Text File

Aucbonyx.249 net.bugs.2bsd,net.bugs.4bsd utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:Onyx:jmrubin Mon Feb 1 16:28:44 1982 Resubmission of more suggestion

The following is being resubmitted at the request of Mark Plotnick at MIT (eagle!mitccc!mp) who complained about the top being chopped off.

The version of more which I'm using allows you to go into vi at a more prompt, if you're more'ing a file. It looks for vi in a specific place. This has two problems. (1) If you have a brain-damaged (or hard-copy) terminal, or your / variable isn't set correctly, vi may semi-bomb, depending on which version of vi you're using. (If it's a nice version, it will just go into open mode automatically.) (2) If you have a free login which mores a file, you give it the ability to fork a shell from vi. (shell escapes tend to die otherwise--since more looks at your variable.) (Of course, you can pipe the file into more--which destroys the ability to go into vi.)

Suggestion: (1) more should use your shell with the -c (or maybe -cf) flag to find vi. This would also be nice if vi moves, or if a new version becomes available in a non-standard place. (2) Maybe it should use some environmental varialbe to find which visual editor you like to use--maybe you like a version of emacs or teco, instead. (3) If you're on a bad terminal, it should use ex, or something similarly non-visual.

Joel Rubin

----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/

This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided:

1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles.

2. The following notice remains appended to each copy:

The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.