For some reason, vi (elvis) has started to display colors and behave in a generally unpredictable way. I first (just now) noticed this in a .h file in which it is also disallowing things I want to do, e.g. it beeps when I try to delete (with 'x') the first character of a commented-out line, although the file is world-writable. It works sometimes, but not after I have done a search with '/' to get to the line I want to amend.
It turns out that sane behavior can be obtained by deleting or renaming the directory /etc/elvis. That directory contains 10 files containing program code in a language unknown to me. Well, I see from the man page that they are EX commands. I would like to make a mild protest against the unnecessary complexity of this setup. I would like to be able to run the program without interference due to the maintainer's over-elaborate configuration. If I have to delete the Debian configuration to make the system work, that tends to defeat much of the rationale for using Debian. And makes the KISS approach of another distribution appear brilliant, inspired, and a great time-saver. The problem with the color is that dark blue against a black screen is not, for me, very readable. The file is mostly commented out and I guess the blue signifies that and some people may like it. But I should think the onus should be on those who want the elaboration to configure it, rather than for the rest of us to have to learn more than we wanted to know about vi in order to defeat it. It is a very good idea to provide full configuration files for a program if it is configurable; but the default configuration should produce the default configuration. I.e. /etc/elvis/ should contain files which explicitly require the default vi behavior. That way, they serve as documentation for those who might want to investigate customization. Regards, Mike
