Plan 9 Editors: Sam & Acme

This is a fork of the Sam and Acme editors, derived from the Plan 9 from User Space (aka plan9port) project (itself a port of many Plan 9 utilities to Unix).

This version tacks on a few extra keybindings and some functionality to allow a more keyboard-driven editing experience. Given both editors' emphasis on mouse use, this is perhaps somewhat heretical...

Changes

• The X11 and MacOS implementations of devdraw now support further combination keybindings such as Ctrl + Shift + Key.

• The default keybindings for both Acme and Sam now include:

Key combination	Function	Comment(s)
Ctrl + c	Snarf (copy)	Use Ctrl + Shift + c for sending ^C (0x03).
Ctrl + x	Cut	Use Ctrl + Shift + x for sending ^X (0x18).
Ctrl + v	Paste	Use Ctrl + Shift + v for sending ^V (0x16).
Shift + Left	Extend selection left by one character
Shift + Right	Extend selection right by one character
Ctrl + Shift + Left	Extend selection left to start of line
Ctrl + Shift + Right	Extend selection right to end of line
Up	Move cursor up one line	Moves the cursor to the same character position on the previous line, or the end of the previous line if it is shorter. Tabs are treated as a single character! This works best with fixed-width (monospace) fonts. Use PageUp for scrolling.
Down	Move cursor down one line	Moves the cursor to the same character position on the next line, or the end of the next line if it is shorter. Tabs are treated as a single character! This works best with fixed-width (monospace) fonts. Use PageDown for scrolling.
Shift + Up	Extend selection up one line	Extends the selection to the same character position on the previous line, or the end of the previous line if it is shorter. Tabs are treated as a single character! This works best with fixed-width (monospace) fonts.
Shift + Down	Extend selection down one line	Extends the selection to the same character position on the next line, or the end of the next line if it is shorter. Tabs are treated as a single character! This works best with fixed-width (monospace) fonts.
Delete	Delete character to the right of the cursor	Also deletes a selection. Use Shift + Delete for sending ^? (0x7F).

• Additionally, the following shortcuts have been added for Acme only:

Key combination	Function	Comment(s)
Ctrl + z	Undo	Use Ctrl + Shift + z for sending ^Z (0x1A).
Ctrl + y	Redo	Use Ctrl + Shift + y for sending ^Y (0x19).
Ctrl + s	Put (save)	Use Ctrl + Shift + s for sending ^S (0x13).
Ctrl + Return	Execute selected text as a command	Same as mouse button 2 click.
Ctrl + Shift + Return	Locate or acquire the file/string/etc currently selected	Same as mouse button 3 click.

• Finally alongside the new keybindings there are some Sam specific changes: window focus follows the mouse (rather than by clicking), and the mouse scroll-wheel can be used to scroll.

Installation

The main requirement is 9fans/plan9port. Usually this is installed to /usr/local/plan9:

git clone https://github.com/9fans/plan9port.git /usr/local/plan9
cd /usr/local/plan9
./INSTALL
export PLAN9=/usr/local/plan9
export PATH=$PATH:$PLAN9/bin

With the plan9port utilities accessible, the editors can be built using mk:

git clone https://github.com/lewis-weinberger/9ed.git
cd 9ed
mk install

This will create four executables: sam, samterm, acme and devdraw, installed by default at $PLAN9/bin/. To install the executables at a custom location, set the BIN environment variable (e.g. mk install BIN=/usr/local/bin). If installed at a custom location, make sure to set the PATH environment variable (as above) such that these new versions are found before the plan9port versions.

CAUTION: this is a personal fork with changes made based on my preferences, and only tested by me. Some of the changes may introduce new bugs and cause the editors to crash unexpectedly. Use at your own peril!

Usage

See acme(1) or sam(1), as well as the original papers by Rob Pike describing the editors:

• Acme: A User Interface for Programmers
• The text editor Sam

There are helper scripts a and s which can be used to configure some of the runtime settings.