sam is a text editor originally written for the Blit graphical terminal connected to a machine running 9th Edition Research Unix. It contained many useful innovations, the most famous of which was its use of structural regular expressions.
sam was the standard text editor for Plan 9 from Bell Labs, and the Plan 9 version was backported to Unix and the X Window Sytem in the 1980s.
This version of sam is based on that 1980s Unix port, with many useful additions and modifications (see New Features).
Note that this is not stable software. This version of sam is under heavy development. That being said, it's my primary editor, so any major bugs tend to get fixed pretty quickly. Still, be careful with it.
Rob posts updates about sam on Twitter at http://twitter.com/TheKingAdRob.
There's a mailing list and discussion group available at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/deadpixi-sam. The list is low-volume and used mostly for announcements and discussion about features.
Installation and configuration is fairly simple:
- If you need to modify the default compile-time configuration (which is unlikely) copy config.mk.def to config.mk and modify as needed
- Run make clean all
- Run make install or, if needed, sudo make install
Note that running make install will install a desktop entry file, in either "system" or "user" mode. This can be specified via the MODE make variable (the default is "user"). To isntall the desktop entry for the all users, use:
make MODE=system install
The sam command runs sam. The B command adds a new file to a running instance of sam, or starts sam if it's not already running.
Both the sam and B commands accept an '-r' argument, naming a remote machine or (assuming you're using ssh(1), an SSH host entry). The remote machine needs to have both sam and rsam installed.
The remote machine may also have the B command installed. If it is installed, the B command can be executed both locally (on the machine running samterm) using the '-r' option, and remotely (on the machine running sam) without the '-r' option.
By default, sam, rsam, samterm, and B all end up in '$(BINDIR)' as defined in config.mk.
Note that Deadpixi sam has extended the binary protocol spoken between sam and samterm. That means that, in its default configuration, a Deadpixi samterm won't work with a non-Deadpixi sam nor will a Deadpixi sam work with a non-Deadpixi samterm.
Defining CLASSIC_SAM_COMPATIBILITY in config.h will allow backwards-compatibility between Deadpixi and classic sam, but at the expense of some of the newer features.
(And note that there may come a time where there is a hard break with the past!)
- Modern OS Support
- This version of sam compiles and runs on modern Linux/Unix/BSD systems.
- Improved 64-bit Support
- The original sam had support for 32-bit architectures and big-endian 64-bit architectures. This version supports 64-bit architectures of any endianess (including, most importantly, x86_64).
- Scalable Font Support
- This version of sam is not limited to classic X fonts, but can use modern scalable fonts. Inconsolata is this author's favorite, though Courier Prime Code is giving Inconsolata a run for its money.
- Multicolor Support
- This version of sam supports colors, including different background colors for different files. This allows different files to be easily distinguished. The default is still the classic two-color appearance, of course. These colors can be configured at runtime.
- Simplified and Dynamic Configuration
- The graphical elements (colors and fonts) of this version of sam are controlled via environment variables, not X Resources. The table of composable characters is now dynamically configurable (via the ~/.keyboard file), where it was once hard-coded. Keybindings and mouse chords are configurable at runtime via a configuration file.
- Far Better Keyboard Support
- The selection ("cursor") can be moved using keyboard commands. Additional keyboard-accessible commands allow jumping between file windows and the command window, scrolling the display, snarfing, pasting, etc. The binding of these commands to keyboard sequences is configurable at run-time.
- Support for Two-Button Mice and Wheel Mice
- The original sam required a three-button mouse. This version is still easier to use with such a mouse, but can be used with a two-button mouse by simulating a button-3 press using shift-button-2. This version also supports scrolling with mouse wheels.
- Support for Mouse Chords
- The commands available for keyboard binding are also accessible via mouse-button combinations ("chords"). By default, the snarf, cut, and paste commands are mapped to chords. The binding of these chords is configurable at run-time.
- Better Remote Editing Support
- This version of sam can use ssh(1) as its remote shell. Additionally, the B command works on both the local and the remote system during remote editing sessions.
- Command Language Extensions
- Various minor and mostly-compatible changes have been made to the sam command language. Most notable is the b command, which now performs a fuzzy match on filenames, making switching between files much faster and easier.
- Improved Manual Page
- The manual page has been rewritten to use the modern mdoc(7) manual page macros. It has been additionally cleaned up, clarified, and extended.
- Support for Tab Expansion
- When enabled, tabs will be expanded into spaces.
This project has an end goal: once the issues listed here are complete, this edition of sam will enter maintenance mode.
- Scalable font support (DONE)
- Support big- and little-endian 64-bit systems (DONE)
- Support compilation and use on modern *nix systems (DONE)
- Runtime configuration of composition sequences (DONE)
- Support two-button mice (DONE)
- Support tab expansion (DONE)
- Support runtime configuration of tab sizes (DONE)
- Support scroll wheels on mice (DONE)
- Support fuzzy matching in the b command (DONE)
- Raise the window when opening a new file (DONE)
- Support a configurable set of keybindings (i.e. rework the keyboard layer) (DONE)
- Support multiple background colors at once (DONE)
- Support the following commands for keybindings
- escape (DONE)
- scrollup / scrolldown (DONE)
- charright / charleft (DONE)
- lineup / linedown (DONE)
- jump to/from command window (DONE)
- delword / delbol / del (DONE)
- snarf / cut / paste / exchange (DONE)
- write (DONE)
- nextlayer / prevlayer (TODO)
- maximize / tile left / tile right (TODO)
- look (TODO)
- /regex (TODO)
- send (TODO)
- eol / bol (DONE)
- Support a configurable scroll factor; scrolling is a bit drastic now (DONE)
- Support Unicode beyond the Basic Multilingual Plane (note that this will break the sam binary protocol, so this version of samterm won't work with other sams! Email me if you think this is a bad idea; I'm willing to reconsider) (TODO)
- Support font fallback (TODO)
- Allow runtime configuration of key bindings (DONE)
- Support a configurable set of mouse chords (DONE)
- Support runtime configuration of mouse chords (DONE)
- Support mouse button reassignment (TODO)
- Support runtime mouse button reassignment (TODO)
- Remove non-*nix OS support (Plan 9 has their own sam) (TODO)
- Remove external command FIFO, switch to X ClientMessage messages for IPC (email me if you want to know why I think this is a good idea) (TODO)
- Support the CDPATH environment variable for the cd command (TODO)
- Split the man page into documentation for samterm, sam, keyboard, and samrc (if and when samrc becomes a thing) (TODO)
- Add localization support (TODO)
- Add a Desktop Entry file, icon, etc (TODO)
- Create RPMs, DEBs, etc (TODO)
- Refactor all code to be as clean and standards-compliant as possible; remove all legacy code (TODO)
- Compile with no warnings, with all warnings and -pedantic enabled on GCC in C99 mode (TODO)
- Remove Xt dependency (TODO)
- Switch to a more X11-y model (e.g. one child window per layer) (TODO)
- Windows port (no, seriously, stop laughing)
- Non-X11 Mac OS X port
- Console port
Once the above goals are met, the only changes that will be made to sam are:
- Bugfixes
- Translation updates
- Binary package updates
- Updates necessary to keep sam compiling on whatever systems its users are using
- Syntax highlighting
- Multiple cursors
- Complex text rendering (I really am sorry about this one; I want speakers of languages with more complex writing systems to use sam, but getting it to work would be nigh impossible)
- Use sam! Open up issues on GitHub if you see any problems or have any ideas.
- Spread sam! Tell your friends and colleagues. Anyone know Rob Pike, Brian Kernighan, Ken Thompson, or Bjarne Stroustrup? They are known sam-users, see if they like this version. :)
- Package sam! Create packages or ports of sam for your operating system of choice.
- Document sam! I'm not particularly good at readable, accessible documentation. If you are, I'd love help!
- Translate sam! Currently, sam only speaks English. I'd like to see sam speak all of the languages that its users speak.
- Write sam! Write code and send patches.
These credits are in rough chronological order:
- Rob Pike, Howard Trickey, Matty Farrow, Boyd Roberts, Doug Gwyn, James Clark, Mark H. Wilkinson, et al.
- Authors and/or contributors to the original X version of sam, upon which this version is based.
- Rob King
- Added most of the things mentioned in New Features above. Rob is the author and maintainer of this version of sam.
- Chris Siebenmann
- Many many suggestions, fixes, and improvements.
- Aram Hăvărneanu
- Improved the handling of Makefile variables.
- Ishpeck
- Improved C89 support.
- Tommy Pettersson
- Fixed bugs in the cursor movement code.
- Christian Neukirchen
- Found and fixed numerous bugs.
- Benjamin Scher Purcell
- Added the Cbol and Ceol commands.
- mbucc
- Helped get sam compiling on Mac OS X.
- RamKromberg
- Offered numerous suggestions.
- Erez Schatz
- Helped debug non-Latin keyboard support.
If I've forgotten you in this list of credits, please accept my apologies and email me (Rob King) at jking@deadpixi.com to be added.
The authors of this software are Rob Pike and Howard Trickey. Copyright (c) 1998 by Lucent Technologies.
Rob King made some changes. Those changes, Copyright (c) 2014-2016 by Rob King.
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any purpose without fee is hereby granted, provided that this entire notice is included in all copies of any software which is or includes a copy or modification of this software and in all copies of the supporting documentation for such software.
THIS SOFTWARE IS BEING PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY. IN PARTICULAR, NEITHER THE AUTHORS NOR LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES MAKE ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF ANY KIND CONCERNING THE MERCHANTABILITY OF THIS SOFTWARE OR ITS FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE.