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1991-07-21
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Welcome to pcvile
-----------------
This version of vile differs from the distributed source code of
vile version 3 in a few ways which I shall make clear here:
1) The cursor keys, page up/down and insert/delete keys have been
compiled into the program (I tried binding but due to a bug this
didn't seem to work too well) so this should keep the "I don't
like using hjkl" brigade happy!
2) Vile distinguishes between a write of a region ':1,20w' and a
write of a whole file ':w' and so each of these have been given
different letters. The region write is ':1,20W' and the file
write remains ':w'. ':wq' remains the same.
3) I have implemented the emacs ^X-O command to flip between windows
as I tend to use this quite a bit rather then ^N and ^P which is
the vile standard.
4) You can force this version of vile into one of three screen modes:
25, 43 and 50 line. I have had problems with the 43 line mode
on AST premium 286 workstations (the only EGA I can lay my hands on)
so I apologise if it doesn't work, the 25 and 50 line modes work
fine though. The default is 50 lines (for various reasons!) so if
you have a mono or cga monitor you'll have to change your vile.rc
file.
There are two ways to set the screen mode:
a) with a command line option: -2 -4 -5 are 25, 43 and 50 line resp.
b) by adding "setg screen {25|43|50}" into your vile.rc file.
Note you should NOT do this from within the editor.
Also, if you shell out in 50 line mode, make sure you are in 50 line
mode before you exit the dos shell, otherwise you end up with a 50
line edit window with only the top 25 displayed!
Personally I find 50 line mode very usable, but I know people who
have difficulty reading it so just put setg screen 25 in the vile.rc
file to save your eyesight.
5) Shelling out to dos can be done by using ^Z, however this doesn't
seem to want to work if vile has run out of memory.
There are still plenty of bugs I know, the main one I want to get done
first being memory, ie running out, and the vi compatibility isn't
100% but I like it, and I hope some others might too.
I am taking responsibility for any pcvile bugs (please check the enclosed
known bug list first though) and I'll then split them into pc
specific, which I will deal with, and vile general bugs, which I will pass
on to Paul Fox so that they can be fixed for version 4.
Getting along with vile
-----------------------
Use Ctrl-D and Ctrl-U to scroll through this help information.
Type Ctrl-O to make this the only window on the screen.
The only vile commands described herein are those not
present in vi, or differing greatly from those in vi.
There is a section at the bottom describing other differences
between vile and vi.
First, to leave vile, use any of the following:
:q
:quit
:exit
:wq (writes the file before quitting)
:q! (quits without writing changes!)
Q
ZZ (will write all unwritten buffers)
^X-^C (don't know why. _They_ don't put in ":q" for _us_!)
To get help (probably just this text), use any of:
:h
:help
^X-^H
^A-^H
General Remarks
---------------
Vile holds text in "buffers". Usually, these correspond to a file
that you are editing, but not always. For instance, a buffer
might be used to display this help text, or to hold the output
of a shell command that you have run. Buffers have names, and
these usually match the names of the files they contain.
Buffers are sometimes displayed in windows. A buffer may be
displayed in more than one window at the same time. There is
no such thing as a hidden window. All existing windows are on
the screen. There may, however, be hidden buffers, which are not
currently associated with any window.
All yank/delete registers (the default unnamed register, the numbered
registers ("1-"9) that hold line-deletes, and the named registers
("a-"z)) are global to the editor, and not attached to any single
buffer. Thus you can delete text in one buffer and put it back in
another.
Undo operations are attached to a buffer, not a window. Thus if
you have two windows to the same buffer, and make a change in one,
you can undo it in the other.
Buffer manipulation commands:
-----------------------------
_ Show a history list of the up to 9 most recently visited
buffers. Follow this command with a digit to select that
buffer, or simply repeat it ("__") as a synonym for "_1".
Modified buffers are preceded by a '*' in the history list.
There are many different ways to get the previous file:
__
_1
1_
:p
:e#
^^ (ctrl-^) (but many keyboards can't produce this)
:e Edit a file. If the file is already in a buffer, that buffer
will be recalled into the current window.
:e! Re-edit a file. A different filename can be given, but the
buffer name will not change to match it.
^X-e Edit the file whose pathname appears under the cursor. That
is, if you are editing a makefile, you could edit one of the
source files by placing the cursor at the start of its name
and using this command.
:n Go to the next buffer. "next" means least recently used.
:rename Rename the current buffer. Prompts for a new name. Does
not affect the filename associated with the buffer. Use ":f"
to do that.
This command is useful for renaming the "[Output]" buffer, if
you wish to preserve its contents, but run a new command.
:b Edit a buffer. Recalls the named buffer. Does not look for
a file of that name. Will find "invisible" buffers.
:ki Kill a buffer. Remove the buffer and its contents from the
editor. Will ask if changes to the buffer should be discarded.
Currently, a buffer that is being displayed cannot be killed.
* Display a list of all buffers, or make that display go away
if it's already present. Leave your finger on the key, and
it's easy to create and destroy the list. The buffers are
numbered; the numbers correspond to the history numbers
shown and used by the '_' command, described above. (If
the buffer number is greater than 9, then the "nn_" form of
the '_' command must be used, since '_' will only accept a
single following digit.) Note that since the buffer names
are displayed in order of use, the list can quickly grow
"stale" -- the numbers may be meaningless if buffer
switching has been done since the last display of the list.
The program version is also displayed with this command.
^A-* Always display a list of all buffers. Useful for updating the
list if it's already on the screen but may be out of date.
Any argument will cause the list to include _all_ buffers,
even those normally considered "invisible". (For example,
macros are stored in "invisible" buffers.)
Window manipulation commands:
-----------------------------
^T Make Two windows. Splits the current window in half. This
is the usual way to create a new window.
^K Get rid of (Kill) this window.
^O Make this the Only window on the screen.
The emacs-style commands ^X-2, ^X-0, and ^X-1 are also
included, and are synonymous with ^T, ^K, and ^O.
^N Go to the next window on the screen.
^P Go to the previous window on the screen.
These two commands may be disturbing to vi users who use
^N and ^P to move between lines. See the examples under
Key Rebinding for how to fix this.
v Make the current window smaller.
V Make the current window larger.
^A-^D Scroll the next window down half a screen.
^A-^U Scroll the next window up half a screen.
^A-^E Scroll the next window up one line.
^A-^Y Scroll the next window down one line.
(The previous four commands are useful when comparing two buffers.
Mnemonic -- think of them as affecting the "A"lternate window.)
zH zM zL These are synonyms for vi's 'z+', 'z.', and 'z-', which
position the line holding the cursor at the top, middle, or
bottom of the screen, respectively.
^X-^R Scroll the window right by 1/3 of a screen, or by the
number of lines specifed.
^X-^L Scroll the window left by 1/3 of a screen, or by the
number of lines specifed.
If for some reason you can't get your screen set right via a
TERM variable, try the ":screen-rows" or ":screen-columns"
commands (which take their args (number of rows or columns
respectively) before you type the ":").
File manipulation commands:
---------------------------
The usual :e, :r, :f, :w commands are available, though only
":e!" is available of the "!" options. The :r command reads the
named file in after the current line. To read a file before the
first line, use ":0r".
As in vi, ranges of lines specified by line numbers (including '.',
'$', and '%' shorthands) or marks may precede these commands.
Unlike vi, search patterns cannot be used as line specifiers.
In addition, two non-"colon" commands have been added:
^R Prompts for a filename, and then reads it in _above_ the
current line. If a register is specified (e.g. "a^R ),
the file is read into that named register, but not inserted
into the current buffer.
^W is a writing operator, which prompts for a filename, and
writes the specified region to that file. Like all operators,
it the command is repeated, as in ^W^W, then lines are
affected. Use 10^W^W to write 10 lines.
If a register is specified (e.g. "a^W ) then the command
is _not_ an operator, but writes the specified register to
the named file.
Shell Access
------------
Anywhere a filename is valid, a command name is also
valid, entered in the form "!shell-command". The whole line is
handed to the shell, and the read or write operation is done on
the commands standard input or output, as appropriate. Thus
you can type ":e !date" to edit a copy of today's date.
The ": !cmd" shell escape works pretty much as it does in vi.
The command ":!!" will rerun the previous such shell command.
The '!' operator works as expected.
In addition, the ^X-! command runs a shell command and captures
its output in a specific buffer, called "[Output]". This is
almost identical to ":e !cmd", except that in that case the buffer
is named according to the command name.
These output capture commands are most useful in conjunction with
the "error finder", described below.
On systems supporting job control, ^Z will suspend vile.
Text manipulation command:
--------------------------
Remember, these are only the new or different commands. The
standard vi set should still work.
Undo ("u") and line-undo ("U") are available for all commands.
They should be a little less capricious than their
vi counterparts, since they do not share the default yank register
for their operation. Also, line-undo ("U") is available until
the next change anywhere in the file, rather than until you leave
the line. Unfortunately, the cursor position after an undo may not
always be the same as it would be in vi.
The vi "global" command is present, in its non-interactive form
only. So is the "substitute" command. These both look pretty
different while they're being used than they do in vi, and since
the searching is done right after the pattern is entered, there
can be a long delay while you're trying to finish typing your
complete command. You can type commands just as you would have
in vi, i.e. ":g/oldpat/s//newstring/" will work. But you won't
see any of the '/' characters. Try it-- you'll get the idea.
Line ranges are not possible on ":g", but they are on ":s".
The ":v" counterpart to ":g" is not implemented.
The ":g" command can be followed by any of l (list), p (print),
< (left shift), > (right shift), r (read file), d (delete),
L (lower case), U (upper case), ~ (flip case), put (append
yanked text), Put (prepend yanked text), s (substitute),
t (trim trailing whitespace). For example, ":g/pattern/Put"
will insert the contents of the default yank register just
above every line containing "pattern".
Operators
---------
Vi has a class of commands known as "operators". Operator
commands are always immediately followed by a motion command.
The text affected by an operator is bounded by the initial
position, and the cursor position after the motion is
completed. Thus the delete operator ('d') can be followed by
the word motion command ('w'), causing the next word to be
deleted. The sequence "dG" will delete through the end of the
file, and "d/junk" will delete to the next occurence of the
string "junk". Operators can all be "stuttered" to affect
lines. Thus "dd" deletes one line, "4dd" affects 4 lines,
etc.
Some operators in vile can be forced to affect whole lines,
though the motion wouldn't normally imply it, by using the ^X
form of the command. For example, "d%" (assuming you are on a
curly brace) will delete a C-style block of code. "^X-d%"
will delete that same area, plus anything else on the lines
containing the curly- brace endpoints.
Note that some operators always affect whole lines, no matter
how the motion is specified. For instance, "!w" will always
filter an entire line, and not just a single word.
There are several new operator commands:
^A-~ Is the operator form of the '~' command, so "^A-~~"
changes the case of all characters on the current
line, "^A-~w" does it to a word, "3^A-~}" does it for
3 paragraphs, etc.
^A-u Like ^A-~, but converts the region to upper case.
^A-l Like ^A-~, but converts the region to lower case.
^A-f Format the region based on the current fill column. The
initial indentation of both the first and second lines
of the region are preserved, and all subsequent lines
get the second line's indentation. This makes indented/
outdented paragraphs work correctly. The usual use of
this command is "^A-f}", which does it to the current
paragraph. (This is intentionally _not_ the same bevavior
obtained by "!fmt", since that behavior is obviously
available elsewhere.)
^X-d Delete the region, including the lines it starts and ends on.
^X-c Change the region, including the lines it starts and ends on.
^X-y Yank the region, including the lines it starts and ends on.
Text insertion
--------------
^X-p Causes the previously yanked or deleted text, no matter
how it was obtained, to be inserted after the current line.
Usually text that did not consist of whole lines where it
came from is inserted immediately following the cursor.
^X-P As above, but the text is put before the current line.
Thus "dw" followed by a "p" command does a normal insertion
of the deleted word, whereas "^X-p" results in the word
being inserted on a line by itself.
Searching
---------
^X-/ Does a forward search for the "word" located under the
cursor.
^X-? Does a reverse search for the "word" located under the
cursor.
^A-/ Does not do a search, but sets the search pattern to the
"word" under the cursor. Useful for "picking up" a word
from one buffer, and searching for it in another.
The following two commands may not always be present in vile,
depeinding on how it was built:
^X-S Incremental forward searching. As you enter the search
string, the cursor is advanced to the next match with
what you've typed so far. Use ^F and ^R to continue the
search forward or in reverse, using the current pattern.
^X-R As above, but in reverse.
Tags
----
Vile supports vi-style "tags" files.
":ta" or ":tag" allows you to enter a tagname to locate. Changes
to that file and location.
^] Uses the identifier currently under the cursor as the
tagname.
^X-^] "Un-tag" - pops to the file and location just previous to
the last tag command. (Some versions of vi have this command
attached to ^T)
When one of these commands is used, vile will look for a file named
"tags" in the current directory, and load it into a hidden buffer
for use during tag searches. This buffer is editable if you wish
(":e tags"), but will not appear in the buffer lists. If a buffer
named "tags" is already available when a tag is first requested, it
will be used instead of a file called "tags", and of course will
remain visible.
"Advanced" editing
------------------
[ Eventually, these will be rewritten to become "operators", similar to
those described above. ]
^A-<SPACE> Convert tabs to spaces on the current line. An argument
tells how many lines.
^A-<TAB> Convert as many spaces to tabs as possible on the
current line. Argument tells how many lines.
^A-o Remove all but one blank line at the current spot.
Miscellaneous commands
----------------------
^X-^X The "error finder". Goes to the next file/line error pair
specified in the last buffer captured from a command's
output. This buffer is usually created with the ^X-! command.
For example, "-!cc -c junk.c" puts all of the compiler output
into the buffer named "[Output]". Repeatedly hitting ^X-^X
will position the editor at each error in turn, and will
eventually start over again at the top..
^X-t Set or report on the tab-stop width. Tab-stops may only be
set to 2, 4, 8, or 16 column spacings. To set, the spacing
must precede the command, as in "4^X-t". The "set tabstop"
command described below does the same thing.
^X-f Set the fill-column to be used with ^A-f and auto-wrap mode on
insert. The default value is 7/8's of the screen size, with
a maximum of 70. Since arguments come before commands, you
type: 65^X-f. The "set fillcol" command does the same thing.
^X-x Set encryption key. (not well tested, but hopefully not broken)
The CRYPT mode must be set for this to do anything.
K Count prefix. The first time you type it, it is equivalent
to an argument of 4 to the following command. If you repeat
it, it becomes worth 16, the next time 64, etc...
Editor modes
------------
Modes are associated with buffers, and are inherited from a set of
global modes. To set a mode on a buffer, use ":set", to remove the
mode, use ":unset", ":setno", or ":set" with the modename prefixed
with "no". To set and reset global modes, use ":setg", ":unsetg",
":setgno". To display modes, use ":setall", ":modes", or
":setgall", ":gmodes". (The modename "all" is also accepted as a
dummy mode, which sets nothing, but display instead. So vi's "set all"
works as well.) The possible modes are:
wrap similar to vi's auto-wrap mode. While inserting, words are
moved to the next line if the current line gets too long.
Unlike vi, wrapping is only attempted when a space is typed.
cmode C-code mode.. Maintains current indentation level
automatically during insert. If a line ends with a '{',
then the next line tabs in further. If a line begins with
a '}', it is lined up with its matching paired brace. If a
line starts with '#' it is started at the beginning of
line. If the global CMODE is set, then the buffer's mode
is turned on automatically only for files ending in ".c" or
".h". A common mistake is to put "set cmode" in a .vilerc
file. One almost always wants "setg cmode".
swrap Scanwrap mode. Text searches will continue from past the
bottom of the file to the top, and vice-versa.
exact Text searches must match the pattern exactly. Otherwise,
searches are case-insensitive.
view View the file only. No changes are permitted. This is set
automatically for the output of shell commands.
magic Allow meta-characters in search strings. Otherwise,
strings are taken literally. Meta characters available are:
^ - matches beginning of line
$ - matches end of line
. - matches any single character
* - matches any number of the previous character
[...] - matches a character class
\ - take the next character literally
asave Automatic file saving. Writes the file after every 256
characters of inserted text. Other file changes are not
counted.
crypt Causes files to be encrypted. This is NOT compatible
with the UNIX crypt(1) routines.
list The buffer will be displayed with tabs and newlines made
visible, instead of as whitespace.
dos When writing the buffer, terminate lines with CR/LF pairs,
rather than the usual single LF. On input, if the global
DOS mode is set, then incoming CR/LF pairs are taken as
line terminators, and the local DOS mode is set on the
buffer if the majority of lines ended that way. If global
DOS mode is _not_ set, then incoming CR characters will be
visible on the screen.
aindent Similar to C mode, above, but works for any buffer, and is
not sensitive to {, }, or #. Attempts to align new lines
of text with previous lines.
lazy If an attempt is made to edit a file (with ":e filename")
which does not exist in the current directory, vile will
try looking for a file of the same name (but in a different
directory) which has been referenced in the tags file.
This mode is global to the editor, and is not "inherited"
by buffers. It's not very fast, either.
tabstop Will prompt for a new value for spacing of tabstops. The
only supported values are 2, 4, 8, and 16. This value is,
unfortunately, not settable on a per-buffer basis.
fillcol Will prompt for a new value for the fill column, where
auto-wrapping and region formatting will break lines. This
value is, unfortunately, not settable on a per-buffer
basis.
Special Character Expansion
---------------------------
As in vi, the % and # characters typed while responding to a prompt
will expand to the current or "alternate" filename. In addition,
the colon character (":") expands to the identifier name under the
cursor. Expansion of ! to the last command run is not implemented.
Key Rebinding
-------------
The vi "map", "map!", and "abbr" commands are not currently supported.
There is a key rebinding facility (if vile is built to include it),
which is invoked as follows. One must know the "english" name for the
command being rebound. Use ":describe-bindings" or ":apropos string"
to find englishnames containing "string". Then use the command:
":bind-key englishname keyseq"
where keyseq is the exact keyboard sequence (i.e. single character,
or ^X or ^A followed by a single character) to which the
command should be bound. In a ".vilerc" file, keyseq should be the
printable representation of the sequence, e.g. M-a or ^X-S.
Examples:
To cause the / and ? commands to perform incremental
searches, use:
bind-key incremental-search /
bind-key reverse-incremental-search ?
To change the default window-switching behavior of ^N and ^P, try
bind-key next-line ^N
bind-key previous-line ^P
To cause the space bar to move forward by pages, as in them "more"
command, use:
bind-key next-page <sp>
(Space and tab can be represented with the strings: "<sp>" and
"<tab>".) The englishname "rebind-key" is synonymous with "bind-key".
Note that even the ^A and ^X prefix characters can be rebound, using
the dummy functions "cntl_a-prefix" and "cntl_x-prefix". Even
if they are rebound, however, the binding list and bind-key
commands will refer to them as ^A and ^X.
Macros
------
The first type of macro in vile, is for temporary, quick macro
usage, and lets you record a macro as you execute vile commands.
You can then replay those keystrokes with a single key.
^X-( Begin recording a keyboard macro. The keystrokes you type
are recorded, until you use ^X-).
^X-) Finish recording a keyboard macro.
^X-& Execute the keyboard macro.
Vile can also be extended (though I confess this has only been
lightly used or tested) by defining macros and then binding
execution of those macros to key sequences. For example, if
the following lines appear in a .vilerc file:
1 store-macro
5 delete-til next-word
endm
bind-key execute-macro-1 M-1
then when M-1 is executed, 5 words will be deleted. The "-til"
suffix on an englishname denotes that it is a vi operator style
command, and expects to be followed by a motion command.
Differences
------------
Of course, this really isn't vi. Some of the following differences
deserve changing, others do not.
The parser for the ':' commands is not very vi-like. For instance,
":e" will prompt you for a file name. Most commands remember their
last argument, and will present it as the default reply to their
prompt.
The backspace, line kill, job control, etc. characters are not
taken from the terminal settings on startup, but are hard-coded.
The insert-mode command characters cannot even be rebound.
In insert mode there is no word kill (^W) or line kill (^U or @).
Repeated backspacing while in insert mode will move past the point
where the insert began, until the beginning of line is reached.
There is no expansion of ! in filenames or shell escapes. The
command ":!!" does rerun the previous shell command. Occurences of
'#' and '%' are recognized and expanded to the previous or current
filename. Other punctuation (e.g. '~') may be expanded by your
shell (sh, csh), since it is handed filenames for expansion if they
contain any of these characters: * ? ~ [ ] $ { }
Paragraph and section boundaries, for the {, }, [, and ] commands
are not configurable, and do not exactly match those in vi. The
current set is:
Paragraphs: blank lines, or lines beginning in .I .L .P .Q or .b
Sections: lines beginning in {, formfeeds, or .S .H .N
I think these will find more boundaries than vi, rather than fewer.
There is no special lisp support. But then, when was the last time
you heard of a lisp programmer that used vi?
Of course, ex and open mode aren't there.
There is no concept of shiftwidth. ^D and ^T are aliased to backspace
and tab for those whose fingers are too old for new tricks.
There are no "sentence" oriented motions. That is, "(" and ")" are
missing.
Most, but not all, of the word-motion-with-operator and end-of-line
anomalies have been recreated. One missing anomaly: In vile, "dw"
on the last word of a line ending in whitespace deletes the
trailing whitespace. Vi does not delete the whitespace.
Credits
-------
This code has been written by a _lot_ of people. Names appearing
within comments in the micro-Emacs source code are: Dave
Conroy, Daniel Lawrence, John Gamble, Roger Ove, Dana Hoggatt,
Jon Reid, Steve Wilhite, George Jones, Adam Fritz, D.R.Banks,
Bob McNamara. In addition, some of the "ex" code is by Steve
Kirkendall, author of the vi clone called "elvis". The
changes to create vile from micro-Emacs were all done by Paul
Fox, who can be reached at pgf@cayman.com. (By the way, this is
not the same Paul Fox who did the Crisp editor.)
