2024-06-13 Anvil Editor and multiple cursors
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I like how the author of the Anvil Editor (an Acme-like editor)
explains how to use it and provides a small number of super-short
videos to show it. Here’s a good way to use video in documentation!
This is important because an "ACME-like editor" is pretty alien for
people these days. It relies on three buttons your mouse. The menus
are small, editable windows where you select a word with the mouse and
the middle mouse button to execute it. You can create your own menus
by simply writing them.

This is great, but alien.

I kept wondering how feasible it would be to add a few key bindings to
allow one to use it without a mouse. Window switching, selection
growing, executing, I keep thinking that it should be possible. That
mandatory three button mouse has kept me away from ACME-like editors.

I've been experimenting a bit with adding more keyboard bindings.
Since it doesn't seem to have a git repository, I made my own so I
can keep track of the patches.

I plan to force-push with abandon.

I try to do a tiny snippet of programming in the mornings or evenings.
Currently I'm looking at my "extending the selection" code and how it
interacts (badly) with multiple cursors. I guess I don't understand
the attraction of multiple cursors compared to "record a keyboard
macro once and then replay it for the rest of the file, for a fixed
number of times, or as long as I keep pressing a key" (the way
standard Emacs allows me to) compared to alt-clicking a number of
times at just the right spot (I guess my mousing is terrible) to place
the cursors and then do the necessary edits. Whenever something like
this comes, I'm editing data files or something like that so I would
have to place hundreds or thousands of cursors… Only one of these
approaches scales. I must be missing something about multiple cursors.

When I asked about it on fedi, people recommended I give
multiple-cursors for Emacs a try. I looked at the Emacs Rocks video
for mc and liked it. Again, this is video documentation well done,
essentially a demo, not a manual.

I started using for small things (a handful of lines) where it was
indeed easier to use than keyboard macros or regular expressions
because of the immediate feedback and the ability to undo any damage
done and still continue the operation. Nice!

I still ♥️ Emacs!

​#Emacs