[10155] in Athena Bugs
Re: webster
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Thu Dec 17 16:29:25 1992
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 16:29:14 -0500
From: "Jonathan I. Kamens" <jik@pit-manager.MIT.EDU>
To: asshole@Athena.MIT.EDU
Cc: bugs@Athena.MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: [10153]
From: asshole@Athena.MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 16:02:06 EST
is there any way you guys can fix webster so that it doesn't time-out or
freeze up and then exit whenever you try to look up a word that is long and
undefined, but has lots of words that are similar to it and defined?
try looking up "streetwalk"
or just "streetwa" will fuck it up
The webster service is provided by the SIPB, not by Athena. Bug
reports about it should be sent to "bug-sipb", not to "bugs".
In any case, I can tell you that no, it isn't likely that we (I say
"we" because I'm a member of the SIPB) will be fixing webster,
because we are trying to acquire a better dictionary with better
software, and therefore any work we do on the current software will be
a waste.
Besides that, I've worked on the webster code in the past, and it's
such a crock that it is very difficult to fix problems with it.
also... would it be too much to ask to have an xmh editor that not only has
word-wrap as you type, but also when you go back and edit... something with
permanent soft and hard returns is difficult i guess...oh well
The behavior of the text widget is intentional. If you want to
reformat a paragraph when editing it, type M-q, just like in emacs,
and it will reformat.
Of course, you should make sure to separate your paragraphs with blank
lines, or they'll all get filled together.
Jonathan Kamens
IS/Athena Quality Assurance
