As the author states, the purpose of this is for users who work in other editors. But if that’s the case, when would they need this? Assuming they mean when a user is logged into another device where they only have terminal access. But in that case, this wouldn’t be installed by default-one reason to learn vim or emacs. So is the use case that one would just install this on the remote box and that their permissions would allow for this? If they have the permissions wouldn’t they just be able to connect via their existing IDE and skip the terminal altogether?
I started using this because my favorite editor (micro) has very poor syntax highlighting for ruby. It's a very specific use case but it's quite nice and I'm considering switching to modeless vim
We all have limited capacity to learn stuff. If I didn't already know Vim, there's very little chance I'd have the motivation/time/energy to learn it for the first time now.
This is just a vim config. On shared systems it is very common to have permission to edit your home directory but not to install additional software (and frowned upon to install software into your homedir even though it is possible).
Does it have syntax highlighting for the same amount of languages as vim does, out of the box?
I just installed nano-7.2-1 and opened a HTML file with `nano test.html` and it opened without syntax highlight, I can see the point in authors endeavor if syntax highlighting out of the box is what they're looking for.
I feel like if yiu want a fully featured IDE with language highlighting, debugging breakpoints, and code completion, but at the same time you want more ergonomic user interface, you should just use VSCode instead of doing everything in the terminal
After years of vi users trying to turn every perfectly working program into a worse version of vi, it's heartening to see we're taking the fight for sanity and justice back to their territory.
Personally, I find it a bit tiring that the usual response coming from the vim userbase towards someone not liking vim is either a) you obviously didn't learn it well enough, or b) you must be a bad programmer.
Sure, vim is a great tool, but it's just a tool. You're perfectly allowed to not like it and/or prefer to use other tools.
I need to get some fresh air and listen to peaceful music to forget that I saw this! Vim has been one of the best discoveries of my life BECAUSE of its modes, and I've taken that modal approach to my browsers, VSCode, etc.
the only time i've seen any bugs is when the neovim version lagged behind what they require in the project. i would work but not well. upgrading neovim fixed it for me.
though, like any project, there are probably bugs at the edges... not sure what bugs you are experiencing however.
Emacs has Evil Mode for simulating a modeful editor with vi-style keybinding. Vim now has an extension to do the opposite thing. It would be extra amusing if it supports Emacs-style keybindings (but it doesn't).
Conceptually the reasons the author give for this (syntax highlighting and other features of vim outclass other terminal-based editors) make total sense.
That said there's something absolutely defiling about this. It's like installing a V8 in a Tesla, or replacing the pumpkin in pumpkin pie.
I love that it will make VIM more accessible for more people, but I hate how they do it. Kudos to the author.
Also, like the author I have a shortcut to change themes (F9) and another to toggle invisible chars (F8), and I try to use the top of the screen as much as possible (I show the offset in hex, the row and column position etc).
I like how vim is modal, but some Windows shortcuts (like Control-C) just make too much sense to given them up on Linux: I have put `stty intr ^X` because using Shift-Control-C to copy from the terminal was way worse.
Having a few chording shortcuts give you the best of both worlds!
BTW, all of the other shortcuts proposed on this site make a lot of sense to me: I do expect Ctrl-F to search, and Ctrl-T to open tabs, I think I will copy a few :)
That's why I think MacOS is superior: it actually uses the "meta" key for useful stuff. So, Cmd-W would close the tab, and Ctrl-W would probably still delete a word (can't check right now, but it has a lot of 80s-era keyboard shortcuts for text still working)
I also want to use Command (Super or Hyper?), which really improves keyboard shortcuts. Command + left/right = jump to beginning or end of line, Option + left/right = jump to beginning/end of word. I know you can do the same with Control + Shift, but some apps don't support it. Plus Cmd+c/x/v for copy/cut/paste works fine in terminals, I don't have to remember to "code switch" my shortcut "language". Cmd+Backspace deletes the whole line, etc etc.
You missed the point; Ctrl-C is never going to be "copy" in a terminal, since that shortcut is already in use. Cmd-C can work everywhere, but GUI applications on linux do not default to that.
I bound WindowsKey-C to run the command "xsel|xsel -b" which copies the active selection to the clipboard. It's a small step in the right direction; it's possible to get paste working as well, but that takes awareness of apps (or reconfiguring all GUI applications to use the same shortcut as the terminal).
Super helpful for basically anything in a terminal. Stuff is going to flow by pretty quickly or at least keep bumping the terminal every couple seconds, usually when you _least_ want it to do so. Reading off whatever your program emitted while it's pushing the terminal up every half a second gets really annoying without Ctrl-S. It's probably the most used terminal shortcut after Ctrl-C for me.
> I like how vim is modal, but some Windows shortcuts (like Control-C) just make too much sense to given them up on Linux
Ctrl-C does work in the GUI. That said, one thing I like about Linux is being able to highlight text using the mouse and then pasting it by middle-clicking. I don't have to interact with the keyboard at all to copy and paste text that way.
Not sure about where you’re from but where I’m from, you don’t make pumpkin pie from a can. You make it with pumpkin purée. From scratch. Get out of here with your non-pumpkin pumpkin pie propaganda.
Some pumpkin, blended into a paste, some brown sugar, an egg or two, some heavy cream and some cinnamon and crushed cloves and you have your pie filling.
To be fair - coffee cake in the US is cake to have with coffee and doesn’t normally contain any coffee.
In the UK and EU, coffee cake is cake with coffee.
Likewise tea cakes in the US are cakes made with tea and tea cakes in UK and EU are cakes to have with tea. So…
Not a lie, just a Spider-Man meets Spider-Man moment when you learn you can actually make coffee cakes with coffee (or espresso) and you can make tea cakes with tea (I prefer oolong).
Yes, and pumpkins are squashes (Cucurbita) but pumpkin originates in New England USA where it refers to the orange squash gourd used to make Halloween carvings and decorations. Being that I'm from the US, this is "pumpkin". Not to downplay squash-based pastries or pies but there's only one pie that I will eat, day or night, no matter what - the beautiful, delicious, pumpkin pie. Plain, with whipped cream, with ice cream, with chocolate drizzle, with caramel.
I freely acknowledge that you can make a delicious “pumpkin” pie with butternut squash, but a real sugar pie pumpkin (use Halloween leftovers and their mealy starchy flesh at your peril) remains superior in my opinion. Sweet potato pie, though, can be absolutely delightful with no squash in sight. Just don’t call it pumpkin pie. ;)
I've tried it and my experience is the exact opposite. I have good results with for example "Crown Prince" variety pumpkins, which I find far sweeter and tastier than butternut.
Some areas have different ingredients depending on what’s available. Here in the United States, real pumpkin is preferred. You can use any gourd to make a pie but for the true pumpkin pie aficionados like myself, I can tell the difference when someone uses real pumpkin vs butternut squash vs sweet potato vs just creme, eggs, and brown sugar and some flour (I’m looking at you, Wegmans).
In the southeast coast of US, if you make a “pumpkin pie” with squash, you won’t be invited back next year.
In my household for the last 20 years, it is made from pumpkin. First from sweet pumpkins we would pick up every year at the Halloween pumpkin patch that we as a family tradition would take our daughter too. Now it is made from ones grown in our own garden. They are simple to grow. Pick them, roast them, purée them and freeze until needed. We also make a lovely spicy Indian style pumpkin soup from the purée. The pie is quite different from any store purchased pie and well worth it.
> I was making the point that it's a North American thing
No you weren't. To use your style, if YOU want to play along and be pedantic, then your edit wasn't about North America, it was about just the U.S. and Canada.
I've heard this claim various times, but it doesn't really make a lot of sense. Butternut squash has a carb:fiber ratio of about 6:1. Canned pumpkin is more like 3.5:1. Sure, the USDA might be lax on the precise definition of the word "pumpkin", but I don't expect them to go so easy on the nutrition data.
As Wikipedia notes:
>The term [pumpkin] is most commonly applied to round, orange-colored squash varieties, though it does not possess a scientific definition and may be used in reference to many different squashes of varied appearance.
If the article is simply intending to say that it does not usually come from squashes that are orange, oblate and ridged, then that's fair. But I don't think it's mostly butternut squash, and I don't see why manufacturers would try to hide using the most popular variety of squash.
But butternut squash is pretty similar to pumpkin. They are both winter squash, and the definition of pumpkin is a little fuzzy anyway. This would be more like replacing the pumpkin with apples.
[I'll just add one more note, not mentioned in the article, which is that typical Jack-o'-lantern pumpkins are quite awful for cooking. Much worse than any canned pumpkin. If you want to cook with fresh pumpkin, research the varietals that are known for good texture and flavor. Don't grab a carving pumpkin from the pile.]
> As much of 90 percent of pumpkin sold in the U.S. (and 85 percent worldwide) is a proprietary cultivar known as a Dickinson pumpkin, which are less photogenic than the type of pumpkins commonly used for display purposes.
Ugh, they really are much less aesthetic than a nice plump orange one. This feels similar to the childhood realization that regardless of the name or the box color there's not really much strawberry juice in anything; it's all apple and pear.
For those curious another common major percentage of “pumpkin pie” blends (such as from Libby’s) is Dickinson squash/pumpkin which is a subspecies of Cucurbita Moschata like butternut squash. These can be found as heirloom seeds. https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-are-dickinson-pumpkins-52...
Here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, we grow a lot of crops for seeds, of which various squashes are some. It’s amusing to see the first time, but squash grown for seed is typically just shredded in the field, with seeds collected and the flesh tossed out over the field. Results in a lot of “wtf are they doing” among those unfamiliar, because it looks exactly like pumpkins were grown just to immediately destroy them.
Seriously, it hurts. It makes sense, but it hurts. If only there were a more gentle path to editor modes. Maybe some simple graphical representation of the modes and commands that could be down in the corner? Like a dynamic vim infographic that clued a user into the most likely commands.
If you learn Vim you’ll have access to Vi and Vi-like interfaces in lots of other software including terminals, database clients and everything that uses readline.
Curious what kind of interfaces you're thinking about? (Aside from vi, vim, nvim)
From my experience anything with "vi navigation" basically just means using the home row keys for navigation + modes. So I haven't come across many interfaces yet where the verb order differences between helix/vim come into play.
Then the question is readline. Not saying that vi or emacs deserve to win readline, but it’s up to you to describe how Helix mode would differ from vi mode.
For me, the reason to learn vim is because if you know how to use it it's a really nice editor that's preinstalled on almost any system you shell into. I use VSCode on my home system and occasionally on a remote system, but I'll use neovim when doing a quick edit from the command line and vi when I happen to be o a remote system. In my ideal world, I would just use one editor everywhere, including if I'm hot-seating on a system that is not mine and without internet access: having vi already under my fingers is a nice approximation of great editor + everywhere.
Helix is wonderful. I did make one keybinding change: Switching in and out of Insert mode is CTRL-i so I don't have to wander off to the escape key so often.
>If only there were a more gentle path to editor modes. Maybe some simple graphical representation of the modes and commands that could be down in the corner?
I taught myself vim by setting the vim cheat sheet to be my terminal background, though I greyed it out slightly so it didn't obscure what I was typing. Once you have that there are only a few phrases you really need to know: "+p, "+y, "+d to access the system clipboard, :split and :vsplit, C-w w to switch windows, and g C-g for word/char count.
If I had a lot more free time, I've been noodling with some designs for a text editor with modes. It would start up by default in the equivalent of vim's insert mode where all the normal CUA keybindings (e.g. ctrl-c for copy) worked. But with many more. Then, if you go to the equivalent of normal mode you can just press X to do the same thing ctrl-X does in insert mode.
Emacs runs in a terminal. Vim isn't installed everywhere, Vi is. If you're going to install an editor and a config you might as well just install Emacs.
I guess it's the end-goal then, though. If your goal is to become a rockstar and play the guitar in a band, GH is probably a very bad route to it. But if it is to "have fun" its perfect.
Same with this vim: if you just need an editor that is recognisable and "not weird" then this modeless vim might be useful; though why not just install nano, pico, gedit, notepad++ or even notepad.exe?
In Jef Raskin’s ‘Humane Interface’, there’s a good justification to why modes are evil, mainly leading to excessive user errors, so it’s not that surprising.
"That said there is something absolutely defining about this."
Not expecting anyone to agree, but this is how I feel when using minimal shells that do not implement vi editing, e.g., set -V or set -o vi. Busybox/toybox is one example. In the aggregate, I actually do more editing on the command line than I do in vi. If the shell is permanently set to emacs-like keys and editing then I am constantly switching back and forth to "vi mode" everytime I edit a text file and return to the shell, i.e., nonstop.
> This configuration is not meant for the aficionado who prefers vim over graphical editors. This is meant for people who normally use GUI editors (like VSCode), but sometimes need an editor that can run in a terminal.
So it probably not for many people here. But I like it although I use vim as IDE when doing remote development.
I attempted this within a few days of first being exposed to vi - 35 years ago.
But since I was logging into different machines all the time I soon decided it was better to just use vi the way it came out of the box, modes and all. That philosophy has served me well over the years.
Do you have a link to this? It is not always possible, arcane non x86 arches, low bandwidth connections, but time is the big thing. A binary upload just to change some lines in a machine on the other side of the world. I am lazy.
I had a similar realization early after first picking up vim in college: customization of any tool eventually hits a point of diminishing returns beyond which further alterations reduce your ability to use the tool in its default state. It's an insight I've found applies to almost any tool... From software to hardware and beyond.
Master the default behavior of a tool, and then improve your effectiveness with customization, but not so much customization that you can no longer use the tool effectively in its unmodified state. Sometimes you have to use other people's tools, and it's important to still work effectively when you do.
I agree with this very much! I learnt it the hard way: my experience with many powerful tools, Vim included, was to learn the basics first, customize it to the point where you can't recognize it anymore, and then finally strip it down to the basics again, keeping only the configuration that doesn't prevent me from using the the raw features.
I used to manage complex "dotfiles" and scripts to configure a new computer, etc. I still technically do, but they are much more simple now. I just don't want to spend my time on configuring the stuff anymore, and appreciate the out-of-the-box experience much more. This by itself became a criterion when choosing new tools, frameworks, etc.
I used to think like that, but 10 years ago I decided to create a git-repo for my .emacs.d and started configuring beyond the most trivial settings (and including all dependencies in the repo too). Diminishing returns? Not sure how to measure. Editor configuration was never anything I did because I thought it would somehow save time, as some seem to imply, but rather just about removing sharp edges and making the experience of editing files nicer. With everything a quick git clone away it is rare that I have to work without my configuration.
I totally agree, but we should concede that the defaults need to accommodate the next billion users instead. I propose that a distribution ought to have the right to:
- Easy-mode as sensible-editor
- runtime mswin.vim, set nocompatible, etc as the skel vimrc
These are easier to change than driving new users to Google “how to exit vi”.
But remapping Ctrl-O, like this post, is a breaking change.
I’ve always wondered how different Unix/Linux would be today if decades ago a Common User Access (standardized menu system like FILE | EDIT | etc) had been defined for TUI apps (like how it was for Windows & Mac OS).
Imagine VI & EMacs having the same key bindings due to standards.
vi and emacs are prehistoric. Folks now are ok with / and \ and maybe some can deal with : as a file separator.
But in the precambrian era you needed to know about ^ to edit a specific version of a file, because diffs were tracked.
They're both wonderful and amazing and can handle anything, because they had to handle everything when filesystems were like a brand new invention and nobody really knew what was good or bad, so they threw everything in.
That is only the case if you think you have to press Ctrl using your pinky. You can use the side if your palm instead. Then CUA suddenly becomes very ergonomic. Try it. I've done this for over 15 years now across a plethora of different keyboards and also survived several years of Emacs unharmed thanks to it.
It's probably due to my shoddy description. You put your fingers into the touch typing homerow. Shift your left hand enough for the edge of your palm to be above the ctrl key. It might also be the base joint of your pinky, depending on the size of your hand. Now press that side down enough to activate the ctrl key while keeping your fingers on the homerow. It's like having an eleventh finger to control the keyboard.
How do you do that without hitting Shift? It seems needlessly finicky compared to just properly holding the key down with my pinky. I'd say the best way to avoid RSI while using key combinations is to follow proper procedure and hit the opposite modifier, e.g. Left Control + S (Right Control for Qwerty typists).
I used to do approximately this, from maybe the mid-90s to 2015-ish, but finally that keyboard died (RIP dear friend) and I find that it doesn't work properly on any keyboard I've found since.
Not quite the side of my palm, but the joint where my pinky meets my palm. My hands are relatively large, dunno if that's relevant.
I should put more work into buying a keyboard that it does work on, I think using my finger for Ctrl might be starting to cause RSIs in my middle-aged hands.
I guess I'll also add that for me it's a bigger deal when gaming than when using CUA. That Ctrl button is the one true place to put crouch, dangit.
Most of the time the joint that you describe works for me. Sometimes I use the side of my palm. It has worked for me on pretty much any keyboard so far, regardless of the height of the caps or the travel. On those with an fn-key I have had to remap the key somehow, sometimes in the BIOS sometimes using software. The exception is a smallish bluetooth keyboard I bought for a tablet. It's fn-key is hard to remap inside mobile OSes.
So very much this. Around the end of the 1980s / start of the 1990s, all the big DOS apps switched their weird proprietary UIs out for CUA ones. Sometimes with an option to go back, but not often. Sometimes with some of the old UI as well, but mostly, big-bang.
And everything was better, the users adjusted, nobody ever looked back and we were all better off.
Sadly the memo never reached the Unix world, and those terrible 1970s are now enshrined as holy writ.
Yeah, same. However, it is a pain to install on some systems because, for example, the Ubuntu package installs a debug build that puts a log text file (or similar, I forget the details) in $CWD everywhere you go. So you end up downloading a binary off Github, which feels dirty to me. And there are some other micro configuration tweaks I like to do.
I'm definitely going to compare this against micro.
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[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 133 ms ] threadOr looked it up once and probably now forgotten it.
Also regex expressions are not vi expresions and have wider applications so author might use them regularly.
So nothing here suggest that the author can remember vi.
So I am definitely going to try this.
I just installed nano-7.2-1 and opened a HTML file with `nano test.html` and it opened without syntax highlight, I can see the point in authors endeavor if syntax highlighting out of the box is what they're looking for.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25099049
Sure, vim is a great tool, but it's just a tool. You're perfectly allowed to not like it and/or prefer to use other tools.
though, like any project, there are probably bugs at the edges... not sure what bugs you are experiencing however.
I've half-learned vim and like the idea of it, but frankly I also use so many other "regular" programs that at times I wish I never learned vim.
I'm really hoping this is more-or-less what I think it is.
But come on! Learning vim bindings is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Once you’re hooked you’ll hate any non-mode based editors.
This is heresy!!!!!!!!!!
That said there's something absolutely defiling about this. It's like installing a V8 in a Tesla, or replacing the pumpkin in pumpkin pie.
I love that it will make VIM more accessible for more people, but I hate how they do it. Kudos to the author.
What exactly do you hate?
The site says:
> > Ctrl+S to save, select text using Shift+←/→/↑/↓, and copy/paste using Ctrl+C/V.
I haven't setup Control-S, but I have very similar bindings: Shift and arrows for selecting, then Alt or Control-Shift for moving the selection around, as shown on https://raw.githubusercontent.com/csdvrx/CuteVim/main/record...
Also, like the author I have a shortcut to change themes (F9) and another to toggle invisible chars (F8), and I try to use the top of the screen as much as possible (I show the offset in hex, the row and column position etc).
I like how vim is modal, but some Windows shortcuts (like Control-C) just make too much sense to given them up on Linux: I have put `stty intr ^X` because using Shift-Control-C to copy from the terminal was way worse.
Having a few chording shortcuts give you the best of both worlds!
BTW, all of the other shortcuts proposed on this site make a lot of sense to me: I do expect Ctrl-F to search, and Ctrl-T to open tabs, I think I will copy a few :)
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/12107/how-to-unfree...
I don't think anyone needs (or even wants) the terminal to freeze on such a common shortcut in 2024.
Personally, I have reclaimed Ctrl S for word delete (usually done by Alt-d)
And, agreed, macOS' use of shortcuts is fantastic and I wish I could replicate it on Linux.
I also want to use Command (Super or Hyper?), which really improves keyboard shortcuts. Command + left/right = jump to beginning or end of line, Option + left/right = jump to beginning/end of word. I know you can do the same with Control + Shift, but some apps don't support it. Plus Cmd+c/x/v for copy/cut/paste works fine in terminals, I don't have to remember to "code switch" my shortcut "language". Cmd+Backspace deletes the whole line, etc etc.
setkbmap us -option ctrlL:swapcaps -option compose:rwin
You can place that command at XFCE's startup settings for applications.
My `stty intr ^X` disagrees
I've made Ctrl-C do copy paste in the terminal, even in vim, with a special function for wayland:
vnoremap <C-C> <CMD>call WLCopy()<CR>
I find it rather useful to keep important output of programs on the screen when it is impossible (or I forget) to pipe them into a pager.
Ctrl-C does work in the GUI. That said, one thing I like about Linux is being able to highlight text using the mouse and then pasting it by middle-clicking. I don't have to interact with the keyboard at all to copy and paste text that way.
Most pumpkin pies are actually made with butternut squash and other similar squashes, not pumpkin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucurbita_moschata
https://www.thekitchn.com/whats-actually-in-your-canned-pump...
Some pumpkin, blended into a paste, some brown sugar, an egg or two, some heavy cream and some cinnamon and crushed cloves and you have your pie filling.
Try with pumpkin, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves… it’s that old timer pumpkin pie taste.
In the UK and EU, coffee cake is cake with coffee.
Likewise tea cakes in the US are cakes made with tea and tea cakes in UK and EU are cakes to have with tea. So…
Not a lie, just a Spider-Man meets Spider-Man moment when you learn you can actually make coffee cakes with coffee (or espresso) and you can make tea cakes with tea (I prefer oolong).
This "tradition" of using Butternut Squash instead goes back to the 1930s at least.
In the southeast coast of US, if you make a “pumpkin pie” with squash, you won’t be invited back next year.
(Chalk and sugar in the same sentence just made me think of Macdonald's milk shakes.)
No you weren't. To use your style, if YOU want to play along and be pedantic, then your edit wasn't about North America, it was about just the U.S. and Canada.
As Wikipedia notes:
>The term [pumpkin] is most commonly applied to round, orange-colored squash varieties, though it does not possess a scientific definition and may be used in reference to many different squashes of varied appearance.
If the article is simply intending to say that it does not usually come from squashes that are orange, oblate and ridged, then that's fair. But I don't think it's mostly butternut squash, and I don't see why manufacturers would try to hide using the most popular variety of squash.
Interestingly, I expected them to go easy on pretty much anything
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/canned-pumpkin-isnt-actual...
[I'll just add one more note, not mentioned in the article, which is that typical Jack-o'-lantern pumpkins are quite awful for cooking. Much worse than any canned pumpkin. If you want to cook with fresh pumpkin, research the varietals that are known for good texture and flavor. Don't grab a carving pumpkin from the pile.]
Ugh, they really are much less aesthetic than a nice plump orange one. This feels similar to the childhood realization that regardless of the name or the box color there's not really much strawberry juice in anything; it's all apple and pear.
And then you have sweet potato pie...
Here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, we grow a lot of crops for seeds, of which various squashes are some. It’s amusing to see the first time, but squash grown for seed is typically just shredded in the field, with seeds collected and the flesh tossed out over the field. Results in a lot of “wtf are they doing” among those unfamiliar, because it looks exactly like pumpkins were grown just to immediately destroy them.
If you learn Vim you’ll have access to Vi and Vi-like interfaces in lots of other software including terminals, database clients and everything that uses readline.
From my experience anything with "vi navigation" basically just means using the home row keys for navigation + modes. So I haven't come across many interfaces yet where the verb order differences between helix/vim come into play.
In mpv I use gg/G to getting to the beginning/end of a file.
Many terminal file managers use vim binds or idioms (such as x for delete, marks, etc).
That was more convenient for me, especially as I remap my caps-lock key to CTRL system-wide.
I taught myself vim by setting the vim cheat sheet to be my terminal background, though I greyed it out slightly so it didn't obscure what I was typing. Once you have that there are only a few phrases you really need to know: "+p, "+y, "+d to access the system clipboard, :split and :vsplit, C-w w to switch windows, and g C-g for word/char count.
https://www.glump.net/_media/howto/desktop/vim-graphical-che...
https://youtu.be/x-6kHjF1U1E?t=402
https://twitter.com/FthePump1/status/1738425546621825468
https://github.com/teslamotors/buildroot/tree/buildroot-2021...
Doesn't most major distributions alias vi to vim nowadays? I think I've also come across vi being aliased to vim-tiny if I remember correctly.
Everywhere else, when you type vi, you get vim. Some neophile Linux distros provide neovim instead.
Regardless, vi and vim (and neovim) are the same in basic operations.
It's still functionally correct that "vi is always installed" and no additional action is necessary for basic text editing.
Same with this vim: if you just need an editor that is recognisable and "not weird" then this modeless vim might be useful; though why not just install nano, pico, gedit, notepad++ or even notepad.exe?
“But your fingers aren't touching the strings!”
Maybe putting diesel generator in a Tesla so you can use it even though charging is not your cup of tea.
Not expecting anyone to agree, but this is how I feel when using minimal shells that do not implement vi editing, e.g., set -V or set -o vi. Busybox/toybox is one example. In the aggregate, I actually do more editing on the command line than I do in vi. If the shell is permanently set to emacs-like keys and editing then I am constantly switching back and forth to "vi mode" everytime I edit a text file and return to the shell, i.e., nonstop.
So it probably not for many people here. But I like it although I use vim as IDE when doing remote development.
But since I was logging into different machines all the time I soon decided it was better to just use vi the way it came out of the box, modes and all. That philosophy has served me well over the years.
We now have actually portable executables (multiplatform, multios) that contain their own config file: you can just scp 1 binary and be done with it.
just embed your own vimrc with zip following the instructions
for others, see https://cosmo.zip/pub/cosmos/bin/
[1]: https://github.com/SebastianMuskalla/ModelessVim/blob/main/L...
Master the default behavior of a tool, and then improve your effectiveness with customization, but not so much customization that you can no longer use the tool effectively in its unmodified state. Sometimes you have to use other people's tools, and it's important to still work effectively when you do.
I used to manage complex "dotfiles" and scripts to configure a new computer, etc. I still technically do, but they are much more simple now. I just don't want to spend my time on configuring the stuff anymore, and appreciate the out-of-the-box experience much more. This by itself became a criterion when choosing new tools, frameworks, etc.
- Easy-mode as sensible-editor
- runtime mswin.vim, set nocompatible, etc as the skel vimrc
These are easier to change than driving new users to Google “how to exit vi”.
But remapping Ctrl-O, like this post, is a breaking change.
I’ve always wondered how different Unix/Linux would be today if decades ago a Common User Access (standardized menu system like FILE | EDIT | etc) had been defined for TUI apps (like how it was for Windows & Mac OS).
Imagine VI & EMacs having the same key bindings due to standards.
https://sqlite.org/hctree/doc/hctree/doc/hctree/index.html#s...
But in the precambrian era you needed to know about ^ to edit a specific version of a file, because diffs were tracked.
They're both wonderful and amazing and can handle anything, because they had to handle everything when filesystems were like a brand new invention and nobody really knew what was good or bad, so they threw everything in.
Tough to get standards before standards exist.
It doesn't make sense to change Vi/Vim/NeoVim keybindings because they're so convenient, composable and easy to remember.
Not quite the side of my palm, but the joint where my pinky meets my palm. My hands are relatively large, dunno if that's relevant.
I should put more work into buying a keyboard that it does work on, I think using my finger for Ctrl might be starting to cause RSIs in my middle-aged hands.
I guess I'll also add that for me it's a bigger deal when gaming than when using CUA. That Ctrl button is the one true place to put crouch, dangit.
The real, useful, working CUA mode for Emacs is here:
https://ergoemacs.github.io/
And everything was better, the users adjusted, nobody ever looked back and we were all better off.
Sadly the memo never reached the Unix world, and those terrible 1970s are now enshrined as holy writ.
I'm definitely going to compare this against micro.