Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!apple!voder!pyramid!prls!philabs!ttidca!kevin
From: kevin@ttidca.TTI.COM (Kevin Carothers)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: VI documentation (was: Vi bashing)
Keywords: user-friendly, clear documentation, ease of use
Message-ID: <4086@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Date: 20 Mar 89 18:34:15 GMT
References: <587@alice.marlow.uucp> <4048@ttidca.TTI.COM> <960@myrias.UUCP> <21985@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Reply-To: kevin@ttidcb.tti.com (Kevin Carothers)
Organization: Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica
Lines: 45


>In article <960@myrias.UUCP> dbf@myrias.UUCP (David Ferrier) writes:
>>Thanks for posting an ingenious and elegant solution.
>
>Another article already posted a better solution so I won't repeat it.
>
>>It also highlights the problem that in vi there is no EASY, OBVIOUS way
>>to delete a large block of text.  For dozens of other editors,
>>the procedure is "Just Say Delete".  When vi also becomes user-friendly,
>>clearly documented, and easy to use, please post.
>
>
>There are objects w (for word), G (for last line of file), 'a (for
>place marked a), G (for last line of file), ) (for sentence), } (for
>paragraph), etc.  These objects can take counts too.
>
>If you want to delete the next 3 paragraphs, you type d3}.  What could
>be easier?  If you want to delete to the end of file, you type dG.  Not
>very difficult at all and clearly documented.

We appear to be rambling on many different questions in this discussion.

I know its uncool to follow-up my own follow up, BUT, as *I* remember, 
the question was  about how to avoid "counting" lines of text. NOT how to
delete lines. The only way I know how to count lines is to pipe the UNIX
"wc" command with the " !" operator from Vi. If anyone knows any other way
to do this, then please post.

It also looks like we're now on the subject of Vi documentation.

The only $0.02 I can add on this is that the best book I've seen on this is
     Introducing the UNIX System
     H. McGilton/Rachel Morgan
     McGraw Hill/ISBN   0-07-045001-3

Its (now) a little outdated, but it gives you a lot of neat tricks 
on how to pipe commands, cut/paste, Set up cursor movement for different
languages, etc...


Hope this helps
=========================================================================
Kevin Carothers   !{csun,psivax,rdlvax}!ttidca!kevin

:wq!