Open Source Ecosystems

This is Joe's Own Editor. See the INFO file if you don't know what this is.

Well actually, this is jupp, Programmers' Editor, the Editor which sucks less. It's got a Launchpad page, too: https://launchpad.net/jupp Although, you’re encouraged to ask stuff on IRC in #MirBSD on irc.mirbsd.org (Port 6697 SSL, 6667 insecure) or on the miros-discuss public mailing list, see http://www.mirbsd.org/rss.htm#lists for details.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Installation procedure =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Joe uses automake and autoconf suites to build itself. Type:

./configure
make

At this point you can try JOE without fully installing it by typing "./joe". However, you need to copy a few files into your home directory first:

# This is required for JOE to start:
cp joerc ~/.joerc

# The following are needed if you want syntax highlighting to work:
mkdir ~/.jupp
mkdir ~/.jupp/syntax
cp syntax/*.jsf ~/.jupp/syntax/

Otherwise you need to do a real install, which generally requires root privileges:

su root
make install

This will copy the executables to /usr/local/bin and runtime files to /usr/local/etc. After installation, you can then try it by typing "joe".

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Verify the installation =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

A number of features should be tested:

Shell windows:

Please test the installation by trying the shell command: ^K ' A shell prompt should appear in the window and you should be able to type "ls". If not, two things could be broken:

JOE could not open a pseudo terminal (pty), which is unfortunately one of the two most incompatible parts of the UNIX API. Take a look at tty.c- there are several methods for opening the pty: mess with the "#ifdefs" until you find a method which works (and send a bug report for your operating system).

The SHELL environment variable is not set or exported (Cygwin has this problem). Put:

export SHELL=/bin/mksh
or  setenv SHELL /bin/csh

In you .profile or .cshrc file and send mail to the Cygwin mailing list so that they fix this problem.

Process groups:

Once you have a shell window open, try to suspend JOE: ^K Z. Then resume it: "fg". The shell window should still be active. If not, your operating system is not handling process groups properly. Look for the setsid() or setprgp() system calls in tty.c (this is the other most incompatible part of the UNIX API). Currently process groups appear to be broken in Cygwin (so if you suspend JOE, any shells get killed).

Resize windows:

Try resizing the terminal emulator window: JOE should resize itself to properly fit. If this doesn't work, either ttgtsz() (in tty.c) is not reading the size properly, or the SIGWINCH signal is not being received by JOE (the handler is winchd() in tty.c).

JOE requires a certain minimum window size, which differs between the functions needing it. Do not complain if your window is much too small.

Baud rate:

JOE cares about the baud rate as reported by "stty":

38400 or above:		Joe does not issue scrolling commands

9600 - 19200:		Joe issues scrolling commands, but does
			not delay.

0 - 4800:		Joe defeats output buffering by sleeping
			after every chunk of data is sent to the
			screen, by the amount of time that the data
			should take to get there as determined by
			the baud rate.  This allows typeahead to
			interrupt the screen update process: If you
			hit Page Down 100 times, only the final
			contents of the screen get sent to the
			terminal, otherwise you have to wait for all
			100 pages to get to the screen before you
			can do anything.

Sleeping should really be used at 9600 baud, but too many systems use 9600 as the default speed for terminal emulators. If you are using a real serial link to a real terminal, you may want to adjust these thresholds: search for "9600" in tty.c.

Padding:

Ideally either terminals can keep up with the baud rate or they backpressure the computer using hardware flow control (RTS and CTS pins on RS-232 connector).

If not, there are two options, both bad:

Use XON/XOFF (^S/^Q) flow control: this works, but ^S causes the screen to freeze, which freaks out new users, plus ^S is the search key in "jmacs".

Use padding: the termcap database indicates how long each command should take. If padding is enabled, JOE will send enough NUL characters after each command to account for this time. You need set the DOPADDING environment variable or use the -dopadding option.

You should just buy a modern terminal :-)

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Common ./configure options =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Here are some common ./configure options:

To have "make intall" install JOE into your home directory:

./configure --prefix=$HOME

The executables will end up in $HOME/bin and the runtime
files will end up in $HOME/etc.  You need to have $HOME/bin in
your path for this to work.

For other install options:

./configure --help

To force JOE to use /etc/termcap file using its built-in termcap file parser (which is useful if you want to compile JOE so that it doesn't depend on any libraries other than libc):

./configure --disable-curses --disable-termcap

(--disable-termcap prevents JOE from using the termcap emulation functions in the -ltermcap library. --disable-curses prevents JOE from using the termcap emulation functions in the -lcurses library).

Otherwise, JOE tries to use the terminfo database via termcap emulation routines: see man tgetent, tgetstr, tgoto, etc. (JOE has its own implementation of "curses", so curses is not required except to get access to the terminfo database).

Note that even if you don't have an /etc/termcap file, JOE will run: it will assume that the terminal is "ANSI" (but you need to compile it this way for it to be able to use the builtin ANSI termcap entry).

=-=-= Usage =-=-=

USAGE: joe filename [filename ...]

Optionally precede each filename with +nnn to start at specified line number.

Options:

-mid Cursor is recentered when scrolling is necessary -marking Text between ^KB and cursor is highlighted (use with -lightoff) -asis Characters 128 - 255 shown as-is -force Force final newline when files are saved -nobackups If you don't want backup files to be created -lightoff Turn off highlighting after block copy or move -exask ^KX always confirms file name -beep Beep on errors and when cursor goes past extremes -nosta Disable top-most status line -keepup %k and %c status line escape sequences updated frequently -pg nnn No. lines to keep for PgUp/PgDn -csmode ^KF after a previous search does a ^L instead -backpath path Directory to store backup files -nonotice Disable copyright notice -noxon Attempt to turn off ^S/^Q processing -orphan Put extra files given on command line in orphaned buffers instead of in windows -dopadding Output pad characters (for when there is no tty handshaking) -lines nnn Set no. screen lines -baud nnn Set baud rate for terminal optimizations -columns nnn Set no. screen columns -help Start with help on -skiptop nnn Don't use top nnn lines of the screen

Options before each file name:

-wordwrap Wordwrap -autoindent Auto indent -overwrite Overtype mode -lmargin nnn Left margin -rmargin nnn Right margin -tab nnn Tab width -indentc nnn Indentation character (32 for space, 9 for tab) -istep nnn Number of indentation columns -french One space after '.', '?' and '!' for wordwrap and paragraph reformat instead of two. Joe does not change the spacing you give, but sometimes it must put spacing in itself. This selects how much is inserted. -spaces TAB inserts spaces instead of tabs. -linums Enable line numbers on each line -rdonly File is read-only -crlf File is uses CR-LF at ends of lines (MS-DOS files)

These options can also be set in the joerc file.  The NOXON, LINES,

COLUMNS, DOPADDING and BAUD options can also be set with environment variables. The rc files shipped except jupprc also contain documentation and examples for the options.

The JOETERM environment variable can be set to override the TERM

environment variable.

** IMPORTANT **

The baud rate must be correctly set or either typeahead will not interrupt the screen update and scrolling won’t be used or there will be annoying delays in the screen update. If you can't set the baud rate correctly with 'stty', give a numeric value in the environment variable 'BAUD' or to the command line options '-baud'.

The baud rate '38400' or 'extb' means infinite to joe. Use it for X windows and hardware console ttys. No delays will be generated and scrolling will not be used.

The baud rate '19200' or 'exta' means that joe will use scrolling, but will not delay.

Use the LINES and COLUMNS environment variables or the -lines and -columns command line options if you need the terminal size to be different than whatever the termcap entry or stty reports.

Since most people use terminal emulators, JOE does not send out pad characters. If you're using a real terminal and the padding matters, set the environment variable DOPADDING or give the command line option -dopadding.

If you want joe to try to disable ^S/^Q processing, set the environment variable NOXON or command line option -noxon.

A termcap file is included with JOE. You might consider updating your own termcap file with the entries in it, particularly if you use ANSI/VT100ish terminals. JOE understands some capabilities which are not usually supplied in normal termcap (see below).

                             VARIATIONS
                             =-=-=-=-=-

Termcap/Terminfo =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

JOE prefers to use the termcap terminal capability database.  It

attempts to find this file in:

$HOME/.termcap		Personal .termcap in your home directory
/usr/local/lib/termcap	Joe's termcap file
/etc/termcap		Normal system termcap file

Joe copies its own termcap file to /usr/local/lib/termcap (or

wherever the system-wide joerc file is going to go) when 'make install' is run.

Termcap is better than terminfo because it is a more open standard.

Programs can directly access the termcap database and future versions of terminfo may require programs to use curses. The only argument in terminfo's favour is that it is faster than termcap. To fix this problem, JOE will use a termcap index file if it exists and if it is up to date.

This is the procedure to make the termcap index file:

	make termidx
	./termidx </etc/termcap >/etc/termcap.idx

The /etc/termcap.idx is a text file which you can look at if you're

curious.

JOE supports the GNU extensions to the termcap language and also

understands several new capabilities:

	AL DL IC DC RI LE UP DO SF SR

		Versions of the standard capabilities which accept
		an argument.  For example, RI with and argument of
		7 should move the cursor 7 positions to the right.

	rr

		Set this flag if the cursor is restricted to move
		only within the scrolling regions.  This is an optional
		mode on vt220s and several clones assume that this
		mode is always on.

	cV

		Like the 'cv' capability, but the cursor goes to the
		beginning of the specified line.  Like 'ESC [ n H' in
		ansi/vt100.

JPICO =-=-=

If you want JPICO to act more like real pico when you hit ^X (I.E., to have it ask before saving), change the line:

exsave ^X Exit

to:

ask,query,lose,query,abortbuf ^X Exit

BROKEN TERMINALS =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- "Joe does not update the screen correctly in Procomm" "My Xenix console does not scroll correctly"

Old versions of Procomm, many other DOS comm programs and nearly every PC-UNIX console (with the exception of Linux) does not emulate VT100s properly. There are usually one or more problems:

1) Tabs are destructive

2) Tabs are destructive when inverse mode is set

3) Scrolling regions are not supported

4) Cursor positioning is scrolling region relative instead of
   screen relative.

5) Some other program set the tab-stops to something other than
   one tab stop every 8 columns.

6) The erase commands (ESC [ J and ESC [ K) fill with inverse
   video blanks instead of plain blanks when inverse mode is set.

7) Backspace is destructive

Procomm 2.3 works fine- but make sure you have DEC VT100 selected, not 'ANSI BBS' and also that backspace (BS) is set to 'non-destructive'. If you must use an old version of Procomm, try using the 'ansisys' or 'nansisys' termcap entry. Unix consoles usually do not have scrolling regions, but instead have insert and delete line commands. The 'fansi' entry and ones derived from it will work correctly. These termcap entries are provided in the termcap file which came with joe. If at all possible have your sysadmin install these entries in '/etc/termcap'. Even if your system normally uses the terminfo database, you can copy Joe's termcap file into /etc/termcap.

"I don't have root access and can't update the system's termcap file. How do I get only Joe to use a different termcap entry?"

"My system uses terminfo. How do I get only Joe to use a different termcap entry?"

What you should do is copy the termcap file which is provided with joe into '.termcap' of your home directory. Now suppose you want Joe to use the 'fansi' termcap entry:

If you use csh or tcsh, place this in your .cshrc file:

setenv JOETERM fansi

If you use mksh, ksh, sh or GNU bash, place this in your .profile file:

JOETERM=fansi; export JOETERM

"I don't have root access and can't update the system's termcap file. How do I get all of my programs to use one of Joe's termcap entries?"

Again, copy termcap into '.termcap' in your home directory, but set the environment variables like this:

setenv TERMCAP $HOME/.termcap
setenv TERM fansi

"My system uses terminfo... how do I get all of my programs to use one of Joe's termcap entries?"

First, compile joe for terminfo. You then have to 'tic' the terminfo version of joe's termcap file into your account. These are the commands for doing this:

1)	cd
2)	mkdir .info
3)	setenv TERMINFO $HOME/.info

	(or

	TERMINFO=$HOME/.info; export TERMINFO

	if you use mksh, ksh, sh or GNU bash)

4)	tic joe/terminfo

Then put the 'setenv TERMINFO $HOME/.info' line into your .login file or 'TERMINFO=$HOME/.info; export TERMINFO' in your .profile. Now all of your programs should look up the 'TERM' in your own personal terminfo database.

USING JOE IN A SHELL SCRIPT =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Joe used to use /dev/tty to access the terminal. This caused a problem with idle-session killers (they would kill joe because the real tty device was not being accessed for a long time), so now joe only uses /dev/tty if you need to pipe a file into joe, as in: echo "hi" | joe -

If you want to use joe in a shell script which has its stdin/stdout redirected, but you don't need to do 'joe -', you should simply redirect joe's stdin/stdout to /dev/tty: