Re: vi as a text editor

[Shyamal Prasad <shyamal.prasad@sbcglobal.net>]

    "Osamu" == Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org> writes:

    Osamu> On Sat, Nov 16, 2002 at 12:18:11PM +0530, Sandip P Deshmukh
    Osamu> wrote:
    >> 
    >> one is managing words towards end of line. as i type, towards
    >> the end of the line, it juts cuts the word. it neither
    >> hyphanates nor pushes it to the next line.  is there way i
    >> could make vi do this?
    >> 

With (n)vi you can say ":set wrapmargin=8" to cause wrapping around 8
characters before the end of the line.

lynx /usr/share/doc/nvi would be good reading for you. There are also
two tutorial files there, unzip them and read them in vi.

    Osamu> Highlight with "V" and cursor move and "gq" does the trick.

    Osamu> Wrap around can be done by ":set tw=72".

    Osamu> Most people use VIM instead of VI to be sane.  Try it.

I can't resist giving another opinon: when I want vi, I use vi (or,
more precisely, nvi on Debian systems). When I *need* vim, I simply
use emacs :-) (followups to this should probably be to
alt.religon.emacs or something like that).

I've used vi for at least 14 years now, I switched to emacs for
"heavy" editing about 10 years ago. But you *must* know vi if you ever
want to be real Unix user. Learn it. You will be rewarded. That is the
only reason I don't use vim - you don't find it on every Unix box,
just like emacs.

Cheers!
Shyamal