# Acme Vs. Wily

The following is a side-by-side comparison of Acme under Plan 9 vs. Wily under Unix. See http://www.cs.su.oz.au/~gary/wily/ for more docs.

Wily extensions and differences include:

- sam-like command redirections: <, >, | - operate on the current selection
- you can export rc functions and variables to wily
- no confirmations - automatic backup of dirty files
- no warnings when using New to create a new file
- black (dirty) resize box is more visible in wily
- long-running processes can open a socket to wily
- HISTORY mechanism
- Indent, Dotfiles, Clear and Anchor builtins
- Exit in acme is called Quit in wily
- Zerox in acme is called Split in wily
- acme executes a B2B1 command in the context of the command whereas wily does it in the context of the argument
- acme selects B2 output
- window tags scroll horizontally
- contracting labels using environment variables. For example, if a window represents `/u13/pgrad/gary/src/`, on the screen it will show up as `$h/src/` if you set `h=/usr/pgrad/gary`
- if you hit Return immediately after selecting some tag text with the Escape key, it acts as if you'd clicked it with button 2, so typing 'echo fish', Escape, Return executes that command.
- each line in `$WILYTOOLS` or `$HOME/.wilytools` can contain either a comment (starts with whitespace or '#') or a regexp, then a tab, then some tools (i.e. some text) which will be appended into the tag of any window whose label matches the regexp. The first regexp match wins.
- editing the label of a window does "the right thing" if you then B2 on Get
- you can set the wily file, directory, column and main tags, via `$WFILETAG`, `$WDIRTAG`, `$WCOLTAG` and `$WMAINTAG`

Wily does not have the following Acme capabilities:

- the Font builtin should be able to take an argument - this can be fixed
- Dump/Load not implemented yet (could be done by an external program)
- acme makes the right column skinnier - good for guide files
- there is no equivalent to `/mnt/acme`
- ID, Incl, Local, Send, Sort not implemented

A striking similarity :-)

- the View will scroll (with lots of ugly flicker) while selecting, to allow you to select an area larger than the View.

Thanks to <Gerry.Tomlinson@newcastle.ac.uk> and <gary@cs.su.oz.au> for their comments.
Steve Kotsopoulos <steve@border.com> - Nov 11, 1996