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7. Motivations and Design

In this chapter I will try to outline the rationale behind ne's design choices. Moreover, some present, voluntary limitations of the current implementation will be described. The intended audience of such a description is the programmer wanting to hack up ne's sources, or the informed user wanting to deepen his knowledge of the limitations.

The design goal of ne was to write an editor that is easy to use at first sight, powerful, and completely configurable. Making ne run on any terminal that vi could handle was also a basic issue, because there is no use getting accustomed to a new tool if you cannot use it when you really need it. Finally, using resources sparingly was considered essential.

ne has no concept of mode. All shortcuts are defined by a single key, possibly with a modifier (such as Control or Meta). Modality is in my opinion a Bad Thing unless it has a very clear visual feedback. As an example, menus are a form of modality. After entering the menus, the alphabetic keys and the navigation keys have a different meaning. But the modality is clearly reflected by a change in the user interfacvalign=ts">Contents] [Index] [ ? ]

7. Motivations and Design

In this chapter I will try to outline the rationale behind ne's design choices. Moreover, some present, voluntary limitations of the current implementation will be described. The intended audience of such a description is the programmer wanting to hack up ne's sources, or the informed user wanting to deepen his knowledge of the limitations.

The design goal of ne was to write an editor that is easy to use at first sight, powerful, and completely configurable. Making ne run on any terminal that vi could handle was also a basic issue, because there is no use getting accustomed to a new tool if you cannot use it when you really need it. Finally, using resources sparingly was considered essential.

ne has no concept of mode. All shortcuts are defined by a single key, possibly with a modifier (such as Control or Meta). Modality is in my opinion a Bad Thing unless it has a very clear visual feedback. As an example, menus are a form of modality. After entering the menus, the alphabetic keys and the navigation keys have a different meaning. But the modality is clearly reflected by a change in the user interfacvalign=ts">Contents] [Index] [ ? ]

7. Motivations and Design

In this chapter I will try to outline the rationale behind ne's design choices. Moreover, some present, voluntary limitations of the current implementation will be described. The intended audience of such a description is the programmer wanting to hack up ne's sources, or the informed user wanting to deepen his knowledge of the limitations.

The design goal of ne was to write an editor that is easy to use at first sight, powerful, and completely configurable. Making ne run on any terminal that vi could handle was also a basic issue, because there is no use getting accustomed to a new tool if you cannot use it when you really need it. Finally, using resources sparingly was considered essential.

ne has no concept of mode. All shortcuts are defined by a single key, possibly with a modifier (such as Control or Meta). Modality is in my opinion a Bad Thing unless it has a very clear visual feedback. As an example, menus are a form of modality. After entering the menus, the alphabetic keys and the navigation keys have a different meaning. But the modality is clearly reflected by a change in the user interfacvalign=ts">Contents] [Index] [ ? ]

7. Motivations and Design

In this chapter I will try to outline the rationale behind ne's design choices. Moreover, some present, voluntary limitations of the current implementation will be described. The intended audience of such a description is the programmer wanting to hack up ne's sources, or the informed user wanting to deepen his knowledge of the limitations.

The design goal of ne was to write an editor that is easy to use at first sight, powerful, and completely configurable. Making ne run on any terminal that vi could handle was also a basic issue, because there is no use getting accustomed to a new tool if you cannot use it when you really need it. Finally, using resources sparingly was considered essential.

ne has no concept of mode. All shortcuts are defined by a single key, possibly with a modifier (such as Control or Meta). Modality is in my opinion a Bad Thing unless it has a very clear visual feedback. As an example, menus are a form of modality. After entering the menus, the alphabetic keys and the navigation keys have a different meaning. But the modality is clearly reflected by a change in the user interfacvalign=ts">Contents] [Index] [ ? ]

7. Motivations and Design

In this chapter I will try to outline the rationale behind ne's design choices. Moreover, some present, voluntary limitations of the current implementation will be described. The intended audience of such a description is the programmer wanting to hack up ne's sources, or the informed user wanting to deepen his knowledge of the limitations.

The design goal of ne was to write an editor that is easy to use at first sight, powerful, and completely configurable. Making ne run on any terminal that vi could handle was also a basic issue, because there is no use getting accustomed to a new tool if you cannot use it when you really need it. Finally, using resources sparingly was considered essential.

ne has no concept of mode. All shortcuts are defined by a single key, possibly with a modifier (such as Control or Meta). Modality is in my opinion a Bad Thing unless it has a very clear visual feedback. As an example, menus are a form of modality. After entering the menus, the alphabetic keys and the navigation keys have a different meaning. But the modality is clearly reflected by a change in the user interfacvalign=ts">Contents] [Index] [ ? ]

7. Motivations and Design

In this chapter I will try to outline the rationale behind ne's design choices. Moreover, some present, voluntary limitations of the current implementation will be described. The intended audience of such a description is the programmer wanting to hack up ne's sources, or the informed user wanting to deepen his knowledge of the limitations.

The design goal of ne was to write an editor that is easy to use at first sight, powerful, and completely configurable. Making ne run on any terminal that vi could handle was also a basic issue, because there is no use getting accustomed to a new tool if you cannot use it when you really need it. Finally, using resources sparingly was considered essential.

ne has no concept of mode. All shortcuts are defined by a single key, possibly with a modifier (such as Control or Meta). Modality is in my opinion a Bad Thing unless it has a very clear visual feedback. As an example, menus are a form of modality. After entering the menus, the alphabetic keys and the navigation keys have a different meaning. But the modality is clearly reflected by a change in the user interfacvalign=ts">Contents] [Index] [ ? ]

7. Motivations and Design

In this chapter I will try to outline the rationale behind ne's design choices. Moreover, some present, voluntary limitations of the current implementation will be described. The intended audience of such a description is the programmer wanting to hack up ne's sources, or the informed user wanting to deepen his knowledge of the limitations.

The design goal of ne was to write an editor that is easy to use at first sight, powerful, and completely configurable. Making ne run on any terminal that vi could handle was also a basic issue, because there is no use getting accustomed to a new tool if you cannot use it when you really need it. Finally, using resources sparingly was considered essential.

ne has no concept of mode. All shortcuts are defined by a single key, possibly with a modifier (such as Control or Meta). Modality is in my opinion a Bad Thing unless it has a very clear visual feedback. As an example, menus are a form of modality. After entering the menus, the alphabetic keys and the navigation keys have a different meaning. But the modality is clearly reflected by a change in the user interfacvalign=ts">Contents] [Index] [ ? ]

7. Motivations and Design

In this cha