Use nano instead.The vim tip of the day
Windows? HA! F1 for help comes from IBM CUA, designed by a guy called Dave Roberts, I know because I worked with him for a while. That was the old, good IBM that did real human factors engineering, like what they did on the older thinkpads and things like the model M keyboard and even the PC itself. OS/2 PM was fully CUA compliant and had a great user interface as a result; but windows only kept some parts of the architecture (like F1), and they seem to have moved further away as time goes on, and their usability has suffered as a result. I really dislike the way the modern windows desktop has become nowadays; awful rubbish.One thing to mention would be that anyone coming from Windows would hit F1 key instead of typing "help".
Old NEC PC-9801 users would look for "HELP" key on their keyboard, which would never exists nowadays. Yes, there was a dedicated key.
I really don't agree with that! I taught myself pretty much everything about vi, mainly from books plus a couple of tutorials, before the public internet or linux were even things. That was on a VAX with VT100 terminals at the beginning, running DEC unix (they called it "ULTRIX", ugh) and the later on Suns. I guess I did have a bit of previous experience with 'ed' on a PDP 8 before that, which was so ancient they didn't even have vi on it.Yes, it's quite easy to learn, if any coach/mentor stands by the person who first invoking vi without any knowledge about vi. Without preliminary knowkedge or coach, it is surely almost IMPOSSIBLE.
Once more. vi is an excellent editor FOR STEPPING UP TO EXPERTS/WIZARDS. But not for the first step for newbies coming from Windows or something.
The only good thing I can do with nano is exit the editor and remove all references to it in /etc that set it as default EDITOR, then set the variable myself and wait until next login. IIRC the command is Ctrl-X.Use nano instead.
The only good thing I can do with nano is exit the editor and remove all references to it in /etc that set it as default EDITOR, then set the variable myself and wait until next login. IIRC the command is Ctrl-X.
I know CUA because I was using OS/2 before switching to FreeBSD as of discontinuation by IBM.Windows? HA! F1 for help comes from IBM CUA, designed by a guy called Dave Roberts, I know because I worked with him for a while. That was the old, good IBM that did real human factors engineering, like what they did on the older thinkpads and things like the model M keyboard and even the PC itself. OS/2 PM was fully CUA compliant and had a great user interface as a result; but windows only kept some parts of the architecture (like F1), and they seem to have moved further away as time goes on, and their usability has suffered as a result. I really dislike the way the modern windows desktop has become nowadays; awful rubbish.
IBM Common User Access - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Off-topic, but I was pretty sad to read this the other day:- https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/10/hobbes_os2_archive_shut_down/I know CUA because I was using OS/2 before switching to FreeBSD as of discontinuation by IBM.
Why I picked Windows here is just because it's still widely sold (newly licensed to consumers). There's a successor of OS/2 but it's not from IBM themselves.
Don't make me repeat myself.Without preliminary knowkedge or coach, it is surely almost IMPOSSIBLE.
Weirdly I have never come across this one. Very nice, thanks!What is so good is that that paper is STILL VALID, you could use that paper to teach yourself the basics of vi even now. Once you've learned it, the skills last you for decades
That is exactly what I thought - for an average user, one need only a limited set of commands - find, replace, go-to line, delete, undo, and few other commands (including#1 reason: it’s always there. Working on some embedded *nix? It’s there. Repairing a system? It’s in /rescue.
Do you need to master it, or use it as your main editor, no. Should you know how to use it enough to move around in a file, change something, and save? Yes.
:q!
and ZZ
). That is not much to learn. Personally I have been using vi since the end of 1980-s (that means almost 40 years). It has always been there and I assume that it will last another 40 years. So, IMHO, it is worth to learn these few commands even today.Yes, any powerful editor would do, but you are not always in that position being able to install your editor of choice. Sometimes you've got to live with what's being preinstalled, and for most unix like OSes this is vi aside ed and nothing else. Heck, ed sometimes is just a vi-ish editor behaving like ed nowadays. Vi is the lingua franca of editors.I would have to disagree (even though I have primarily used vi for decades). Any powerful editor would do and for others you just have to know how to exit them!
A sort of "you must be this tall to get on this ride" for Freebsd?smithi And I say again. If one considers figuring out that :q quits out of vi and it's too difficult to learn then they should stick to their Game boxes and leave us alone.
A sort of "you must be this tall to get on this ride" for Freebsd?
That is an important point - vi is efficient. For example, if one needs to search a simple sting,On the flip side, I think it's still a good skill to have. Not every machine will have nano or ee on it. And personally, I can edit more efficiently with vi than most others with nano. Once a person learns how to use vi you'll probably never go back to nano or any graphical editor.
/<string><ENTER>
is the fastest possible way to do it. It cannot be made any faster, any other searches require some extra effort.Yep. People have to know how to read and everything! OMG!!!Perfect illustration of applied gatekeeping.
hilarious, esp. considering I still have to use vi cheat sheets off the Internet if I have to use viA sort of "you must be this tall to get on this ride" for Freebsd?
How do you generate a random string? ... Put a web designer in front of VI and tell him to save and exit.