Emacs
Extensible multi-platform programmers editor, uses a LISP subset as a macro and extension language. Very popular with certain types of *nix persons in particular and for a time in the 90's was the most commonly available text editor out there as far as porting to different operating systems was concerned, but interest in it has faded greatly in the last few years as editors and IDE's that take advantage of GUI's have become more powerful, the Emacs code has grown exponentially in size and the current developers of Emacs act more and more dogmatic and entrenched. This has come to a point where there is no longer a current version for OS/2 and unlikely that anyone is interested in updating it.
Please note capitalisation of name, EMACS is a class of editors with similar basic functions and UI, and alongside vi part of the "Catholic" branch of text editors also referred to as "West Coast Editors" or "West Coast Orthodox". Emacs on the other hand is a specific version originally developed by James Gosling in the early 80's that was a clone of Multics Emacs and released as a Public Domain software, that was later hijacked by the GNU Foundation and released under their own license. Specific features like the use of a LISP subset and the control regime are Emacs features that are taken directly from Multics Emacs and only show up Emacs, its forks and other ME clones, but are by no means a feature of EMACS editors in general. The reason for using LISP as a macro language in Multics Emacs is really simple, it was written in LISP.
Versions
- May 1992: GNU Emacs 18.58.3 for OS/2 2.0 download
- 1995: GNU Emacs 19.30
- May 1996: GNU Emacs 19.31
- Aug 1996: GNU Emacs 19.33
- Jul 1999: GNU Emacs 20.3.1
- Latest OS/2 version: v.20.6
- Latest version: 24.4
Language Support
- English - Built in.
Syntax highlighting
Emacs traditionally does not support syntax highlighting, so you had to write your own mode for that to happen (mode is GNU speak for a filter), the version available for OS/2 used an older method to make this happen so the tutorials on the net are not 100% applicable, but you can use the Modula-2 mode listed in the links section below as a model for your own mode. It is not as difficult as it may seem at first.
License
- Open source, currently released under the GNU GPL v3 License, older versions released under the GNU GPL v2 License and the original was in the Public Domain.
Publications
- Craig A. Finseth: The Craft of Text Editing: Emacs for the Modern World - Springer 1991, ISBN 0-387-97616-7
- Debra Cameron, Bill Rosenblatt, Eric Raymond: Learning GNU Emacs - O'Reilly 1996, ISBN 1-56592-152-6
- Bob Glickstein: Writing GNU Emacs Extensions - O'Reilly 1997, ISBN 1-56592-261-1
Links
- Emacs homepage
- Setup help for the OS/2 2.06 version also helps with the set-up of non-USA locales etc. - By Oliver Heidelbach
- ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/apps/editors/emacs (Emacs folder on Hobbes)
- Modula-2 editing support for OS/2 Emacs
Author
- James Gosling (Original author)
- GNU Foundation (Current maintainer)
- Jeremy Bowen (OS/2 port)