Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 17:01:36 -0800 (PST) From: Evgeny Roubinchtein <eroubinc@u.washington.edu> To: Random Liegh <random@random.static.greatland.net> Cc: newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: vi & word documents Message-ID: <Pine.A41.4.05.9812161651430.91046-100000@dante31.u.washington.edu> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9812161230200.1280-100000@random.static.greatland.net>
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On Wed, 16 Dec 1998, Random Liegh wrote: >consistently read word files; so I've saved ML Duke's letter for future >reference. I use pico, and religiously avoid vi 'cos it's so arcane; but >on the other hand, reading any tips at all about it makes it less so, so I keep hearing "vi is sooo arcane", and the only "arcane" bit is the fact that it has _two_modes_. In one mode it will put every single keystroke you type into the buffer, in another mode it most keystrokes you type are commands. Just like having an over-eager assistant, who would write "stop" literally when you mean "stop writing". The way to tell vi: "I want to give some commands" is to hit the ESC key. The command structure totally makes sense: e.g you type "w" to move forward a word "cw" to change a word and "dw" to delete a word, and so on -- see how things fit together? And then you can run search-and-replace commands and filter text through external programs and, with nvi, even run Perl commands on lines... I think learning vi is well worth it, and I don't think it's as dawnting as people tend to think. Just my $0.2 -- Evgeny Roubinchtein, eroubinc@u.washington.edu ................... DSO: Do Something or Other To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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