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View Poll Results: Which vi do you use?
original vi 10 19.23%
nvi 4 7.69%
vile 0 0%
elvis 0 0%
vim 34 65.38%
some other vi clone 0 0%
I don't use vi 4 7.69%
Voters: 52. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 10th September 2008
JMJ_coder JMJ_coder is offline
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Default Which vi do you use?

Hello,

There are several different clones of vi floating around. Each has slight (or major) differences from all the others. So which do you prefer for your text editing needs (i.e., programming, editing /etc files, etc.)?
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Old 10th September 2008
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I go for Vim.
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Old 11th September 2008
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Vim and nvi but mostly vim:

vim for syntax highlighting, multiple editing buffers (:sp, :vsp) and tabs (:tabnew), visual mode, better yank/paste under X, improved undo/redo support, spell checking documents (Vim 7), more portable mappings (e.g. <stuff>), :command history, using my vimrc to adapt to platforms/programming languages easier, and much better coping with with the old CR+LF, LF, whatever issues.

nvi for large files and long lines (like the ports INDEX file), quick edits, system files (when I don't need multiple files open side by side), and on systems where I don't need to do a lot of code editing. I like nvi because it is lighter and faser then vim.


nvi, is basically my minimal specification for editing. Give me at least _most_ of nvi's abilities in a vi type editor or emulate it and I'll edit files happily -- I say nvi, because I've never used the original vi. I do rather prefer Vim where possible, along with my ~1000 line vimrc but I only need a small part of Vi capability. nvi provides more editing power then I require on a regular basis. Unless it's a job I prefer nvi for, I scale down in order of preference: vim with my .vimrc, vim -N, vi, kate, edit.exe, ex, notepad.exe/kedit/gedit, ed/edlin in roughly that order.
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Old 11th September 2008
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Maybe the question should be "which do you prefer" rather than "which do you use"

I use vim because i unfortunately have to deal with a lot of linux systems ( shutup scottro ) ..... i would LIKE to use nvi.
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Old 11th September 2008
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I avoid vi at all costs.
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Old 11th September 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BSDKaffee View Post
I avoid vi at all costs.


that's only coz you're an idiot, jason :P:P
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Old 11th September 2008
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vim/gvim
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Old 11th September 2008
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Vim seems to be dominating the poll. In two words: multiple undo.
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Old 11th September 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by anomie View Post
Vim seems to be dominating the poll. In two words: multiple undo.
At least nvi allows multiple undo. Press 'u' to undo and then '.' to undo as much as you want.

You might wonder why not just keep pressing 'u'. The answer is that this feature allows you to toggle an action (a potential complex one) and get a before and after look.
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Old 11th September 2008
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nvi allows allows for split screens with :N[ext] filename. I'm still trying to figure out if I can get it to split vertically and how to move easily between the screens.
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Old 11th September 2008
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There are two features I do wish that nvi had that I haven't seen yet.

1) tabs
2) syntax highlighting

Tabs are nice, but not necessary. But syntax highlighting is a big nicety. If only it could do at least minimal highlighting like elvis does (i.e., bold keywords), that would be great.
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Old 11th September 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JMJ_coder View Post
nvi allows allows for split screens with :N[ext] filename. I'm still trying to figure out if I can get it to split vertically and how to move easily between the screens.
I'm pretty sure the original vi allows this as well, at least for splitting the screen horizontally. These days, with multiple windows and monitors with enormous real estate, it does not matter to me as much. Back in the day of 25-line terminals, this was a god-send.
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Old 11th September 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJ View Post
I'm pretty sure the original vi allows this as well, at least for splitting the screen horizontally. These days, with multiple windows and monitors with enormous real estate, it does not matter to me as much. Back in the day of 25-line terminals, this was a god-send.
Thanks for this DrJ, a lack of knowing this has caused me to use mg(1) numerous times (and I only half-remember a tenth of the emacs commands I would use in vi).


I couldn't find serious mention of this feature in the manual page for 'vi' on my system, aside from an odd ^W to change screens that is. Under ex commands, it lists

Quote:
Originally Posted by OpenBSD man vi
[Nn][ext][!] [file ...]
Edit the next file from the argument list.
Although it behaves this way in ex mode for both n/N, in visual mode :Next causes it to split screen instead of performing the same thing as :next.


Thanks again!
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Old 11th September 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JMJ_coder
At least nvi allows multiple undo. Press 'u' to undo and then '.' to undo as much as you want.
Sho' nuff. I just tested it. Thanks for the tip.
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Old 12th September 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JMJ_coder View Post
At least nvi allows multiple undo. Press 'u' to undo and then '.' to undo as much as you want.
In vim you can do this by using 'u' and 'Ctrl-R' (redo).

IMO, comparing vi/nvi with vim is a futile exercise. nvi is a very nice editor and I know that there is a NIH associated with vim among BSD users, but if you are an experienced vi user, for programming you need vim. period.
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Old 11th September 2008
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The results of this poll bring tears to my eyes.
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Old 5th November 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BSDfan666 View Post
The results of this poll bring tears to my eyes.
I am sorry, I could not cast my vote on time and elevate little bit your mood. I am using nvi for absolutely everything. I caught myself recently even using ex. I could easily imagine myself just using ed if necessary.

I have not noticed the thread until now. I am rather surprised by the results of the voting. I am not surprised how many people like VIM. Lots of people need to work with Linux (occasionally even me). VIM also supports syntax highlighting which I guess could be useful if you can see the colours (I am
having hard time to see what other features of vim are useful and could not be reproduced in pure nvi with key strokes).

What is surprising to me is how many people claim to use original vi. First of all there are 3 different versions of original vi. One of them is certainly Solaris version which I used from 1996-2002. Does it mean that we have so many Solaris users around here? One of other two is a private copy if I recall correctly. I think that the third one is the copy shipped with V5.

I do have to admit though that Caldera have released now original version of vi that was shipped with V5 and I would guess that can be easily ported to any posix compliant system. (It is not ported to OpenBSD though).

Cheers,
OKO

Last edited by Oko; 6th November 2008 at 05:50 PM.
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Old 11th September 2008
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nvi, which is in a default OpenBSD install. Until recently, I used vim, installed from ports.
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Old 15th September 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by marcolino View Post
nvi, which is in a default OpenBSD install. Until recently, I used vim, installed from ports.
Hey I can't find nvi in my OpenBSD install... so I guess /usr/bin/vi is really nvi?

And I voted for the original vi!! I voted wrongly then...
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Old 11th September 2008
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Quote:
The results of this poll bring tears to my eyes.
. . . ?

Quote:
I use vim because i unfortunately have to deal with a lot of linux systems ( shutup scottro ) ..... i would LIKE to use nvi.
You can use Vim in compatible mode and then it behaves as vi (More or less).
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