Brief (text editor)

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B.R.I.E.F.

Screenshot of a sample B.R.I.E.F. session
Developed by Borland
Latest release 3.1
OS DOS, OS/2, Microsoft Windows
Platform x86
Genre Text editor

BRIEF was a very popular programmer’s text editor in the early 80's[1][2]. It was designed and developed by UnderWare, Inc., a company founded in Providence, Rhode Island by David Nanian and Michael Strickman, and published by Solution Systems. UnderWare moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1985. In 1990, UnderWare sold BRIEF to Solution Systems, its publisher, who -- after releasing v3.1 -- subsequently sold the product to Borland in 1991. It was available for DOS and OS/2 and could run in a DOS console window under early versions of Microsoft Windows.

BRIEF is more accurately listed as B.R.I.E.F.: it is an acronym for Basic Reconfigurable Interactive Editing Facility. It is no longer sold by Borland (their latest release was V3.1). There are also Vim and Emacs packages available to provide Brief functionality.

Contents

[edit] 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

[edit] Clones

  • Boxer
  • Short
  • Terse
  • CrispEditor from Vital - one of the few remaining Brief clones

[edit] Emulators

The Brief keyboard layout became popular and was implemented in or emulated by other editors by providing a remapping of the keyboard shortcuts and editor behaviour[3].

[edit] References

  1. ^ Text Editors. Retrieved on 2007-10-12.
  2. ^ TextEditors Wiki: BriefFamily. Retrieved on 2007-10-12.
  3. ^ TextEditors Wiki: BriefFamily. Retrieved on 2007-10-12.
  4. ^ Text Editor Emulation. Microsoft. Retrieved on 2007-10-12.

[edit] External links