Fiddly emacs diary question...

[hcvv]

On 2013-03-19, hcvv <hcvv@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
> I have no doubt I in fact use vim as vi user (as I suggested already),
> but I call myself a vi user, litteraly because I just use the command
> vi, and further because I only use a subset of vi commands. I wouldn'r
> recommend others to do like me. Use Kwrite, etc. But I feel at home like
> I do.

I absolutely agree. Except I recommend kate to KDE users and gedit to GNOME users.

> As said, Ivalue the highlighting, as I do much HTML editing and it
> point reveals you many typos.
> I do not know of any plugins. What should be pluged in in a mere text
> editor?

Hahaha , tell that to an Emacs user! If you have to ask, then perhaps vim isn't for you after all!

> And the tabbed/split windows. You can do the same with your terminal
> emulator. But I simply use different emulator windows.

I'm not sure what you mean by emulator. An advantage of using vim's own split/tabbed windows feature is that the buffers
are coordinated so you yank-paste across different files. Or this may be supported for your terminal emulator windows...
I don't know.

> Yes, I am an old-fashioned type of user and many of those things that
> are called features are completely without any understanding for me.

It depends on how much you want to learn new tricks . I believe just because a program is a console program, this
doesn't mean it (and it's user base) shouldn't evolve and improve! For example, it's a shame that sc never evolved from
what is already an excellent program. And analogously (at least for GNU/Linux), I see no advantage with persisting with
vi restrictions when vim is installed everywhere. But as you say... old dogs ... new tricks .

I agree with all you say (especialy about the old dog).
The emulator is of course the terminal emulator, konsole mostly for me, but xterm may do it.

I see the advantage of yanking-pasting between tabs. I now use mostly the mouse, but tabs (the characters, not the vim function) get expanded in spaces then. Visualy nothing is wrong after the paste, but there are no tabs anymore.

[flymail]

On 2013-03-19, hcvv <hcvv@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
> I agree with all you say (especialy about the old dog).
> The emulator is of course the terminal emulator, konsole mostly for me,
> but xterm may do it.

Ah ha. I see what you mean. I very much like konsole's ability to to have multiple terminals (Ctrl-Shift-T) so you can
switch between them (Ctrl-Shift-LeftOrRight) without having to touch the mouse.

> I see the advantage of yanking-pasting between tabs. I now use mostly
> the mouse,

So you have effectively substituted one Vim feature (multiple windows) with another (mouse control) .

> but tabs (the characters, not the vim function) get expanded
> in spaces then. Visualy nothing is wrong after the paste, but there are
> no tabs anymore.

You do know you can stop this behaviour using noexpandtab (e.g. :set noexpandtab) - or you can default that setting in
your ~/.vimrc.

[hcvv]

So you have effectively substituted one Vim feature (multiple windows) with another (mouse control) .

> but tabs (the characters, not the vim function) get expanded
> in spaces then. Visualy nothing is wrong after the paste, but there are
> no tabs anymore.

You do know you can stop this behaviour using noexpandtab (e.g. :set noexpandtab) - or you can default that setting in
your ~/.vimrc.

I used the mouse in xterm windows (with vi or other things running in them) way before vim existed.

And I do not realy copy/paste from one vi((m) session to the other that often. And that is IMHO why many nice functions are never learned by people (like me). You realy have forsee that you have to do a lot of the same things again and again before you think it being effective to try and find a quicker solution.

Is that noexpandtab specialy for the mouse pickup function? Or are there any side affects?

[flymail]

On 2013-03-19, hcvv <hcvv@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
> I used the mouse in xterm windows (with vi or other things running in
> them) way before vim existed.

Hehe. The Zen of Vi and Vim is not to use the mouse at all .

> And I do not realy copy/paste from one vi((m) session to the other that
> often. And that is IMHO why many nice functions are never learned by
> people (like me).

You are correct to suggest that learning tends to be dependent on demand. But even if you're editing a single vim file,
splitting a window horizontally (i.e. :split) can be so incredibly helpful to look at code sections at different parts
of a file (e.g. if editing templated C++ classes in header files comparing class declarations and class member
functions). For example, if I want to write a class member function in tclass.hpp, I write the declaration in the top
window and yank-paste it into the bottom window when I want to define the class member function.

> You realy have forsee that you have to do a lot of the
> same things again and again before you think it being effective to try
> and find a quicker solution.

Or you could just look at :help vi_diff within Vim .

> Is that noexpandtab specialy for the mouse pickup function? Or are
> there any side affects?

It's for pasting into Vim using Shift-Middle-Mouse-Button. I'm using Vim to write this NNTP post so I can demonstrate.
Suppose I want to copy in a<tab>b<tab>c from elsewhere:

:set expandtab

.... and then Shift-MMB in insert mode produces:

a       b       c

.... whereas:

:set noexpandtab

.... results in:

a	b	c

I don't know if these appear any different to you (they don't to me), but when I run my cursor over the text in the
second case, it jumps from a->b->c whereas the intervening gaps in the first case are treated as 7 continuous spaces.

Copying FROM Vim however doesn't preserve tabs. On the rare occasion where this has been required, I just use a
predefined shortcut in my .vimrc along the lines:

:!cp % %~;kwrite %~

or (in my case):

:!cp % %~;kate %~

And then copy from outside Vim.

[maabaum]

On 03/19/2013 10:06 AM, hcvv wrote:
> I am not an emacs user

i am an ex-emacs user (but only because about 99% of my needs in
emacs are filled by now easier filled by kwrite, mc, Google Calendar
and etc....initially emacs (CLI version) was my main editor, last
century)..

but, having never used the calendar i can't answer and would suggest
the OP may wait here a long time for a meaningful answer and *might*
get better help on
cite: GNU Emacs - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)

hmmmm, maybe begin here (i have no idea if the Q can be answered in
the docs, or not--probably not, but if so someone on the mail list
will probably tell you it is in the FM), so:
[url]http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/index.html[/url


--
dd
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Caveat

Oh gods. A text editor religious war.

I use emacs for the lisp macro that allows me to control the northeast U.S. electric power grid.

Unfortunately all the docs I've seen for dairy and calendar (ignore this if you don't use emacs) seem to say that you can edit the block strings directly, as I have. It's quite mysterious. I will take it up with the emacs list as suggested, tnx.

maabaum

[flymail]

On 2013-03-19, maabaum <maabaum@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
> Oh gods. A text editor religious war.
<SNIP>

Hehe... although a vi vs vim war among isn't so common among penguins .