On Dec 1, 11:35am, der.hans wrote:
> I am trying to learn emacs via the command line, so don't need vi mode
> everywhere, but there are a couple of machines where I need to really be
> able to get work done, hence need an editting mode that I'm quite
> proficient in.
I don't want to start an editor war here, but here are some suggestions
for vi users who don't necessarily want to change their editing habits,
but would still like to use a "better" editor.
- Don't use ``vi'', use one of the vi clones.
- On Linux, this is easy since many distributions ship ``vim'' as
``vi''. ``vim'' is a pretty good editor, but...
- I prefer ``xvile'' (or ``vile'' when I can't run ``xvile'' for
some reason). If you have a complete Red Hat distribution, vile
is on the "Power Tools" CD. (I just learned this recently.) But I
never get it from there; instead I always build it myself.
You can get the source distribution for [x]vile from
ftp://dickey.his.com/vile. On linux, here is my preferred
configuration line for ``xvile'':
./configure --with-screen=x11 --with-perl --with-builtin-filters
After this, you do the usual "make; make install".
[x]vile can do syntax coloring, but you need to enable this feature
in your startup script (.vilerc). I'll send my .vilerc file to
anyone who's interested.
As you might guess from my preferred configuration line, vile can
be built to use Perl as an extension language. (If you don't
configure it this way, vile still has its macro language that
it inherited from micro-emacs.) Having Perl as an extension
language means that it is possible to extend the basic editor
in a number of interesting ways. E.g, I've written code which
allows you to run a shell in one of vile's "windows" and have
implemented enough vt100 terminal emulation (all in Perl) to be
able to run programs like vi and top in the editor. (And yes,
you can still edit text in other buffers at the same time.)
- Finally, if you really want to use emacs for some reason (and
there are many good reasons for using emacs), there are several
modes which give you good vi emulation. The last time I checked,
viper mode looked pretty good.
Again, I don't wish to start an editor war here.
I've considered "converting" to emacs a number of times, but concluded
(rightly or wrongly) that I probably wouldn't become significantly
faster by switching to a different set of key bindings.
However, there were a number of features that emacs (and other
editors) have which make stock vi look really clunky. In the early
nineties (around '93 or so), I started looking for a vi clone with
more advanced capabilities. I did try out ``vim'', but at the time,
it was relatively feeble and wouldn't even build cleanly on my (then)
primary work machine (an m88k SVR4 box). I finally discovered
``vile'' while reading an X11 FAQ. I was doubtful at first (mostly
become of its name), but I gave it a try and discovered that it built
*very* cleanly and even had rudimentary X window system support. I
set out to improve the X support and contributed a number of other
features. (Read the CHANGES files if you're interested in the
details.) One of these days, I hope to find time to add a GTK+
interface to xvile.
Kevin
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