sims@hou2b.UUCP (J.SIMESTER) (03/23/84)
I submitted an article warning about using q or w or any other editor commands as abbreviations for :ab. I've received several mail responses claiming that there is no problem, since ab is only operational during text insert mode. WRONGO!! Perhaps there are some versions of vi for which the above assertion holds. However, for the version I have, I know for a fact that if I define an abbreviation using :ab q foobar and try to use :q to exit vi, I get the message foobar is not an editor command Rather than believe whatever it says in your documentation, try it! (At least one respondant did, and found I was right.) Question: Are there versions of vi floating around for which this is not true? I'm submitting this to the NET rather than using mail because the confusion does seem reasonably wide-spread, and this sure beats N mail replies. -- Jim ..!houxm!hou2b!sims
matt@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA (03/28/84)
From: Matthew J. Weinstein <matt@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA> After you have `Q'uit visual mode, abbreviation doesn't seem to take place. This could be useful to someone using a special command as an abbreviation. `unab'breviate is more reliable in ex mode too. - Matt
srini@ut-sally.UUCP (Srinivasan Sundararajan) (03/29/84)
A :ab command stays in effect even while trying to use it as an editor command, not just while in text insert mode.