From owner-freebsd-newbies Wed Dec 16 17:01:57 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA12071 for freebsd-newbies-outgoing; Wed, 16 Dec 1998 17:01:57 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from jason02.u.washington.edu (jason02.u.washington.edu [140.142.76.8]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA12055 for ; Wed, 16 Dec 1998 17:01:53 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from eroubinc@u.washington.edu) Received: from dante31.u.washington.edu (eroubinc@dante31.u.washington.edu [140.142.15.105]) by jason02.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW98.06) with ESMTP id RAA23728; Wed, 16 Dec 1998 17:01:36 -0800 Received: from localhost (eroubinc@localhost) by dante31.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW98.06) with ESMTP id RAA75692; Wed, 16 Dec 1998 17:01:36 -0800 Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 17:01:36 -0800 (PST) From: Evgeny Roubinchtein To: Random Liegh cc: newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: vi & word documents In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org 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