I'm always surprised by how many of the experienced sysadmins that attend Solaris classes have never heard of 'vim'. The editor 'vi' is somewhatkiko character-building while your fingers are learning it. vim uses the same keystrokes, but applies syntax colouring (so you can see that quotes aren't closed, or that you've misspelt 'doen', er, 'done') and has multiple panes, so you can be editing and seeing more than one file at once. As an extra bonus, it is also available for MSWindows, so you can throw away NotePad and 'ctrl-S', and stick to 'esc:w' . Consistency of interface, that's the ticket.
To try vim for Solaris, get the packages SFWncurs and SFWvim from sunfreeware.com or vim.org, install them, and then:
1. cp /opt/sfw/share/vim/vim6?/vimrc_example.vim ~/.vimrc
2. /opt/sfw/vim ~/test.sh
The PC version is only at vim.org
- John Mitchell, SunMicrosystems Consultant/Trainer
Eclectic Group.
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