On Thu, 3 Mar 2005, John Delacour wrote: > Both TextWrangler and BBEdit, which for Perl purposes are virtually > identical (it's the html stuff that's missing in TW) are configurable > to the nth degree as regards keystrokes and can be customised, I am > sure, to emulate the behaviour of vim or whatever as regards > keystrokes. Any key combination can be used to perform any operation > within the document, the application or beyond. Pods can be > displayed for selected terms of module names at a single keystroke > etc. etc. The most involved sequences of tasks can be performed with > a single keystroke. In a short time a user can set up the application > to respond as he chooses to commands that he chooses, which might be > vim-like or might not.
<sigh> I should let this thread die a natural death, but...this post illustrates the silliness to which editor wars always stray. First, a response to the "anything vi can do, BBEdit can do better": I suspect the hardest commands to replicate would be the simplest: move the cursor to the next word, line, block, or backwards, move to end of line or paragraph, etc. Even things that can be sort of replicated, like a search-and-replace sequence over the next 10 lines, would require a bunch of extra tabs to move from dialog field to dialog field, even assuming the entire search-and-replace dialog can be navigated mouseless (I don't know or care). Making the process as quick as vi (assuming a skilled operator of vi) would likely be impossible. For you, no doubt BBEdit is quicker, which explains why you might prefer it. But, even if you could make BBEdit look like vi, why? If I love vi so much, would I buy a commercial program and spend hours (it would take it) configuring it to look like another program I could have for free and without the work? Furthermore, let's say I ssh into some remote box and want to edit some quick Perl or shell script or config file on the remote box. I'm back to using vi. Yes, in some cases I could run X or VNC or RemoteDesktop or some other remote GUI tool, but it's often overkill, like hopping in your SUV and driving twenty feet to your mailbox to check the mail. I own BBEdit and love it. For me personally, I prefer editing code with a mouse-based editor, and I don't feel the need for editor consistency. But for some tasks, you can do it in vi before BBEdit could even launch, even if it were an option. And I've seen people with greater skills in vi, for whom it is the best choice in many more situations. Bottom line: people have their preferences, and their preferences may actually make sense (ie be optimal) for their circumstances and usage. If you are annoyed with your current editor, check out some of the editors mentioned. Let's get back to Perl and MacOS X. <sighing at the futility of the request> -- MattLangford
