Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!microsoft!steveha
From: steveha@microsoft.UUCP (Steve HASTINGS)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: Xedit is better than vi and emacs
Message-ID: <72008@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 23 Apr 91 00:38:37 GMT
References: <2197@pdxgate.UUCP> <1991Apr16.193558.9369@njitgw.njit.edu>
Reply-To: steveha@microsoft.UUCP (Steve Hastings)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Microsoft International Products Group
Lines: 57

In article <1991Apr16.193558.9369@njitgw.njit.edu> ken@hertz.njit.edu (ken ng cccc) writes:
>There are a few things I think could easily be put into vi but are not 
>in there currently (or I have yet to find them).  For example, is there
>a way to do a case insensitive search?

:set ignorecase

or, abbreviated,

:se ic

This affects the / and ? commands, even inside character classes; with
ignorecase set, [a-zA-Z] and [a-z] and [A-Z] are all equivalent.  It does
*not* affect the f F t T commands.


>A retrieve facility on the ':' would also be VERY nice (could you throw
>in line editing as well?)

This would be nice.  Until someone implements it, you can type the command
into the text of your file, yank the text into a named buffer, and execute
with the @ command.  For example, type the command, type "ayy to yank the
line into buffer a, and type @a to execute.


>And lastly, sometimes I WANT BLANKS when I hit <cr> in
>insert mode with autoindent enabled.  I have yet to find a documented
>switch that enables that.  (Note: none of these are flames, if there is
>an easy way to do them, I would like to know so I can use them.)

Well, you could run the whole file through detab when you are done.  You
could even map a key to do "1G!Gdetab" and hit this key before you save.

Another trick to try:

:set ts=80
:set sw=4

In vi, the "tabstop" is different than the "shiftwidth."  The tabstop sets
how wide tabs get, and shiftwidth sets how wide you want to indent.  (In
my example, I set this to 4 since I indent by steps of four spaces.  You
may set this to any value.)  Set the tabstop to 80 and unless you indent
over 80 columns, you will indent with spaces.  This has the side effect of
making any existing tabs in your document quite obvious!


>I made major uses of Xedit's ability to selectively hide text.

vi has no such feature, but I do sometimes hide stuff and restore it.  To
look quickly, I do a global search-and-delete to get rid of the extra
lines, and then bring them back with undo.  To look less quickly, I make a
backup copy of the file with a name like "summary" and run the global on
its contents.  Then I can flip back and forth between the summary file and
the real one.  It's not the same, I guess, but it meets my needs.
-- 
Steve "I don't speak for Microsoft" Hastings    ===^=== :::::
uunet!microsoft!steveha  steveha@microsoft.uucp    ` \\==|