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Is this serious?

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iveqy:
I would like to thank for a good writter test. I liked it, always to the vim post. Now I can't trust anything written in the test, becuase everything (almost at least) writter about vim was horrible wrong!

Column mode: Yes, excellent, use ctrl+V for marking text in visual mode.
Hex mode: Yes, use the -b switch and the set display to uhex
Searching: Just typing / (can that really be so hard?) and you will have the power of reg exp. Compete with that!
Undo: Press u
Macros and Scripting: custom vimscript
User Tools: a lot, visist vim.org
Code Folding: Very good folding, learn more with :help folding

Vim is a tool, a tool for people that needs to edit textfiles, a lot of them, and fast. If you can't handle it, it probably isn't the tool for you, but do not lie about it.

vim is best used with the keys, that's a _text editor_. When you type, you are using the keys, not the mouse. Leave the mouse out of it, also leave the arrowkeys out of it, it just eats time from your editin. With vim, there's no need for a mouse or arrowkeys.

With other features like, code completion. I would say that vim is one of the most powerful editors out there.

jgpaiva:
Undo: Press u  ;D ;D

I do agree that VIM is probably (arguably) the most-featured editor around (possibly along with emacs), and i use it myself.
It is a REAL PAIN IN THE ROYAL BUTT to learn how to use it, though. The first time i ran it from a console in linux, i had to reboot the computer because i couldn't quit it.
If the review was called "best Windows text editor", it'd be very accurate, since VIM doesn't really follow the rules of windows.


BTW.. there should be a better way to have hex mode available, though. Having to close VIM isn't very handy  :huh:

iveqy:
Oh, I forgott to change the undo thing, done now :).

The binary thing is not strong in vim, but it is there. Try :help hex for more information.

tranglos:
vim is best used with the keys, that's a _text editor_. When you type, you are using the keys, not the mouse. Leave the mouse out of it, also leave the arrowkeys out of it, it just eats time from your editin. -iveqy (February 20, 2007, 04:39 PM)
--- End quote ---

Check out this Wikipedia entry on Vi. It shows the keyboard layout of the terminal Bill Joy used to create Vi... in 1976. The keyboard did not have arrow keys :) The editor is over 30 years old. All its quirks were not design virtues, they were simple necessities. See what other keys the keyboard was missing that we now take for granted.

In general, the reason you're supposed to navigate with hjkl instead of arrow keys or something more vaguely intuitive is that in those days each computer manufacturer delivered their own keyboard, whose layout and scancodes were largely incompatible with all other keyboards, and each terminal was different, so any application that was supposed to be portable or used over a remote terminal had to be restricted to the lowest common denominator of what machines of the time were capable of and would understand. Hence no "extended" keys, and even today I don't think you can use function keys or Alt combinations over telnet. Well, there is one virtue in that: you can use Vi anywhere, as long as you can telnet to a remote Unix-like shell. And Vi certainly has a powerful command set, but nothing stops programmers from implementing the same power within a modern, more usable UI framework.

Please note the review does not say Vi cannot do any of the things listed; it only says they're too hard to figure out.

According to Wikipedia, "Vi" stands for "visual". I rest my case :)

tranglos:
One more thing: that keyboard layout for the original Vi is really revealing. I've always wondered why the colon was chosen for the command prefix. It's inconvenient, since you have to press Shift, it slows you down. The semicolon would be much easier/faster.

Well, if you check out the One True Vi Keyboard, typing the colon did not require Shift. So the original choice was reasonable. It just isn't reasonable anymore on a current standard PC keyboard.

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