From owner-freebsd-doc Thu Sep 5 07:00:27 1996 Return-Path: owner-doc Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id HAA18827 for doc-outgoing; Thu, 5 Sep 1996 07:00:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mailbox.neosoft.com (mailbox.neosoft.com [206.109.1.16]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id HAA18807 for ; Thu, 5 Sep 1996 07:00:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bonkers.taronga.com (root@bonkers.neosoft.com [206.109.2.48]) by mailbox.neosoft.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id JAA04513; Thu, 5 Sep 1996 09:00:12 -0500 (CDT) Received: (from peter@localhost) by bonkers.taronga.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id GAA09077; Thu, 5 Sep 1996 06:26:38 -0500 Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 06:26:38 -0500 From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) Message-Id: <199609051126.GAA09077@bonkers.taronga.com> To: kline@tera.com, doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: vi tutorial Newsgroups: taronga.freebsd.doc In-Reply-To: <199608170220.TAA09516@athena.tera.com> Organization: none Sender: owner-doc@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Enclosed is the vi_tutorial that I've been distributing. Mind if I make a couple of suggestions? They're pretty deep changes, but I think are important to really understanding VI. You have almost certainly internalized these pieces of information, but you haven't concretized them, perhaps. First: drop all mention of "insert mode" and "command mode". Why? Because "insert mode" doesn't really act like a "mode". It acts like a "command". If people think of an insertion operation (i, a, o, and so on) as being a command "itexttexttext^[" then things that just seemed like quirks of vi suddenly make a lot of sense. Second: don't dwell so early on the shortcut commands. Teach the basic moves and combinations (dw, cw, and so on) and then mention things like "ZZ" and "~" as asides. If you learn the basic command structure before even seeing the shortcuts and special cases it'll really be a lot easier. (also, ZZ is a shortcut for :x^M not :wq^M)