Brief (text editor)
| Brief | |
|---|---|
 Screenshot of a sample Brief session | |
| Original author(s) | UnderWare, Inc. |
| Developer(s) | Borland International |
| Initial release | 1985 |
| Stable release | 3.1
/ May 16, 1992 |
| Operating system | MS-DOS, OS/2, Windows |
| Platform | x86 |
| Type | Text editor |
Brief (stylized BRIEF or B.R.I.E.F., a backronym for Basic Reconfigurable Interactive Editing Facility), is a once-popular programmer's text editor in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was originally released for MS-DOS, then IBM OS/2 and Microsoft Windows. The Brief interface and functionality live on, including via the SourceForge GRIEF editor.[1]
History
Brief was designed and developed by UnderWare Inc,[2] a company founded in Providence, Rhode Island by David Nanian and Michael Strickman,[3] and was published by Solution Systems. UnderWare moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1985. Solution Systems released version 2.1 in 1988.[4]
In 1990, UnderWare sold Brief to Solution Systems, which released version 3.1.[5]
Solution Systems advertised the $195 Brief as a "Program Editing Breakthrough! / Get 20% More Done".[6] Solution Systems closed permanently after the sale to Borland. Brief is no longer sold by Borland.
Features
The original product features contain:
- A Lisp-like macro language; later, a C-like macro language was added
- Completely configurable keyboard
- Template editing and smart indenting for all major micro-compilers
- Multiple undo/redo
- Unlimited file size (restricted only by disk space)
- Program compiling from within Brief, with "go to the next error line" service
- Support for all major popular compilers
- User configurations to support any other compiler with menu-driven setup
- EMS caching for all files and macros
- Mouse support
- Complete edit operations
- Regular expression search and replace
- Multiple windows, including multiple windows on the same source file
- Ability to set extremely high key-repeat rates
Brief for Windows features
- All the features of Brief for DOS and OS/2
- The first programmer's editor to make use of the Windows WYSIWYG environment
- Color coding of language constructs
- Multitask within Windows environment
- Full use of Windows memory for caching all files and macros
- Ability to spawn off compiles to a DOS box without leaving the editor
Popularity
Both the Brief interface and its functionality had a following, and they live on via SourceForge's GRIEF.[1]
Clones
Some Vim and Emacs packages provide Brief functionality. There was more than one program written to provide Brief-like functionality:
Emulators
The Brief keyboard layout became popular and was implemented in or emulated by other editors, such as Lugaru Epsilon, by providing a remapping of the keyboard shortcuts and editor behavior; dBase, an early DOS-day database, also copied this keyboard mapping.[9] [10]
- Borland C++ 5.0
- CodeWright
- Embarcadero Delphi, formerly Borland
- Embarcadero JBuilder, formerly Borland
- JED - by John E. Davis
- Lugaru Epsilon
- Microsoft Visual Studio (Built-in) 6, 2003, 2005, 2008
- Microsoft Visual Studio (via Addin) 2010, 2012, 2013[11]
- Platform Builder for Microsoft Windows CE 5.0[12]
- RimStar
- TextPad
- The SemWare Editor
- VEDIT
- CRiSP Editor Emulator (Emacs CRiSP mode)[13]
- BRIEF Editor Emulator (Emacs BRIEF mode)[14][15]
References
- ^ a b c "GRIEF: BRIEF clone". Retrieved 2014-10-01.
- ^ William Zachmann (August 17, 1987). "Underware's handy Brief". Computerworld.
- ^ Mark Malamad (June 26, 1984). "This 'Underware' is not for wearing". Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio).
- ^ "Solutions Systems: Brief editor, version 2.1". Computerworld. September 12, 1988.
- ^ "About BRIEF Text Editor".
In 1990, UnderWare sold BRIEF to Solution Systems .. which released version 3.1 .. a year later sold BRIEF to Borland.
- ^ "Program Editing Breakthrough!". BYTE (advertisement). March 1983. p. 326. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
- ^ "Brief Editor, an incomplete rewrite, ver: 4.50". Retrieved 2008-07-08.
- ^ "CRiSP: Brief Compatible Programmers Text Editor". Crisp, Inc. Vital, Inc. Retrieved 2012-05-14.
- ^ "Brief Editor keyboard mappings". dBase.com.
- ^ "brief-keyboard". Lugaru Software Ltd.
- ^ "Visual Studio ยป BRIEF keyboard emulation implemented in VS2010 AddIn (downloadable project)". Mark McGinty. 7 April 2012.
- ^ "Text Editor Emulation". Microsoft. Retrieved 2007-10-12.
- ^ "GNU ELPA - crisp". elpa.gnu.org. GNU ELPA Packages. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
- ^ "GNU ELPA - brief". elpa.gnu.org. GNU ELPA Packages. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
- ^ Sander, Jon (2018-08-16). "The Past Comes Around Again". irreal.org. Retrieved 2023-02-03.