On Sun, Feb 04, 2018 at 12:05:47AM GMT, trondd wrote:
> On Sat, February 3, 2018 4:28 pm, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
> >
> >> a good way to do it without adding verbiage would be to not document it!
> >> if it really is a crappy quirk, let's just leave it out then.
> >
> > I actually like that idea, it makes the long list of EX COMMANDS
> > a bit simpler, making the relevant stuff easier to find.
> >
> > Of course, we still have to say how to get out of split screen
> > mode when you stumble into it unintentionally - which esily
> > happens because the colon requires the shift key on many keyboards,
> > so accidentally hitting ":N" instead of ":n" is not uncommon.
> >
> > If people like the idea, i'll also fix up :exusage (unless people
> > want :exusage deleted, which i would of course prefer).
> >
> > OK?
> > Ingo
> >
>
> Well this is kind of a bummer. I agree the documentation is inconsistent
> and confusing, but once I got past reading the man page, I was so excited
> to discover that I could get split screens in base vi without having to
> install vim with its extra baggage. I'm sad that a feature I use
> constantly will now become undocumented (if not removed) and hidden from
> other's who might find it valuable.
>
> Not to discourage your work. I'm not the one maintaining vi, and I can go
> crawling back to ports for nvi if I need to.
>
> Tim.
I have to second Tim here - I like base vi/ex the way it is.
Very recently, I found a file where I had saved the output of both
:visuage and :exusage - this was from a time when I had noticed as
small alignment issue in :viusage. I actually learnt a handful
of commands form both of these and would be sad to see either of
them go. Personally, I don't treat them as *documentation* sensu
stricto, but more like a quick command guide - an index.
All that being said, I'm obviously in no position to make requests
- merely £0.02 from a base vi user and one who found :{ex,vi}usage
actually useful in the past.
Raf
