[Oberon] Re: selecting all text in a viewer

[Chris Glur]

> > ... select large quantities of text. What a PITA though! 
> > I'm sooo used to ^A or in emacs ^spacebar+arrowDown.

ETHO is easier hence superior, in that you don't need to
'associate a random-key with an action'.
You can 'read' the instruction.
I.e. it's easier to learn to push the button marked "sit",
to do the action `sit`, that to have to remember if it's
Ctrl/S or Alt/Z.   

OTOH, the few clux-actions are random and should not be
remembered, but should become instinctive, like riding a 
bicycle.

Apparently the leading HCI experts have shown that the 
best is icons with 'popup explanation text when the cursor
hovers over the icon for a short time'.  I'm infuriated that I 
don't know how to disable these mosquitoe-like popups
on kde-3.0.

Peter E. wrote
> Making a "Select all" button for the pop-up menu in ET 
> is a good little programming exercise.  
Yes, but I prefer a M.P which is independant of ET.
And I've just confirmed that: 
     CRGtrace.Font2MrkdVwr  Courier8.Scn.Fnt ~
works with document frames too.

> And it should 
> need only one click, MM.  Not two as in most commercial 
> systems.

Well that's what my previous post was about:
* set the action once,
* repeat single clux to select the args
* until the 'mode' is reset to normal ETHO mode.

eg.
1. klux = all subsequent selected [by MR on any char/s] words 
       [bounded by white-chars] are to take this font and colour.
2, 3...N = DoIt
N+1 = restore system to normal ETHO-mode.

Of course Duke would know by now the more tedious manual
way of make all text of a frame have a specific font and colour:-

 select the whole text:
     MR/select from the beginning to the end
       if the total text exceeds a screen length, then 
        break it into 2 frames:
           `Copy` to create the second frame
     select the beginning of the text in the top frame with MR
      hold <shift> while
     selecting the end of the text in the bottom frame with MR

Confirm that  the 'whole selection' is hi-lighted.

ML/MR on the sample text anywhere on the screen which you want to
have the selected text to copy the sample's font and colour.

Using successive refinement, you off course, first confirm this on a small
text selection.   
-----------
The cited example based on *5*.Text is quite complex:
* locate the frame which is 'marked'
* change all of its text's font to the new font.

I'm guessing that Duke didn't make appropriate multiple steps
from 'hello world' to this utility, because he needs to have better
viewing of the screen to make progress?

So, A2's auto-font magnification, struck me as the most obvious
improvement on N-O.
-----------
Re. ETHO 'trap facility': this is astounding.
I doubt that the M$ & C-boys have any thing similar.
I won't mention the facility to 'go directly to the source error'
because I've hardly used it; but the trap-format, where the
sequence of procedure-calls, before the trap, is displayed
with the local variables is very powerful !

Thanks,

== Chris Glur.