<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 6:30 AM, Werner Schram <<a href="mailto:wrschram@gmail.com">wrschram@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div class="im">Chris G wrote: > On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 09:37:26PM +0800, wang xin wrote: > >> i am new to vi, when i input 'i', there is no indicator like '- -insert- >> -' to tell me which mode i am in, anyone has advise? Thanks. >> >> > Doesn't vim have this (vim is the default vi clone used by most Linux > distributions)? > > There's certainly an 'insert' indicator in vile, the vi clone I > prefer. It puts an 'I' on the status line at the bottom. > </div>The default in Ubuntu is vim.tiny, which has a subset of the functionallity of vim. I think it is made to be fully compatible with the original vi, and no more than that. vim.basic in the vim package also provides an --insert-- indication at the bottom of the screen. </blockquote><div> There was no such display in vi, and vim in vi-mode does not have it. If you're using vim, however, you can look up the docs with ":help showmode" which discusses when and how this indication can be made visible. </div></div> -- Kevin O'Gorman, PhD