Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!CAS.BITNET!lwv27
From: lwv27@CAS.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: vi question
Message-ID: <9009271633.AA05170@lilac.berkeley.edu>
Date: 27 Sep 90 16:36:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 35

I am using the showmode option on my vi (from SunOS 4.1).  I have found
a pecularity that I wondered if was typical.  If I am in command mode and
type an i, I get a 'mode line' msg that I am in insert mode.  BUT, if I
have a map which puts me into insert mode, I do NOT get the mode line msg.
That seems to me to defeat the purpose of showmode - sometimes I end up in
insert mode and vi doesn't tell me.

Is there something that can be done in a map so that showmode will recognize
the transition?

Also, I know that some of you folks out there are so talented that you
write things like turning machines in vi macros :-), so I am wondering
if anyone has written a utility which could read a .exrc type file and
describe, in english, what vi actions the maps translate into?

For instance, if this utility encountered a:
map     V Gz-

it might output:

command mode    V       go to end of current file,
                                        position current line at bottom of scree


Seems like it should not be TOO hard, and would make trying to remember
        rather cryptic mappings like:

map ^[[225z 0mzi-^[}:'z,.s/-/^B/g^M`zxO.pl 1^M.ll 6i^M.na^M.nh^M.tr ^B^M.eo^M.c2

        a little easier to figure out later...
--
Larry W. Virden
Business: UUCP: osu-cis!chemabs!lwv27  INET: lwv27%cas.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.Edu
Personal: 674 Falls Place,   Reynoldsburg,OH 43068-1614
Proline: lvirden@pro-tcc.cts.com  America Online: lvirden CIS: [75046,606]