Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!peregrine!elroy!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!adm!PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu From: PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: RE: vi vs. emacs Message-ID: <16771@adm.ARPA> Date: 9 Aug 88 22:35:40 GMT Sender: news@adm.ARPA Lines: 97 Received: by CALSTATE via BITNet for PAAAAAR@CALSTATE (CSUMailer (1.2)); Sat, 6 Aug 88 13:04:01 PDT Received: by BYUADMIN (Mailer X1.25) id 8897; Sat, 06 Aug 88 13:14:29 MDT Date: Fri, 29 Jul 88 13:09:39 HST Reply-To: INFO-UNIX@BRL.ARPA Sender: I-UNIX@TCSVM From: garvin@UHCCUX.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU Subject: vi vs. emacs Comments: To: INFO-UNIX@brl.arpa Comments: cc: gwyn@brl-smoke.arpa To: PAAAAAR@CCS.CSUSCC.CALSTATE.EDU Doug Gwynwrites: > > ^H is a mnemonic for `help', and makes as much sense as most editing > > commands. > Funny, mine says "BACK SPACE" right on the key cap. That doesn't > suggest "help" to me... Emacs uses some commands which are of the form Control + letter. ^H means hold down the control key and type the letter H. 'H' for Help. Does this make sense? Some other commands are: Control-F for Forward one character Control-K for Kill line Control-B for Backward one character Control-D for Delete forward Control-N for Next line Control-E for End of line Control-P for Previous line Control-Q for Quote a char Control-S for Search Control-O for Open new line Control-R for Reverse Search Control-T for Transpose chars The guy who said that the 'BACK SPACE' meant 'Help' shouldn't have said it in that way. He was just referring to the fact that the backspace key happens to puts out the ^H character too. This is like saying that 'TAB' means insert in some (hypothetical) editor: it doesn't make sense until you realize that TAB happens to be Control-I. My keyboard does not have any key labeled 'BACK SPACE'. I have only a key labeled 'Delete' and it puts out the ^? character (Control-question mark). You might like to know that the previous gentleman's remark about 'backward-delete-character' did not have anything to do with paper tape and he was not implying that the original ASCII DEL or RUBOUT characters did any backing up. He was referring to the name of the FUNCTION in emacs which backs up and destructively erases the character to the Left of the cursor. It is called 'backward-delete-character'. When I hit my key labeled 'Delete', it calls this FUNCTION. I could just as well tell Emacs that I want some *other* key to run this function instead. In your instance, you might prefer to have your Backspace key (^H) invoke the 'delete-backward-character' function if your Backspace key is more conveniently located on your keyboard. That's one of the nicer things about the Emacs editor: If you don't like it, CHANGE it. You really ought to give Emacs a chance, it's quite good and you might like it. P.S. Ok, I'll go along with things like vi's "ayL (Double-Quote-Small-a-Small-y-Capital-L) means: *Yank text from cursor to end of screen into buffer "a"* But don't pick on Control-H = Help too much until you can come up with a good story for why: ZZ (Capital-Z Capital-Z) is a good mnemonic for: *Write (save) and quit file*. :-) -Jay egrep `echo "yajmorf^ahola" rev` `echo sdrow/tcid/rsu/ rev` /\ /\ /\ /\ ____/\ ____/\ / / / / / / / / /\___\/ /\___\/ / / / / /_/ / / / / / / Jay Garvin * / / / / ____ / / / / / / Computer Specialist * /_/ / / / __/ / / /_/ /_/ Computer Consultant * ______/ / __/ / __/ / ______/\ ______/\ \_____\/ \_\/ \_\/ \_____\/ \_____\/ University of Hawaii Computing Center garvin@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu * ===== Reply from Richard Botting =========================== a good story for why: ZZ (Capital-Z Capital-Z) is a good mnemonic for: *Write (save) and quit file*. ZZ = Go to sleep:-)