From: Mark Hull-Richter <mhr AT sparc DOT SanDiegoCA DOT ATTGIS DOT COM>
Subject: Re: Editor of choice
To: eifert AT rz DOT rwth-aachen DOT de
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 11:04:14 -0700 (PDT)
Sender: mhr AT sparc DOT SanDiegoCA DOT ATTGIS DOT COM

In a recent emailgram, you (Thomas Eifert) wrote:
>
>vi has the advantage of running on all UNIXes (emacs as well, I know, but
>not as standard) AND exists for DOS and OS/2, so if  You care for
>having a similar environment wherever You are, vi may be a good choice.
>
>(when I switched to UNIX in my office, it didn't take long and several
>DOS files contained strange things like ":q" - that was the moment I
>went to get elvis (a rather good vi-clone for DOS and OS/2) on my PCs ;-))
>
>Thomas Eifert
>

I, too, use elvis - extensively.  I have it configured to look almost exactly
the same on my PC at home and my Unix workstations at work.  However, be aware
that elvis has some annoying bugs and deficiencies.  The most irritating ones
I've found so far are:

1) If you insert into the middle of a line (i.e., anywhere before the end of
the line), the wrap-margin does not get recognized and lines can extend off
the right edge of the screen for a long long ways.

2) If you use the O or o command to insert new lines of text at a paragraph
boundary (i.e., o before a blank line or O after one), the next line of text
_may_ disappear (i.e., get erased, and not always on the screen!).  This also
happens at times in the middle of a paragraph.  I have found that A (append to
end of line) on the last line of the paragraph _usually_ does not cause this
problem and is much safer, but I still <esc> and ^L (redraw the screen)
frequently in these cases to be sure.  I've lost too many lines of text this
way.

(Yes, I know I should notify the elvis people, but I keep wanting to get a
"complete" list of the bugs/deficiencies and I never seem to write any of them
down - this is the first time I've done anything of that nature.  Too busy (or
lazy), I guess....  :-)

P.S.: I'm not a vi fanatic - it was just the first Unix editor I learned to
use, it's pretty powerful and does most of everything I need, so I never
bothered to learn any others, like emacs.  Also, it has a similar interface to
the UCSD Pascal editor, which I also learned to use and like a long time ago.

-- 
 ++==  AT&T      Mark A. Hull-Richter, Consulting Engineer  (310)524-5782 voice
+GIS== Global    Teradata Decision Enabling Systems Center   427-5782 VoicePlus
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