If you could have anything in vi ...

[David Gast]

In article <7220 at ecs.soton.ac.uk> tjc at ecs.soton.ac.uk (Tim Chown) writes:
>In <7214 at ecs.soton.ac.uk> mrd at ecs.soton.ac.uk (Mark Dobie) writes:

>>In <1991Mar18.195343.665 at cs.widener.edu> brendan at cs.widener.edu (Brendan Kehoe) writes:

>>> I'm working on a "free" version of vi. It's to fully emulate the
>>>current Berkeley-derived versions. After that, it's prettymuch a
>>>free-for-all.
>>> So .. what would you have added to vi, if you could? What would you
>>>have made an option? What would you change?

>>1) A built in way of justifying text.

I hope you mean a program like fmt, not one like nroff.  It is very
difficult to read right justified text with a fixed width font.
Anyway, since fmt is freely available, I would just package it
with your program and leave it out of the editor.

>>2) A more flexible way of editing several files and transferring
>>   between them. 

More than one window on a file would be nice too.

Here are some more ideas.  In some cases, I recognize that they can be
done now, but in an inconvenient manner.

1. All bugs fixed.
2. A macro language that easily allows constructs like if, then, else, fi, read
   from the keyboard, etc. Also, a way to easily query and find out the line
   number, the word number, the character number, total lines, etc.
   A user map should not affect the meaning of another character.
   No "too dangerous to map that" messages.
3. The ability to have something like ^W indicate the word under the cursor.
   Macros become more complex if you have to consider the position in the
   word.  For example, if the cursor is one the first letter in the word,
   then b goes to the first letter of the previous of the word.  If it is
   on the second or greater letter in word, it goes to the beginning of
   the word.  ^W or its equivalent would allow you to say, this word, no
   matter where the cursor is.  I realize there are problems because there
   are words and WORDs and you may want to go to the beginning or the end.
4. Allow Meta-keys to be used.
5. Display lines of arbitrary length.
6. Handle Null characters and characters greater than 127.
7. The ability to make use of terminal characteristics like underline, or
   bold when operating on lines in a file.  For example, perhaps I would
   like to reverse video all lines beginning with Subject: .
8. The ability to stack or at least toggle set options.
9. N should take counts; ~ should be treated like any other object.
A. Should not ``always'' go to the beginning of a line or place the line
   in the middle of the screen.  (Particularly after u).
B. Ability to save/recall patterns.  (I know about @).

Well, that should be enough ideas for the moment.  I am sure that I have
other minor annoyances.

David Gast