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Re: GNU readline ability in the front end

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg73865] Re: [mg73827] GNU readline ability in the front end
• From: "Chris Chiasson" <chris at chiasson.name>
• Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2007 06:33:40 -0500 (EST)
• References: <200703011119.GAA28325@smc.vnet.net>

There are some emacs based front ends. I have used one or two of them
(over ssh). Unfortunately, they don't handle the graphics very well. I
guess you just want more emacs capabilities in the regular front end.
You might be able to program some of that functionality yourself (with
front end programming).

You can recall a previous input and manipulate it using this technique
(and probably many others):

Hold[In[1]]/.DownValues@In

You can save your command history by modifying $Pre to save your
commands (though this isn't the only way).

I think the one-level undo is a problem. I understand that the front
end supports several complex operations that might be difficult to
undo. I also believe it should be possible to check if the actions are
simple text edits and allow multiple levels of undo for those.

On 3/1/07, Frank Hu <frank1998 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm new to Mathematica and like it.  My main complain is the Frontend
> lacking basic command line editing facilities.   Specifically:
>
> 1.  Line editing.  I know there are basic Emacs key-bindings and Cmd-
> l recalls the previous input.  But what about recalling all previous
> inputs?  I'm not talking about re-evaluating the n-th input (In[n]),
> but actually get back what I typed and make slight modifications,
> without using the mouse.
> 2.  Command history.  Is there anyway to store and restore command
> history automatically, so I don't have to save every session to a
> notebook?
> 3.  Filename auto-completion.  Cmd-k completes commands, how about
> filenames?
> 4.  Also, what's with the one-level undo?  How difficult is to have
> multi-level undo?
>
> I know there's JMath, but it does only text.  Am I missing something
> or the Frontend indeed is insufficient in this regard?
>
> Frank
>
>


-- 
http://chris.chiasson.name/

• References:
  • GNU readline ability in the front end
    • From: Frank Hu <frank1998@gmail.com>