Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!ubvax!vsi1!altnet!uunet!nuchat!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.UUCP (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: vi vs emacs in a student enviro Summary: editor fantasies Message-ID: <1045@ficc.UUCP> Date: 8 Jul 88 21:57:37 GMT References: <370@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU> <47800011@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> Organization: SCADA Lines: 35 There does not exist a decent editor on UNIX, or for that matter any other system I have ever used. A full GNU Emacs certainly has the power, but the brain-dead command set (unless you customise the hell out of it) and the overloading of non-printable characters is a royal pain... particularly since no two Emacs implementations match. The way Emacs redraws the screen is a total disgrace, too. VI has a decent command set (though it'd be better if the range commands were prefix instead of postfix, so they could provide feedback), but the modefulness is mildly irritating (however understandable it might be) and the relentless line-orientation gives me the screaming meemies. The macros are brain-dead, too, but the regular expression capabilities almost makes up for it. It shouldn't be too difficult to allow for one bit of out-of-band information. I.E., use the parity bit to indicate "command" and tie it to an ALT key... if the channel doesn't carry it, then map it into ESCAPE like Emacs does: but don't have any non-altmode commands. If possible, hide this in the terminal. The ^U convention for counts in Emacs is nice, but it'd be cleaner to cons up counts out of ALT-0 through ALT-9. Search commands should be (as in VI) actually part of the range-specifier (search with alt-/). This would cut the number of commands down considerably. I guess it'd be possible to set up a VI-mode like this in EMACS. Has anyone done something like this? This, plus scrolling windows, would completely convert me to Emacs. Right now I put up with VI. -- -- `-_-' Peter (have you hugged your wolf today) da Silva. -- U Ferranti International Controls Corporation. -- Phone: 713-274-5180. CI$: 70216,1076. ICBM: 29 37 N / 95 36 W. -- UUCP: {uunet,academ!uhnix1,bellcore!tness1}!sugar!ficc!peter.