XEmacs split and indicates that at least basic support may date back to 1986.
jshen 13y ago
You aren't using your editor in the sense that most people here are talking about if you don't have to learn anything.
Dewie 13y ago
As others have pointed out, Emacs has a GUI. But the fact that you didn't know this might suggest that the GUI part of Emacs isn't integrally linked to the killer features of Emacs. Learning tools like Emacs is for many a matter of productivity. If you want productivity, you want to streamline your most commonly used actions. Streamlining things in an editor will probably mean to use keybindings, since you're using the keyboard to input text anyway. Then you have to memorize the keybindings (or: your fingers have to), and you have to practice using it to the point that it actually becomes more productive than whatever previous routine you had - you have to fight your old habits. Building these habits is what takes time. The fact that Emacs has a GUI helps with feedback and discoverability, not that much with building habits. When you have finally built these habits, only then can you know if you are more productive. If you aren't you might have to unlearn a lot of your habits (for example by learning modal text editing). - Written in my Emacs

by brodo 13y ago

vidarh 13y ago

I don't know how long Emacs has had a GUI, but it's at least 20 years. I don't remember what the graphical capabilities of GNU Emacs are like, as I only use the command line version, but XEmacs at least also has extensive support for bitmaps graphics in buffers that far exceeds most of these "new editors".

craigching 13y ago
GNU emacs can show bitmap images. I'm on the latest version 24.x and just tried it out, so I'm not sure when it was added.
- vidarh 13y ago
  It's hard to track down when it was introduced, but it looks like there was at least some bitmap support as far back as Emacs 18, which predates the XEmacs split and indicates that at least basic support may date back to 1986.

jshen 13y ago

You aren't using your editor in the sense that most people here are talking about if you don't have to learn anything.

Dewie 13y ago

As others have pointed out, Emacs has a GUI. But the fact that you didn't know this might suggest that the GUI part of Emacs isn't integrally linked to the killer features of Emacs. Learning tools like Emacs is for many a matter of productivity. If you want productivity, you want to streamline your most commonly used actions. Streamlining things in an editor will probably mean to use keybindings, since you're using the keyboard to input text anyway. Then you have to memorize the keybindings (or: your fingers have to), and you have to practice using it to the point that it actually becomes more productive than whatever previous routine you had - you have to fight your old habits. Building these habits is what takes time. The fact that Emacs has a GUI helps with feedback and discoverability, not that much with building habits. When you have finally built these habits, only then can you know if you are more productive. If you aren't you might have to unlearn a lot of your habits (for example by learning modal text editing). - Written in my Emacs