response 1 of 47:

Nov 9 07:20 UTC 1992

 Type  vi .plan and type what you want.

full name: Jim Reuter
registered: Thu Apr  2 22:57:39 1992 on tty /dev/tty03 at speed 1200
address:
        P.O.Box 4009
        Ann Arbor MI 48105
telephone: 313-663-7876
occupation:
        Transportation Consultant
        Piano Technician
        Income Tax preparer
        Professional Driver
        Mr-fix-it
computers:
        Heath H-89
birthdate: 11/27/60
sex: m
interests:
        Amatuer radio
        Classical Music
        Films
        cooking
        reading
        tinkering(exploring things that are unknown)
        listening to the radio
Found out about us from:
          Steve

here is mine.

response 3 of 47:

Nov 9 17:38 UTC 1992

 
   I agree. vi is fun only when you know it. Play few games of nethack or
hack and you'll have the hjkl moves down in no time. I think the key to
knowing vi is remembering if you're in command mode or insert mode. Fortunatly
for me, my terminal beeps at me if I try to write while still in command
mode. (I use an ADDS Viewpoint, which I am told loves unix).

response 5 of 47:

Nov 10 12:19 UTC 1992

(Not to start an editor war or anything, but vi can also be configured
to make arrow and keypad keys (like PgUp, End, etc.) do what you'd like.)

response 7 of 47:

Nov 11 00:40 UTC 1992

 
 Re 4. I am 3/4 of the way through the teachjove tutorial and I think it's
pretty cool. I have learned enough to even begin using it. (Although it's
hard to give up vi. I think that everyone should become familiar with 
the editors here... If you've come this far, (logging on to grex) go ahead
and have fun... you really can't hurt anything by doing it.

response 9 of 47:

Nov 11 02:37 UTC 1992

(I *had* to learn vi - it's what was available somewhere else, & it's (I hope)
going to be there on anything unix.  I've also got a couple of PD PC ports,
so I can even use it there if I didn't have something better.  Now that
I've learned it, though, I like it pretty well; but some things I take for
granted in PC editors are much harder to do without messing up in vi.)

Haven't had need to learn jove, so this should *not* be construed as
editor wars continued.

response 11 of 47:

Nov 11 22:01 UTC 1992

Re #6:  For certain TERMs (e.g. vt100 on this system) the cursor keys
are specified, and the up, down, right, & left arrow keys should work
in vi (in command mode only).  For other special function keys (like
F1 or PgDn on the IBM-style keyboard), you have to tell vi what 
character sequence is sent by the key and what you want vi to do when
it receives that sequence.  This is done using the "map" command,
which is one of several vi commands that define macro substitutions.

For example, if you're using a VTnnn type terminal or emulator (with
nnn >= 100), then the "Del" key on the numeric keypad should send the
3-character sequence "<ESC>On".  If you want the Del key to delete
the character at the cursor (as it does in most PC editors), you'd give
vi the command

                map ^[On  x

to tell vi that you want that sequence to be equivalent to vi's "x"
command.  (The ^[ denotes a *real* escape character, not a ^ followed
by a [).

Put map commands in a file named .exrc in your home directory.  Then
vi will execute them every time you start it up.

A map command is effective only in command mode.  To define text-entry-
mode macros, use the map! command instead.  With a little ingenuity it's
possible to get vi to do things (like moving the cursor with the arrow
keys) that it normally does only in command mode.  For example

                map! ^[On  ^V ^[xxi

programs the Del key to delete the character at the cursor when pressed
in text-entry mode.  (^V denotes a (real) control-V)

I've put some documentation on vi macros in the directory
/usr/local/doc/vi.  The file "macro-guide" contains an excellent
discussion of macros and some other advanced vi features.

Exercise for the curious:  When vi receives "^[On" while in text-entry
mode, how does it know that you typed the Del key rather than the three
keys ESCAPE, "O", and "n" separately? You're sending the same sequence
of ascii characters in both cases.  It has to make the distinction
somehow, since ESCAPE, O, n typed separately leave text-entry mode,
and then open a new line containing "n" -- an entirely different
effect.)

response 13 of 47:

Nov 12 04:34 UTC 1992

I could probably live with vi after reassigning most of the keys...
has anyone cooked up any interesting keyboard layouts for vi (other
than the "interesting" one that comes with it ;) ?

response 15 of 47:

Nov 13 02:50 UTC 1992

where do you set the editor type for your mail?  I've managed to get Picospan
to use vi, but not my mail.

response 17 of 47:

Nov 13 05:01 UTC 1992

 
 as a matter of fact, you would t"o" to get to the options screen
and just put "vi" in there where is says "editor".

response 19 of 47:

Nov 14 03:18 UTC 1992

 It is a response to #15. I'm sorry for not marking it.
 
but that process works very well. My editor was vi, now it's jove.

response 21 of 47:

Nov 15 02:59 UTC 1992

I think that ~e looks at the EDITOR environment variable (and defaults
to "ed" if the variable is undefined) and ~v looks at the VISUAL
environment variable and defaults to "vi".

response 23 of 47:

Nov 15 16:17 UTC 1992

Isn't there a .mailrc in which you can set your editor?  I have some very
dim recollection of this.  I've been using Elm for ages, so my memory of 
this could be wrong.