pgf@cayman.COM (Paul Fox) (09/01/90)
I've spent some time and energy converting a copy of micro-Emacs into a very useful vi-workalike. (If I get any flames about this I think I'll puke.) It preserves the emacs multi-window, multi-buffer capabilities, as well as key rebindablility, though I may have broken that somewhat and not noticed it -- I've never wanted to use it, since what I was after was a vi clone. I think I've succeeded pretty well -- the finger-feel, if you will, is very close to that of vi, even if the look isn't all there. But with very few exceptions, the cursor will be where you want it when you want it, and the simple ':' commands work as expected. (Not full ex, but the file nameing, reading, editing commands, and ":g" and ":s", ":l", and ":p".) Almost all vi commands are represented -- the most glaring exceptions are the "!" operator (for filtering text), the "@" command for executing a named buffer, and the ":map" command. The set options don't map exactly, but the important modes of operation are there. I suspect that this new editor (and is definitely _new_, and not a simple ifdef from micro-Emacs), which I call "vile" (which stands for "VI Like Emacs" :-) has some UNIX dependencies that I've introduced, so it probably won't easily compile on DOS anymore, but that could probably be fixed. It's pretty stable -- I only find a bug once a month or so, and another user is in much the same state. I'm sure that there are more -- they just don't show up with our particular usage patterns. I'm _not_ planning on posting it right away, unless the demand is overwhelming, and I don't think it will be since everyone is still busy drooling over elvis (Congratulations on a nice job, Steve...). What I'm looking for is a few people willing to do very friendly beta testing, which means they'll try to find and maybe fix the bug, in addition to letting me know. If you have that kind of interest, let me know, and perhaps we can work something out. -- paul fox, pgf@cayman.com, (617)494-1999 Cayman Systems, 26 Landsdowne St., Cambridge, MA 02139