Brief (text editor)

Infobox Software
name = B.R.I.E.F.
logo =


caption = Screenshot of a sample B.R.I.E.F. session
developer = Borland
latest_release_version = 3.1
latest_release_date =
operating_system = DOS, OS/2, Microsoft Windows
platform = x86
language =
status =
support_status =
genre = Text editor
source_model = Closed source
license =
website =

BRIEF was a very popular programmer's text editor in the early 1980s [cite web
url=http://www.alaska.net/~chazmo/textedit.html
title=Text Editors
publisher=
date=
accessdate=2007-10-12] [cite web
url=http://www.texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?BriefFamily
title=TextEditors Wiki: BriefFamily
publisher=
date=
accessdate=2007-10-12] . 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 who released version 3.1 but a year later sold the product to Borland. BRIEF 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. - an acronym for Basic Reconfigurable Interactive Editing Facility.It is no longer sold by Borland. Some Vim and Emacs packages provide Brief functionality.

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

Clones

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

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 [cite web
url=http://www.texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?BriefFamily
title=TextEditors Wiki: BriefFamily
publisher=
date=
accessdate=2007-10-12] .
* Borland C++ 5.0
* Borland Delphi
* Borland JBuilder
* JED - by John E. Davis
* Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
* Platform Builder for Microsoft Windows CE 5.0 [cite web
url=http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms937343.aspx
title=Text Editor Emulation
publisher=Microsoft
date=
accessdate=2007-10-12]
* RimStar
* TheSemwareEditor
* Zeus

References

External links

* [http://www.crisp.com/ Brief Compatible Programmers Text Editor ]
* [http://www.briefeditor.com/ Shareware Brief]

* [http://www.texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?BriefFamily TextEditors Wiki: BriefFamily]