Vi 201

You should point out that most of these features require Vim not vi. Otherwise you might confuse some people using the real vi. And yes there are still computers out there that have vi not vim.
Plus it gives Bram M(sp?) the credit he deserves.
:wq

Excellent article, I keep learning new stuff about this beast "VI" every day, and can't get enough.
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I encourage you to go on with VI 301 as well.
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thanks a lot.
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Ayman
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These features are part of vim, not vi. There are *many* vi clones out there, and there are *many* *nixes that still deliver the original vi (can you say Solaris, AIX). So to say that these are vi features is not acurate.

Having said that, I've been using vim for years and would not ba able to work without it!

<font color=red>I use vi anytime I can. Thanks for the extra info, have you got a web page I can bookmark about this subject?

Right at the top of the very page you are reading, it says, "Note: Most of the material in this article covers vim, the enhanced version of vi that is preinstalled on most modern *NIXes."
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Any suggestions on how we can make this more clear? :)
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>>Any suggestions on how we can make this more clear? :)
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Yes!
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Reword your title and teaser to say:
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VIM 201
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In his last class, he taught you the basics of VIM, the powerful *NIX text editor. Now Elias Flootburger returns in this hilarious sequel to the original "VIM 101"(was Vi 101) tutorial. This time, the good professor has his hands full with abbreviations, key mappings, autocommands and VIM's powerful visual mode...not to mention his own out-of-control ego!
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But then you might not get so many comments ;)
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Dave

Could someone suggest which is found on which *nix?

Abbreviations, key mappings are nice.
But how to save them. They are lost when you exit vi.

I do not want to reset them every time I enter vi.

use macros vs. abbreviations. this is described under the heading "Sweet Revenge" in this tutorial, Vi<em>M</em> 201.

This is one of the best VI tutorials I've seen yet. Friendly, useful, and enlightening. I really loved it and will start using vi alot more often.

i want to use indent with options 'indent -br -ce' . i maked alias in my bash shell as
alias indent="indent -br -ce" but this doesn't help. thanks.

I was unable to get !!bash to work properly (Path problems?) to have the word date replaced with the results of the command date. However, I have used in the past the following:

:r!date

As this will "read - in" (:r) the "execution" (!) of the command "date".

Back in the days of the 2.0.27 kernel, the version of VI that came with Slackware had a feature that everyone seemed to hate. Other even older versions like the one on AT&T SVR4 did the same. If you had the following text

this is the first line

this is the second line

this is the third line


You could place the cursor on the *f* in the word first, type i for insert mode, type "old ", then hit the down arrow. The old vi would place the cursor on the *s* of second, where the new one places it on the *o*.

this is the old first line

this is the **s**econd line (old cursor position)

this is the sec**o**nd line (new cursor position)

What happens is the up and down commands, when typed first after entering new text moves the cursor down, and back to the same column as you started typing on. Sometimes this sucks, but when you are working with columns it is very handy. The new versions just move the cursor down, and make you move it back to the initial column. The old behavior is very powerful when you want to, for example, add *old* in front of each of the numbers in a long column of lines like the ones in this example.

My question, is there any way to make VIM work like the older VI's?