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Editors

 

The editor that comes with every Unix is called vi. It's very powerful but not easy to learn.
Some people favor emacs. It is even more powerful but is also not easy to learn.
If you are really new to Unix I'd recommend using pico for your first steps. It's easy to use.
But when you start doing "real work" you should become acquainted with either vi or emacs

The Basics of vi


vi may be in one of three modes:

  • browsing mode
    You are in this mode when you start vi. You can page forward and backward with ctrl-f and ctrl-b. To move the cursor use the h,j,k and l keys (left,down,up,right). To search for the string string, type /string. If you type i (insert) or a (append), you get to the
  • append/insert mode
    Now you can type in text. Use the ESC key to go back to the browsing mode.
  • command line
    You can type special editor commands in the browsing mode by prepending them with a ":". Most important: ":x" (save and exit) and ":q!" (quit without saving).
  • More infomation under http://www.vim.org/

 

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