grj@tellab5.UUCP (Gary Jenkins) (08/04/88)
Has anyone gotten the recently posted "avi" to work? I only get the "can't malloc" error message, which I assume means there is insufficient memory. I have a 2000 and have tried running it from Dillon's shell version V2.07M, which failed to work so I went back to a standard, no frills CLI. I'm not doing anything fancy, honest. Thanks in advance, Gary Jenkins
phils@tekigm2.TEK.COM (Philip E Staub) (08/05/88)
In article <993@tellab5.UUCP> grj@tellab5.UUCP (Gary Jenkins) writes: >Has anyone gotten the recently posted "avi" to work? I only get the >"can't malloc" error message, which I assume means there is insufficient >memory. I have a 2000 and have tried running it from Dillon's shell >version V2.07M, which failed to work so I went back to a standard, >no frills CLI. I'm not doing anything fancy, honest. > >Thanks in advance, >Gary Jenkins I had no problem getting avi to work. At least to load and execute. How big a file were you trying to edit? I seem to recall seeing a limit of something like 4000 lines. As far as actual operation, that's another story. There are a number of deficiencies which I can't live with, so I've gone back to Manx 'Z'. The main gripes I have with it are: 1. File mainpulation is too limited. You can't read in a file to include it in the file you're editing. Also, you can't save a portion of the current file ('Z' also has that problem). 2. Regular expression matching doesn't go quite far enough. I'd like to be able to search for a word 'i' as \<i\> the way you can in vi. 3. There seems to be a bug if you type ':' as though you were going to execute a command but changed your mind and backspace over it. Avi won't. Those are the ones that stand out in my memory. I'm sure there are more, but it's been a while since I tried it, and I only played with it for about 1/2 hour. Phil -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phil Staub Tektronix, Inc., Vancouver, Washington 98668 phils@tekigm2.MEN.TEK.COM
elbaum@reed.UUCP (Daniel Elbaum) (08/05/88)
In article <993@tellab5.UUCP> grj@tellab5.UUCP (Gary Jenkins) writes: >Has anyone gotten the recently posted "avi" to work? I only get the >"can't malloc" error message, which I assume means there is... avi prints "can't malloc" when it can't open the filename given as a command-line argument. My favorite deficiencies are: -^d/^u reversed (somebody already mentioned this) -no more that one file may be worked on at a time -ZZ doesn't work -'H', 'L' and 'M' are unimplemented (cursor home, cursor to beginning of bottom line, and cursor to beginning of middle display line). -won't take a 'rc' file (for startup configuration) -won't wrap lines But I've gotta say that vi is a hard program to port, and much harder to reverse engineer (I'm not sure which the author did), and some of vi's most difficult but most useful features are properly implemented (buffers, for example). It'll be a great editor when most of the glaring problems are fixed. Is source code available? fully implemented. If a version ever comes out which -- : Daniel Elbaum Responsible for all : uunet!{oresoft|tektronix}!reed!elbaum disclaimed postings : elbaum@reed.UUCP
brent@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG (Brent Nordquist) (08/09/88)
In article <3316@tekigm2.TEK.COM> phils@tekigm2.TEK.COM (Philip E Staub) writes: |In article <993@tellab5.UUCP> grj@tellab5.UUCP (Gary Jenkins) writes: |>Has anyone gotten the recently posted "avi" to work? | |As far as actual operation, that's another story. There are a number of |deficiencies which I can't live with, so I've gone back to Manx 'Z'. The |main gripes I have with it are: | | [ gripes ] I like 'avi'--sure can't beat the price! :-) Finally I can enter a program in a non-frustrating manner. (Read: the manner to which he is accustomed.) BUT... there are several keys that weren't implemented that really wouldn't take too much work, and that I use all the time: R to overstrike until <ESC> -- this is SO common. (I notice that it puts the word 'Replace' on the window from which 'avi' was run when you use 'R'.) H,M,L to jump to the top, middle, and bottom of the screen; this one is driving me nuts. :n/e to load in another file; avi takes so long to load--it would be nice to be able to switch files without leaving. Also, there is no equivalent of an .edrc file; I use autoindent and no-ignore-case and it gets tedious to type :set all the time. I liked the cute little 'Beep' that appears on the bottom line. :-) However (gripe-mode-off :-) it's better than what I was using before, and gets me closer to 'vi' than I was. Perhaps in its next release... Thanks a lot to the author for making life easier for us vi-addicts! -- Brent Nordquist "Twitterpated! It could happen to YOU!" brent@questar.mn.org amdahl!bungia!questar!brent Bachelorhood remaining: 18 weeks, 5 days, 3:40
malc@tahoe.unr.edu (Malcolm L. Carlock) (08/09/88)
In article <993@tellab5.UUCP> grj@tellab5.UUCP (Gary Jenkins) writes: >Has anyone gotten the recently posted "avi" to work? I only get the >"can't malloc" error message, which I assume means there is insufficient >memory. I have a 2000 and have tried running it from Dillon's shell >version V2.07M, which failed to work so I went back to a standard, >no frills CLI. I'm not doing anything fancy, honest. I ran AVI from Matt Dillon's shell (running in conjunction with ConMan). It seemed to work OK, but I soon quit using it (didn't even try saving anything) when I saw how relatively primitive it was (doesn't know about ^ and $ in expressions, represents all unprintable characters as a rectangular box instead of caret-ing them, etc.) However, I DID get five checksum errors while I was uudecoding the posted file (for lines 1 thru 5). Did anyone else get that? Malcolm L. Carlock ----------------------------------------------------------------- malc@tahoe.unr.edu.UUCP University of Nevada, Reno