I have been a user of vim for many years, and before that I used vi for even more years. However, I am new to this usergroup and I hope that I am not repeating ground that has been repeatedly covered already in the recent past. I did try searching the archives, maybe ineptly, and had no success.
Every time I try to use :help I become frustrated. I have just spent a couple of hours trying in vain to find out some elementary things. I tried :help comment. I was indeed able to learn what the default comment symbol was, but only by paying careful attention, because this passage was clearly written for someone who already knew that the comment symbol is a double quote mark. Q1. Where is the article that explains to a beginner that the default comment symbol is a double quote mark? Q2. How should I have proceeded to find that section of help? Q3. Suppose there are 25 sections of help that discuss comment symbols. Is there a convenient way to find them all? And how could I conveniently work through them systematically? Q4. Does the format *:comment* have a particular significance? It must have, because one finds it everywhere in the help files. What is less apparent is what it means and whether one can use it to jump to a suitable topic. In sample vimrc files on the web, I found entries as follows: set comments+=b:\" set comments+=n:: Q5. How could I find out what += means here? I mean by using vim help, not by asking this news group. I tried :help += and obtained an article on the use of :let, which I do not consider relevant. Q6. What is the meaning of += here? Q7. What is the meaning of the b: and n: in this context? Here is the problem I started with at the beginning of my 2 hours of frustration: I tried Unix>vim>following_command :.!date " and here I put a comment and received error messages. The problem is not, as I mistakenly thought, with the comment symbol, but, as you experts undoubtedly realise instantly, with the fact that vim is feeding back the whole line date " and here I put a comment to the Unix shell for interpretation. This brings me to my final question: Q8. Is there any way of telling vim not to feed the whole line to the Unix shell, but only the initial part? I tried shielding the comment part by inserting a | as shown to me by the vim online help response to :help comment, but it didn't work. (This all occurs in something I am trying to automate in a source file of vim commands, and that's why I do want to include a comment. I suppose I could give up and put the comment elsewhere, where vim would find it less puzzling, but a human reader would find it more puzzling.) Thanks very much for your patience if you have managed to stick with me this far, and many thanks in advance for any help. Apologies for asking so many questions, but it might have been much more irritating if I had used 8 postings for my 8 questions. If there are any responders, I would be grateful if you could say which of my 8 questions you are answering. Thanks once again for any help. David --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message from the "vim_use" maillist. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
