54 lines
2.0 KiB
Plaintext
54 lines
2.0 KiB
Plaintext
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.Go 1 "INTRODUCTION"
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.PP
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\*E is a clone of vi/ex, the standard UNIX editor.
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\*E supports nearly all of the vi/ex commands,
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in both visual mode and colon mode.
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.PP
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Like vi/ex, \*E stores most of the text in a temporary file, instead of RAM.
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This allows it to edit files that are too large to fit
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in a single process' data space.
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Also, the edit buffer can survive a power failure or crash.
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.PP
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\*E runs under BSD UNIX, AT&T SysV UNIX, Minix, MS-DOS, Atari TOS,
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Coherent, OS9/68000, VMS and AmigaDos.
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The next version is also expected to add MS-Windows, OS/2 and MacOS.
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Contact me before you start porting it to some other OS,
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because somebody else may have already done it for you.
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.PP
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\*E is freely redistributable, in either source form or executable form.
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There are no restrictions on how you may use it.
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.NH 2
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Compiling
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.PP
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See the "Versions" section of this manual for instructions on how to compile
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\*E.
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.PP
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If you want to port \*E to another O.S. or compiler, then
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you should start be reading the "Portability" part of the "Internal" section.
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.NH 2
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Overview of \*E
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.PP
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The user interface of \*E/vi/ex is weird.
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There are two major command modes in \*E, and a few text input modes as well.
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Each command mode has a command which allows you to switch to the other mode.
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.PP
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You will probably use the \fIvisual command mode\fR
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most of the time.
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This is the mode that \*E normally starts up in.
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.PP
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In visual command mode, the entire screen is filled with lines of text
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from your file.
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Each keystroke is interpretted as part of a visual command.
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If you start typing text, it will \fInot\fR be inserted,
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it will be treated as part of a command.
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To insert text, you must first give an "insert text" command.
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This will take some getting used to.
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(An alternative exists.
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Lookup the "inputmode" option.)
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.PP
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The \fIcolon mode\fR is quite different.
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\*E displays a ":" character on the bottom line of the screen, as a prompt.
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You are then expected to type in a command line and hit the <Return> key.
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The set of commands recognized in the colon mode is different
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from visual mode's.
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