text editing in ubuntu

[Hal Burgiss]

On Tue, Aug 04, 2009 at 07:05:14PM -0500, Chris Mohler wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 6:57 PM, Brian Clarkson<brian at clarkson.id.au> wrote:
> > "A simple, sane ~/.vimrc that starts vim in insertmode, and has shortcut
> > keys
> > for saving/quiting:"
> >
> > I am a relative newbie and I don't really understand what the line quoted
> > above means.
> 
> "Sane" as in "not crazy".  :)
> 
> I think he was just pointing out that using vim without at least a
> basic .vimrc file is crazy.  I tend to agree :)
> 
> And yes "~" indicates the home directory - so the file is
> '/home/YOURUSER/.vimrc'.

Sorry guys, yes ... to expand a little:

Vim (and the GUI version "gvim") use a configuration file typically named
".vimrc", typically located in the the user's $HOME, or ~. There is also
usually a system wide one in /etc/vimrc, but as pointed out, this generally
lacks the usability features most people (well, non-vim people) expect in a
text editor.

Vim is highly customizable, and it does not take much for it to mimic other
editors. Of course, if you don't know vim, and you want to customize it so it
behaves just as you want, you are once again facing a big learning curve. The
documentation, though quite thorough, can be overwhelming. And if you don't
know vim or the vim lingo, you are even more challenged. That is why I was
bemoaning the lack of more "user friendly" vimrc for a default installation.

-- 
Hal
Who writes his emails in vim too :wq!