From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 25 03:23:48 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7B7CA1065739 for ; Wed, 25 Apr 2012 03:23:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx01.qsc.de (mx01.qsc.de [213.148.129.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 789238FC0C for ; Wed, 25 Apr 2012 03:23:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-124-250.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.124.250]) by mx01.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1261C3CF86; Wed, 25 Apr 2012 05:23:39 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id q3P3NdqX001930; Wed, 25 Apr 2012 05:23:39 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2012 05:23:39 +0200 From: Polytropon To: Anton Shterenlikht Message-Id: <20120425052339.28c5374f.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20120424175026.GD1303@mech-cluster241.men.bris.ac.uk> References: <20120424175026.GD1303@mech-cluster241.men.bris.ac.uk> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: editor that understands CTRL/B, CTRL/I, CTRL/U X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2012 03:23:48 -0000 On Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:50:26 +0100, Anton Shterenlikht wrote: > My daughter is doing a touch typing course > that presumes MS Word. So far she was fine > with pico, but now they want the kids to > practice CTRL/B (bold), CTRL/I (italic), > CTRL/U (underline). She really needs to use > these particular combinations because that > is how the on-line assessment tool is set out. > > I use nothing but vi, so have no clue which, > if any, editor from ports/editors will have > these particular combinations implemented. > > Please recommend one, preferably as simple > and as small as possible. The subject says "editor", but bold, italics and underline do belong to the realm of microformatting, being part of old-fashioned WYSIWYG word processing. :-) If you want a small solution, I'd suggest using joe (Joe's Own Editor). It can be configured to use those keyboard shortcuts, but I'm not sure if it does support _displaying_ bold, italic or underlined text. As I said, that's _not_ what editors do. For _training purposes_, displaying the text with a kind of markup would be possible (and configurabe in the editor), e. g. This is bold text. -> *bold* This is italics text. -> /italics/ This is underlined text. -> _underlined_ In worst case, get "Wordpad" from a "Windows" install and use it with wine. That should be enough for practicing, but it requires a GUI setup. So does OpenOffice (or LibreOffice, KOffice or AbiWord), if you've already installed one of them. However, I'm questioning the _learning approach_ your daughter is experiencing. I can't think of anything _useful_ she would learn from that. It emphasizes the "what it looks like" more than "what it is" of text which has _proven_ to be the wrong approach. Using text block templates and applying them to "kinds of text" should be the preferred method. Yes, that is even possible in WYSIWYG word processors (such as OpenOffice). Teaching users (children, adults) some arbitrary key combinations to make "text look like" something will get them into trouble as soon as they want to do real work. MICROFORMATTING IS BAD. And key combinations may not be portable. I remember that some older german versions of "Word" did use CTRL/F, CTRL/K and CTRL/U for the same attributes, and that changed during the "evolution" of the program. Been there, seen it, seeing it every day; can't even eat as much as I want to vomit. :-) -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...