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<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>
Wily + Python > Emacs + Lisp?
</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>DRAFT ONLY</H1>
<P>This is a draft of a document which will be submitted to the <A
HREF="http://www.python.org/workshops/1996-06/"> 4th International
Python Conference</A> to be held at June 4-6, 1996 at the Lawrence
Livermore labs in California.
<P>This document describes aspects of Wily which are not yet released for beta
testing.
<H1>Wily + Python > Emacs + Lisp?</H1>
<ADDRESS>
<A HREF="http://www.cs.su.oz.au/~gary">Gary Capell</A>
<<A HREF="mailto:gary@cs.su.oz.au"><TT>gary@cs.su.oz.au</TT></A>>
<BR><A HREF="http://www.cs.su.oz.au/">Basser Department of Computer Science,</A>
<BR><A HREF="http://www.usyd.edu.au/">University of Sydney</A>, 2006
<BR>Australia
<BR>
</ADDRESS>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Wily is an editing environment which can be extended with Python
programs. Instead of using an embedded Python interpreter, Wily talks
a simple message protocol, and a module lets Python speak the same
protocol. This approach is general (one can use any language)
and clean (the editor is responsible for only a small set of functions).
The message interface promotes a clear separation of functions, with the
Wily editing environment providing a standard way of interacting with
client programs. The main disadvantage may be that the looser binding
between programming language and editor is less efficient, but this is
not expected to be a significant problem.
<P>The editor itself is simple, clean, and efficient, with a few features
which combine consistently. It abandons backwards compatibility with
the virtual terminals of yesteryear, to take full advantage of a bitmapped
terminal and three button mouse.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<H2>Table of Contents</H2>
<P>This documet describes:
<UL>
<LI>(very briefly) <A HREF="#overview">the Wily editing environment</A>
<LI><A HREF="#protocol">Wily's message protocol</A>
<LI><A HREF="#module">the Python module</A> which translates a Wily
message stream
<LI> some <A HREF="#tools">sample tools</A> written using this
combination.
<LI>some <A HREF="#alternatives">alternative approaches</A> to
connecting an editor and a programming language
<LI><A HREF="#todo">further work</A> to be done on Wily.
<LI>How to <A HREF="#obtain">download Wily</A>.
<LI><A HREF="#ack">Acknowledgements</A>.
</UL>
<P>An appendix defines the Python interface in
<A HREF="#appendix">more detail.</A>
<H2><A NAME="overview">Overview of Wily</A></H2>
<P>This is necessarily very brief, and Wily and Acme are very different
from what most people are used to. Please read
<A HREF="http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/doc/acme.html">Rob Pike's paper</A>
for a better and more complete description of the interface.
<P>Wily's main attractions are that it is very simple (the User Manual
describing the whole user interface is about seven pages), very quick to
use, and integrates well with other Unix tools.
<H3>History</H3>
<P>Wily emulates in the Unix and X Windows environment the <A
HREF="http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/doc/acme.html">Acme</A> editor
from <A HREF="http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/">Plan 9</A>.
Acme couldn't easily be ported to Unix because it is written
in <A HREF="http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/doc/ref.html">Alef</A>
(a concurrent programming language not widely available) and uses
non-portable features of Plan 9 . Also, a port of Acme would not be
freely distributable.
<P>The name ``Wily'' derives from Wile E. Coyote, an avid consumer of
Acme products.
<H3>Modern Aesthetics</H3>
<IMG SRC="http://www.cs.su.oz.au/~gary/wily/p2.gif"
ALT="Wily windows, Unicode text propotionally spaced"
width=798 height=264>
<P>The screen is divided into columns, which are divided into windows.
A window may represent a file, a directory, or the output from some
program. The screen, columns and windows each have a narrow horizontal
``tag'' at the top, which contains some useful text, and for windows
contains the name of the window and a "file is modified" indicator.
<P>Text is displayed in a propotionally spaced font by default. There
is a built in function to toggle with a monospace font, but there are
very few occasions when this is necessary or desirable. In most cases
limiting a text editor to monospace fonts is blindly following the
hardware limitations of the 1960s.
<P>Text is read and written as UTF8-encoded
<A HREF="http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/doc/utf.html">Unicode</A>,
providing some support for editing multi-lingual and scientific text,
but remaining backwardly compatible with plain 7-bit ASCII text.
<H3>Everything is text</H3>
<P>All actions in Wily are through creating and interacting with text on
the screen, using the three-button mouse and the keyboard. B1 (mouse button
one) selects text, B2 executes text and B3 attempts to ``goto'' the text.
<P>When executing text, there are some built in operations, such as
``Quit'', or ``Del'' which are executed by Wily itself. Otherwise, the
command is executed in a subprocess, with output redirected to a window
within Wily and input from <CODE>/dev/null</CODE>. It is also possible
to use the current selection (currently selected text) as input for
and/or output of some child program. For example <CODE>|fmt</CODE>
formats the current selection, <CODE>>spell</CODE> checks its
spelling and <CODE><date</CODE> replaces it with the current time.
<P>The <em>goto</em> operation used with B3 is polymorphic in that it
recognises three different patterns:
<DL>
<DT><TT>name</TT>
<DD>If <TT>name</TT> is a file or directory, open it, otherwise search
for the literal <TT>name</TT>
<DT><TT>:address</TT>
<DD>Search for <TT>address</TT> in the current window. The
address may be a line number, a character number, a regular expression,
or two of these, separated by a comma.
<DT><TT>file:address</TT>
<DD>Open <TT>file</TT> and search in it for <TT>address</TT>
</DL>
<P>Wily's power derives in part from its general treatment of text.
Whether text is found in a file, or directory listing, created by
Wily, output by some other program, or typed by the user, it can all
be treated the same way. A simple text file may be used as a menu of
commands or a simple form of hypertext. Previously typed commands or
``usage'' messages can be edited and executed. There is no need for
dialogs, menus, modes, buttons or accelerator keys, just operations on
text on the screen.
<H3>No wasted user actions</H3>
<P>Wily minimizes the number of unnecessary mouse or keyboard
actions the user must make. For instance, placing newly created windows
is done without needing the user's help, although the user can easily
rearrange things if Wily's heuristics aren't acceptable. Wily also makes
cutting, pasting, executing and searching for text so easy to do with
the mouse that there is no need to retype text already on the screen.
<P>Cutting and pasting text is made particularly convenient using
<EM>combinations</EM> of mouse buttons. To cut text, select it with B1,
and while still holding B1, also click B2: this is a B1-B2 chord.
To paste text use a B1-B3 chord. This style is unusual, but once it becomes
familiar other methods of cutting and pasting seem unbearably slow.
Another chord (B2-B1) is used to execute some text with
an argument.
<P>To avoid having to position the mouse accurately, a mouse selection of
zero length (i.e. a mouse click) is expanded in a ``reasonable'' manner.
Clicking with B2 in a word expands to that word, which is then executed.
Clicking with B3 in an address (e.g. <TT>foo.c:45</TT>) expands to that
address. Double-clicking with B1 just inside paired braces, brackets or
quotes selects the region thus delimited.
<P>Wily's general approach to text as commands and addresses
is compounded because these basic functions can be accessed so
conveniently. Most operations can be achieved with a single mouse click
or mouse combination.
<H3>Synergy</H3>
<P>The consistent and general use of text for input and output
in Wily makes the combination of its features more than the
sum of its parts.
<P>Stepping through an example session might best illustrate this:
<blockquote>
Susan has fetched the file <TT>frob.tar.Z</TT>. She clicks with B1 in
the file name, and with B2 in the word <TT>untarz</TT>. The utility
<TT>untarz</TT> uncompresses and untars the file, verbosely printing
file names as it goes. She clicks with B3 on one of the file names,
<TT>INSTALL</TT>, which opens the file. The <TT>INSTALL</TT> file
suggests that she run <TT>configure</TT> then <TT>make</TT>. She clicks
B2 in each of these words to run the suggested programs, but there's a
problem. The make fails when <TT>gcc</TT> quits with the error message
<BR><TT>
keyboard.c:4: strings.h: No such file or directory.
</TT>
<BR>She clicks with B3 in the first part of the error message, which
opens the file and selects the line. On Susan's system there is a
<TT>string.h</TT> but no <TT>strings.h</TT>. She removes the last
<TT>s</TT> with a B1-B2 chord. When she modifies the file, Wily sets
the ``file modified'' indicator, and adds the word ``Save'' to the tag
for this window. Susan clicks B2 on the word <TT>Save</TT> to write the
file, clicks B2 on <TT>make</TT> again, and she's done.
</blockquote>
<P>This whole process uses about ten mouse clicks and no typing.
<H2><A NAME="protocol">Connecting Programs to Wily</A></H2>
<P>Wily waits for a program to connect to it using a socket, and then sends
and receives messages. The messages can be RPC requests and replies,
or ``event'' messages generated by Wily when certain actions happen in
windows which a remote program has asked to monitor.
<P>The interface is deliberately at a rather high level. The intent is that Wily
will take care of of the details of interaction, with other programs providing the
semantics of executing a command, opening a window or searching for an address.
This promotes a consistent set of tools and an efficient division of labour, but necessarily
at the loss of some generality.
<P>The requests allow the remote program to
<UL>
<LI> list the windows currently open
<LI> create a new window with a given name, which may or may not
correspond to an existing file or directory
<LI> ask to be sent some subset of the events which happen in a
particular window
<LI>change the name of a window
<LI> read the text from some part of a window
<LI> modify the text in a window
<LI> act as if some string were selected with B2 or B3 in a window
(useful for searching for text, or accessing built in functions)
</UL>
<P>A program may ask to be notified when events happen in a particular
window. These events are generated when:
<UL>
<LI> text is selected with B2 or B3 (i.e. the user is trying to execute or ``goto''
some text)
<LI> text has been modified
<LI> the window is destroyed
</UL>
<P>When a program is being sent B2 or B3 events, Wily doesn't act on them,
merely sends them on. The program may opt to ``send back'' some events which
Wily will then act on. Events which modify text, on the
other hand, are <EM>always</EM> handled by Wily, which then may inform the
remote program what has happened. In other words, the remote program
cannot stop the user modifying any piece of text, although it can repair
the text later if it wishes.
<H2><A NAME="module"> The Python interface</A></H2>
<H3><TT>Wilymodule.c</TT></H3>
<P>This is a very simple interface between Python
and the Wily message protocol. It establishes a connection,
provides remote procedure calls and queues events until they are requested.
<P>A <TT>Connection</TT> is initialized with no arguments, and
represents the connection to Wily. All the other functions are methods of
a connection object.
<P>The <TT>Connection</TT> has methods to return a list of windows
representing all the windows currently open in Wily, to create a new
window, and to return the next event from Wily.
Windows are represented as integers, which correspond to window
identifiers with Wily, and events are represented as tuples.
<P>The <TT>Connection</TT> has a number of methods which provide
operations on Wily windows. These operations allow a program, once it
has an identifier for a window, to change its event mask, its name or
its ``tools'' (useful text in the window's tag), read or modify some of
its text, or simulate a B2 or B3 action.
<H3><TT>Wilywin.py</TT></H3>
<P>This is a small Python module which provides a friendlier
interface to Wily's functionality.
<P><H2>Example Program Fragment</H2>
<PRE>
# Create a window called "hello",and fill it with
# the text "Hello, world"
import wily
con = wily.Connection()
win = con.win("hello")
con.replace(win, 0,0, "Hello, world\n")
</PRE>
<H2><A NAME="tools">Sample Tools</A></H2>
<P>These are small tools written as proof of concept, to test and refine
the message interface, and as templates for other applications.
<H3>News reader</H3>
<P>This uses Python classes for threading, talking NNTP and reading and
writing <TT>.newsrc</TT> files, and Wily for displaying newsgroups and
articles. The program acts on B3 actions on article numbers, and B2
actions on some special function names (e.g. Catch-up, Follow-up) which
it also places in the correct tags.
<H3>Session save and restore</H3>
<P>There are two programs to save and restore the ``state'' of an editing
session. The ``save'' program determines from Wily what windows are
open, what the current selection is for each, and the full text of
windows which don't represent a file or directory. The ``restore''
program connects to Wily and uses the saved information to create and
massage windows to hopefully return the session to the original state.
<H3>Terminal</H3>
There are some useful programs which require the traditional ``prompt
and read a line of input'' interface. Examples include <TT>gdb</TT>,
<TT>/bin/sh</TT> or <TT>/bin/mail</TT>. To use these programs, but from
within the Wily editing environment, a simple terminal program was
written, in C. It is called <TT>win</TT>.
<P><TT>Win</TT> provides standard input and output for its client program,
and creates and monitors a Wily window, maintaining an <EM>input
point</EM>. When <TT>win</TT> sees a carriage return entered after the input
point, it sends the text between the input point and the carriage return
to the client program. Output coming back from the client program is
inserted just <EM>before</EM> the input point.
<P><TT>Win</TT> does not attempt to provide a pseudo tty or work with any
programs which attempt to use curses-style screen addressing. However,
it works fine for programs such as those mentioned above, and was written with
only 230 lines of commented C.
<H2><A NAME="alternatives">Alternative approaches</A></H2>
<P>Wily's approach to extending the editor is to communicate
with other processes using a socket or pipe. Here we examine
some alternative strategies, and why Wily doesn't use them.
<H3>Build an interpreter into the editor</H3>
<P>This is by far the most common design for an extensible editor.
<P>There are a few advantages to this approach.
Letting the extension language share the address space of the editor
is more efficient than using IPC. The language can also be tailored
to provide a close match to the editing requirements.
<P>There are two reasons why this approach was rejected for Wily.
The first reason is that it restricts users to a single language,
and it often means designing a new (possibly half-baked) language.
The second reason is that embedding a language interpreter in the editing
environment seemed an <EM>unnecessary</EM> step towards monolithism
and code bloat.
<P>For comparison, below are the sizes of three stripped, dynamically
linked executables on the author's sun4d Solaris system:
<TABLE>
<TR><TD ALIGN=right><TT>167264</TT> <TD ALIGN=left>wily
<TR><TD ALIGN=right><TT>234272</TT> <TD ALIGN=left>vi
<TR><TD ALIGN=right><TT>1873336</TT> <TD ALIGN=left>xemacs
</TABLE>
<H3>Link code dynamically</H3>
<P>Another approach is to dynamically link extension code with the editor.
This is more general and more
efficient than the built in interpreter design.
<A HREF="http://www.premia.com/cw.htm">CodeWright</A>®
from Premia uses this approach in the Microsoft Windows environment.
<P>One problem with this
approach is that dynamic linking is not standard on all UNIXes. Another
is that one errant code fragment dynamically linked
in might damage the integrity of the editor. The result might be lost
data, or even worse, data quietly modified in some subtle manner.
<P>When this approach becomes ubiquitously available and more secure, it
will be re-examined.
<H3>ILU or CORBA</H3>
<P>It would seem that
<A HREF="ftp://ftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/ilu/ilu.html">ILU</A>
and
<A HREF="http://www.omg.org/corba.htm">CORBA</A>
both provide a ready-made solution to turn an editor into
a distributed object server. However, both seemed too
heavy-weight for this simple task.
<H2><A NAME="todo">Further Work</A></H2>
<P>There is a strong belief amongst Wily's users and developers that ``creeping
featurism'' is evil. Most of the ongoing work will be towards refining
existing features, and improving the clarity and correctness of the
code. Retaining the ``look and feel'' of Acme is also an important
consideration.
<P>There is still room for innovation, though. The message interface
is still very young, and may change with the demands of application
writers. The author hopes that the Python community will be able to
make good use of an editor programmable in Python. Although there is no
<EM>need</EM> for cursor keys to navigate around Wily, they may be added
later, although they are a low priority.
<H3>Networking and security</H3>
<P>Currently programs connect to Wily by writing to a UNIX named pipe.
Wily's security relies on this pipe being writable only by its owner.
This means Wily can't accept connections directly from remote machines,
which would be desirable for some applications. A design which avoids
this limitation securely and efficiently has not been decided upon.
<H2><A NAME="obtain">Obtaining Wily</A></H2>
<P>Wily is freely available.
<P>The prime source for information about Wily is the WWW page at
<A HREF="http://www.cs.su.oz.au/~gary/wily/">
<CODE>http://www.cs.su.oz.au/~gary/wily/</CODE>
</A>
The wily
distribution contains <TT>wilymodule.c</TT>, and can be obtained at
<A HREF="ftp://ftp.cs.su.oz.au/gary/wily.tgz">
<CODE>ftp://ftp.cs.su.oz.au/gary/wily.tgz</CODE>
</A>
<H2><A NAME="ack">Acknowledgements</A></H2>
<P>The early design and source of Wily owe a lot to Bill Trost.
Wily and this paper have also been
improved by patches, suggestions and bug reports from
Assar,
Davor Cubranic,
Kyle Dean,
Stephen Gallimore,
Mark H. Wilkinson,
Bjorn Helgaas,
Steve Kilbane,
Beirne Konarski,
Bob Krzaczek,
Alberto Nava,
Arnold Robbins,
Rich Salz,
Scott Schwartz,
Chris Siebenmann,
and Richard Wolff.
<P>Wily builds on the Sam distribution by Rob Pike and Howard
Trickey, and originally used libtext by James Farrow. James
Farrow also makes available a set of Unicode fonts for X at
<A HREF="ftp://ftp.cs.su.oz.au/matty/unicode/"><TT>
ftp.cs.su.oz.au/matty/unicode/
</TT></A>
<HR>
<H2><A NAME="appendix">Appendix: The Python/Wily Module</A></H2>
<P><TT>con = wily.Con()</TT>
<H2>Connection</H2>
<P>Connection objects have no attributes and suport the following methods:
<DL>
<DT><TT>list()</TT><DD>Returns a list of names and <TT>Win</TT> objects
representing the windows currently open.
<DT><TT>win(name)</TT><DD>Return a new window called <TT>name</TT>
<DT><TT>event() </TT><DD>Return the next <TT>Event</TT>. Note that this method
will block until an event is available.
<DT><TT>eventwouldblock() </TT><DD>Indicates whether calling
<TT>Connection.event()</TT> would block.
<DT><TT>returnevent(event) </TT><DD>Send <TT>event</TT> back to Wily, probably
because we have no use for it.
</DL>
<P>The following methods of a connection object act on a window.
<DL>
<DT><TT>attach(id,mask)</TT><DD>Request events for this window.
<DT><TT>detach(id)</TT><DD>Cancel request for events for this window.
<DT><TT>setname(id,string)</TT><DD>Set the name of this window.
<DT><TT>settools(id,string)</TT><DD>Set the toolbar for this window.
<DT><TT>read(id,from,to)</TT><DD>Read some range from this window, returns a UTF8 string.
<DT><TT>replace(id,from,to, string)</TT><DD>Replace some range of window with some other text.
<DT><TT>run(id, command)</TT><DD>Makes wily act as if <TT>command</TT>
had been selected with B2 in this window. This can be used to access
Wily's built in functions. For example, to delete <TT>w</TT>, call
<TT>con.run(w_id, "Del")</TT>
<DT><TT>goto(id,address)</TT><DD>Makes wily act as if <TT>address</TT> had
been selected with B3 in this window. Returns a tuple identifying the
window and position which are the result of the search.
</DL>
<H3>Events</H3>
<P>Events are returned as tuples. Every event has at least two elements,
which are a window identifer, and an event type identifier (which is one of
<TT>wily.GOTO</TT>, <TT>wily.EXEC</TT>, <TT>wily.REPLACE</TT>
or <TT>wily.DEL</TT>). All of these event types except <TT>DEL</TT>
also have a <TT>from</TT>, <TT>to</TT> and <TT>string</TT> attribute.
</BODY>
</HTML>
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