vi(1) Editor Materials
A few components of a large vi(1)-related archive are being
reintroduced:
- Documents derived from the original UCB vi(1) document
distribution package tar file. You can now get these from other
sources, and may have seen them before. A single file for
printing is available as a Adobe
PDF file.
- Unique powerful vi(1) .exrc files, that make advanced vi(1)
features much easier to use. These files particularly help you
to work easily with marked regions. The files are heavily
commented. The beginner's version is quite
complete for basic editing needs, but if you are a heavy vi(1)
user the advanced
version has even more macros in it. ( The files must retain
control characters and tabs and trailing white space in the
lines in order to work properly, so users have to get an
uuencoded version).
The vi(1) Editor
The vi (visual) editor is a display-oriented text editor based
on an underlying line editor (ex). It is possible to use the
command mode of ex from within vi and vice versa. vi is
character-oriented and is designed to be used with an ASCII
asynchronous screen. Other common special-purpose aliases exist
for vi:
- ex or edit - invokes the editor in novice
mode, starting in line (ex) mode.
- vedit - invokes the editor in novice mode, starting
in display (vi) mode.
- view - invokes the editor in read-only mode,
starting in display (vi) mode.
- vipw - Invokes vi on the /etc/passwd file with the
file locked ( specifically for UNIX administrators).
Table of Contents
UCB-derived vi reference set
Additional documentation (REMOVED)
- a few tips concerning vi(1) macros
- a guide for writing vi(1) macros
- Regular expressions
- A macro file specifically built for generating HTML documents by hand.
- Xterm(1) usage notes:
- Arrow keys
- How to deal with window resizing (stty(1), setenv(1),
resize(1), rlogin(1) vs telnet(1), ...)
- Programming your keyboard with an X11 translation
table.
- An enhanced xterm(1) terminfo file (discusses function
keys and screen restores on exit from vi).
- Using filters with vi:
- an overview (:r!, 'a;'b!, ...)
- formatting text (fmt, adjust, ....)
- working with columns
- sort and uniq
- cut, date, spell, look ...
- Tricks
Related external documents
When these documents were the only copies of the UCB documents
converted to HTML and before there were search engines I kept a
list of vi-related FAQs, an ftp archive, and a link to a USENET
group (comp.editors) here. This is no longer available due to the
ready availability of search engines.
For UNICOS system users, these addition resources are
recommended:
- UNICOS vi Reference Card, publication SQ-2054.
- man pages for exrc(5) file format, edit(1), ex(1), and
vi(1).
This is a reduced compilation of vi-related documents collected,
edited, formatted, or made by John S. Urban.
[Created: 19960701][Last modified: 19960716]