** Chris G cl@isbd.net [2007-12-18 11:46]:
On Tue, Dec 18, 2007 at 10:47:43AM +0000, samwise wrote:
<<snip>>
I still think my philosophy of using the same editor *everywhere* is the best approach. You need to choose one that's available on every platform you use of course, that's what led me to vile/xvile. I use it in all the following situations:-
At work as my programming editor, Solaris with a Config management system that launches the editor via a gnuclient type mechanism (my original reason for choosing xvile, a vi clone that worked in server mode). As my mail editor, I use mutt for mail and thus can choose what editor I use for writing mail. As my newsgroup posting editor, I use tin and, like mutt it uses whatever editor I specify. For all my editing of scripts, python, pearl, etc. on Linux. Vile has syntax colouring for just about every language you can think of and quite a few that you can't! For editing textareas in Firefox, this is done via a neat little extension called mozex. Whenever a textarea asks for input I can hit CTRL/E and the contents of the textarea can be edited using my favourite editor! On Windows I have the windows version of vile which is called winvile so even there I can feel at home (and avoid notepad!).Nowadays I could probably replace most of the above by using vim/gvim and starting now I probably would. I'm not sure if there's a server mode in gvim though.
** end quote [Chris G]
Yay, thanks for that pointer to the Firefox extension, I'm off to install it now :) The number of times I end up with strange characters in text I'm editing in a web input for is no odds to anyone. Using a Windows/GUI editor is, for me anyway, such a slow and cumbersome way of working because my hand is forever heading off to the mouse, or shifting down to the cursor keys, to get at various functions.
As you may guess I'm a Vi(m) fan and have been pretty much since I started using Linux. I did toy with Pico briefly when I used Red Hat as it was the default with Pine which I was given to work with. I looked at Mutt, but Pine was easier to get into. When I switched to Debian I decided to explore Mutt a bit more and I'm glad I did. Pine/Pico/Nano are such a pain to use now, and Mutt/Vim are, again for me, much quicker and easier to work with than Pine/Pico ever were.
A quick pointer on the Windows side of things. I have used GVim, but never quite got on with it for some odd reason. I generally use NoteTab Light [1] on Windows. It can handle the differences between Windows and *nix text files, and has a few nice features for stripping HTML tags, tidying spacing, etc., which is generally all I ever do in Windows - get all the Windows cruft tidied ready for work in a decent OS and editor :) I could probably script something, or work out something similar in Vim, but it is actually easier to use the Windows tool to do this!
One day I'll try Emacs, because it would be nice to actually be able to compare it to Vim properly. All I ever do is fire it up and then find I can't do anything, even get out, so I kill the process. I can never remember the exit incantation! With Vi I had a short crib sheet for the basics that got me going in minutes. I should really find one for Emacs before I next fire it up!