Finding Macintosh editor emulation
To make LispWorks more approachable for Mac users, I'd suggest making
the editor emulation setting more obvious.
[WARNING: I'm a less-than-weekend programmer who thinks Mac
programmers are users who should also have a positive, Mac-like user
experience whenever feasible.]
I suffered with the eMacs-style editor until I happened to sit next
to Martin Simmons at ILC 2005. He showed me how to change that,
which, once done, I soon forgot - except for the fact that this
preference was not where I expected it to be.
As a new LW Professional licensee, I just now had the opportunity to
do this again, only without Martin sitting next to me. As I've seen,
the Preferences menu is not where it happens (unless I can set it
using some variable I don't know yet in my invisible initialization
file). Searching through all the other menus was fruitless. (I see
now that there is actually a menu item, Window > Window Preferences,
and what appears as an "Emula..." tab in the dialog that comes up.)
The readme file didn't mention it.
I thought I'd search the manuals, not sure which would have the
answer. The Common LispWorks User Guide (Chapter 12 - Editor) refers
to the LispWorks Editor User Guide, which refers to the Common
LispWorks User Guide.
(Is this supposed to teach me recursion?)
(And, to be picky, the Editor User Guide refers to a section called
"Configuring editor key input," but it's actually called "Configuring
the editor emulation.")
In any case, I checked out the tool icons at the top of an editor
window, and sure enough, logically situated between the clone icon
and the history icon, there was the preferences icon. The rest was easy.
BOTTOM LINE(s):
1) LW would be friendlier to Mac users if Mac editor emulation were
the default setting (same goes for multiple editor windows, by the way).
2) In Mac software, it's customary to make preference settings
available in a dialog window through the Preferences... menu item.
(OK, the .lispworks file may provide more flexibility, but why not
save that for later?) Why not put at least this one where a Mac user
expects it? That way, someone like me can actually start writing code
instead of floundering with the editor.
3) I promise to read more of the documentation.