Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ukma.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!hasmed!qusavx!ukma!david From: david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron, NPR Lover) Newsgroups: net.bugs.4bsd Subject: Re: Re: Interesting vi bug/feature (Reply to Mark Horton) Message-ID: <440@ukma.UUCP> Date: Fri, 28-Dec-84 01:15:48 EST Article-I.D.: ukma.440 Posted: Fri Dec 28 01:15:48 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 29-Dec-84 05:50:53 EST References: <79@mit-athena.ARPA> Organization: Univ. of KY Mathematical Sciences Lines: 24 Gee, he's saying the obvious. VI needs some work to help novices learn to use it better. i.e. It needs a display of the current mode, column and line number might be nice, it would definitely be nice to have it display the command you are typing as you type it. Then you end up with an editor that (in the words of Jerry Pournelle) "natters at you". Just can't please everybody I guess. At any rate, what would it help to have vi tell you what mode you were in. If you were on this blit and had more in one window and vi in another (a vi that told various status messages all the time). You want to cut some text from more into vi. Ok. You look at vi and say "Oh damn, it's in command mode, I have to get it into input mode". But you aren't in the right place...... You go into input mode, paste in the text, but it ends up in the wrong place. So you unpaste it, go to command mode, move elsewhere, go to input mode, and paste it again. No, VI still isn't right enough. You want to be able to move the cursor around freely in the text. Commands to the editor should be accompanied with a click on the mouse. Text typing should be able to happen at any time. EMACS is closer to that than vi. David Herron