On Mon, Oct 26, 2026, at 07:05, Crystal Kolipe wrote: > On Mon, Oct 26, 2026 at 06:33:38AM -0600, Dave Polaschek wrote: >> Note that I had no luck just setting the print option in the stock >> /usr/bin/vi, which reports that it's version 1.79 > > As you've already found an alternative solution in ports I suppose it doesn't > really matter, but for the record setting the print option definitely works > for me with the same version of vi from base. > > Of course this only handles the actual printing of the characters, vi has no > notion of the multi-byte encoding so you have to hit ^L to repaint the screen > when actually editing them, but it is a way to make quick edits to a file with > just a few non-ascii characters in it using only the base system if ports are > not an option.
Nonetheless, thanks for the tip. I’ll be installing a similar setup on other machines, and every thing I don’t have to pkg_add is one less thing to worry about keeping updated down the road. I may still take a look at the vi source (last poked at in the 1990s) and see if there’s anything interesting I can see in there. Needing to control-L to repaint would quickly become an itch I would have to scratch. I suspect my problem was getting the characters entered correctly. I’d completely forgotten about control-x in vi, if I ever actually knew about it. -DaveP
