http://invisible-island.net/vile/
Copyright © 1999-2012,2013 by Thomas E. Dickey
VILE – Vi Like Emacs – is a text editor.
vile retains the "finger-feel", if you will, of vi, while adding the multiple buffer and multiple window features of emacs and other editors. It is definitely not a vi clone, in that some substantial stuff is missing, and the screen doesn't look quite the same. The things that you tend to type over and over probably work. Things done less frequently, like configuring a startup file, are somewhat (or very, depending on how ambitious you are) different. But what matters most is that one's "muscle memory" does the right thing to the text in front of you, and that is what vile tries to do for vi users.
A lot of people, of course, as is true of almost all large programs. (No counter examples come to mind for programs larger than vile).
Vile was started by Paul Fox from an early (public domain) version of MicroEmacs. That is a little odd for two reasons:
So Paul did a lot of work making vile.
I started working on vile late in 1992. Though I had been using vi for almost ten years, it was with little documentation (I long ago lost a grubby photocopy of vi's commands), and had only recently gotten involved in projects where I would edit large numbers of files. Two buffers weren't enough, and (because I was collecting tools for development) I noticed some discussion of implementations of vi that could handle multiple windows. Vile looked good, but there were a few problems with left/right scrolling (individual lines would shift, but the display did not necessarily shift as a whole). So I started fixing it.
Kevin Buettner came in early in 1994, changing the X Windows driver, and later implementing the Perl interface. Rick Sladkey arrived in 1995, working on win32 and djgpp.
We four are listed as authors of vile – but many more people have contributed code, fixes and feedback.
Vile is not huge—at this time (late 2011) the sources total about 174,000 lines—but is still large compared to some editors. A good deal of the bulk is from I/O drivers for different systems. Most of those drivers were written or modified heavily by other contributors.
While other programs may be suggested, the term arose in comp.editors during the mid-1990s to refer to four specific programs which reimplemented vi. Those are (in canonical order): elvis, nvi, vim and vile.
Besides basing their design upon vi (with extensions), the vi-clones also influenced each other, mainly through the comp.editors newsgroup in the early/mid-1990s.
Elvis was the pioneering vi clone, widely admired in the 1990s for its conciseness and many features. For that combination it is still unmatched among the vi clones. It was the first to provide color syntax highlighting (and to generalize syntax highlighting to multiple filetypes), first to provide highlighted selections via keyboard. Elvis's built-in nroff (early) and (later) html displays gave it unusual WYSIWYG features.
To my eyes, elvis had the conciseness of a program which solved a 15-tile puzzle which I saw demonstrated on a co-worker's MacIntosh in the mid-1980s. Very nice, and impressive.
Steve Kirkendall (elvis's author) would occasionally post to comp.editors, discussing plans and release notes. I started the VMS port of vile using Steve's earlier port of elvis as a reference for the system calls.
Nvi was developed by Keith Bostic, and extended by Sven Verdoolaege (a contributor to ncurses). Keith Bostic did not post to comp.editors, nor did Sven Verdoolaege.
Keith Bostic, who is the author of the POSXI vi description, declined to document the modeline feature since it is insecure.
Once (early in 1997) I was discussing ncurses problems with Keith on the telephone, and happened to digress, telling him that I admired nvi for its compatibility with the original vi. Keith responded with a comment that "vile always did windowing better than anyone else".
Aside from using it as a reference version of vi, for testing compatibility, vile does not directly use nvi.
As Kevin Buettner remarked some time ago, vim is a fine program, but there is a problem with the hype used to promote it. Bram Moolenaar is fairly easy to get along with; this is not true of his fans.
Though presented as the work of a single developer, it was apparent to others that there were many people working on vim during the mid-1990s.
Some of the vim developers (rarely Bram Moolenaar) posted to comp.editors. The only time that I recall Bram posting to comp.editors was to dispute a point with me regarding the compatibility of vim's implementation of the tags setting (a list of filenames).
Most of the discussion on comp.editors regarding vim was by vim's contributors or fans. Not much of that was productive, since its fans were largely ignorant of the features in original vi, and routinely credited vim for those features.
There are a few features where vile and vim have influenced each other. Beginning with 3.0 in 1994, vim's developers began making lists of features that other programs did, which vim should, with a note where the feature was copied from. As those were implemented, the note was removed; the changelog reflected only the addition.
For completeness, here are the items from vim's to-do lists referring to vile:
CTRL-X e: edit file name under the cursor (like ^] and *)
Show unprintable characters in hex.
Use scrollbar.
When horizontal scrolling, use '<' and '>' for lines continuing outside of window.
Allow file name "-" as command line argument: Read file from stdin. Open
/dev/tty for commands (use "more" "vi" or "vile" as an example how to
do this).
Show unprintable characters in hex. (or in octal)
When horizontal scrolling, use '<' and '>' for lines continuing outside of
window.
Support putting .swp files in /tmp: Command in rc.local to move .swp files
from /tmp to some directory before deleting files.
The last two items mentioned in 4.0 still appear in vim's to-do list as of release 7. The other two appeared in releases 5 and 6.
I found these items noteworthy:
Likewise, vile has borrowed occasionally from vim. For example, the way vile shows the "no" prefix for a disabled boolean mode in the settings display was prompted by seeing it in vim. However, vile's settings display is dynamic (updated when a mode is changed), while vim (like vi) is static (requires the user to re-enter the command to get a new display).
Occasionally someone asks for a feature like vim's (or unlike it). Those are noted in the change-log for vile, e.g., nine occurrences since 1999:
+ add linebreak mode, like vim (request by Paul Van Tilburg).
+ add (nvi/vim) ex-commands: a!, c!, i!
+ add ":c" as alias for ":change-til" (nvi/vim).
behavior, unlike vim (request by Igor Schein).
treated as comments if there was a /x modifier. vim does not check
with vim. Remove reference to nonexistent -m switch (which was
winvile. Patch is based on code I recently noticed in the vim
+ add vimmode, for vim syntax files
the former, nvi does the latter, and vim repeats the entire string.
That is us.
Vile should build properly on any Unix platform (or similar such as Linux, Cygwin and BeOS), using the auto-configure script to check for required system features. The configure script is normally Unix-specific (because it uses a variety of shell commands such as sed), but can be regenerated for some other environments such as OS/2 EMX.
Specialized build scripts and I/O drivers are also provided for non-Unix platforms: VMS, Win32 (console and GUI using Visual C++), DJGPP.
This is rather lengthy, and is discussed here.
Vile evolved from K&R source, to extended C, i.e., K&R code with ANSI prototypes (which is what many programs are written in). Early in 1996 we chose to convert vile to ANSI C to take advantage of the better type-checking available. So vile requires an ANSI C compiler.
Vile will build with a C++ compiler, though you may have difficulty with the configure script.
On Unix and Win32, vile can be built for character-cell and GUI terminal types. Most of the terminal-specific I/O calls are made through a generic interface, however you cannot reuse the object files from one type on configuration to build the other.
Some of the Unix configuration tests may yield different results, or be incomplete for one configuration versus another. We remove the config.cache file explicitly in the configure script to circumvent problems with this.
Vile is similar to vi in some ways, but it reads its own startup file to avoid surprise should you happen to execute vi. Vile's initialization scripts include many commands which would confuse vi.
On Unix, Vile looks for .vilerc,
starting in the current directory, then in the home directory,
and finally in the installed share-directory (shown in the
variable $startup-path).
On other systems (including those that cannot use multiple
dots in filenames such as VMS, or do so in a crippled fashion
such as Win32), vile looks for
vile.rc.
In either case, you can use the command
which-source to show which file is actually loaded.
Use a count before the command to show all files which would be
checked, and the corresponding matches, e.g.,
2
:which-source .vilerc
The most critical ones are documented in the online help
vile.hlp, which you can view by
:h
They include those specific to vile
VILEINIT
VILE_HELP_FILE
VILE_LIBDIR_PATH
VILE_STARTUP_FILE
VILE_STARTUP_PATH
XVILE_MENU (doc/menus.doc)
as well as variables borrowed from common Unix or Win32 convention:
$shell variable for
specifying subshells, including those used for syntax
filtering.$LOGNAME to identify you for
reporting errors, or for locking files.Vile makes use of color to make your file easier to read. It has modes to set the foreground, background and status line colors (fcolor, bcolor and mcolor respectively). Add this to your initialization file to get the predefined color schemes:
source palettes.rc
The most useful schemes are white,
black and default, which you can
specify by setting the cs mode, e.g.,
:set cs=white
It can also overlay colors and other visual highlighting on your file to show the syntax. The overlay is computed by an external program, referred to as a syntax filter.
The simplest way to turn on syntax highlighting is to add
source filters.rc
to your initialization file, e.g., .vilerc.
Typing ^X-q will paint colors according to the majormode
which applies to the given file. Typing ^X-Q will clear all of
the colors.
If you have a reasonably fast computer, adding
setv $read-hook HighlightFilter
will tell vile to paint colors each time it reads a file.
Well, you did all that, and there are no colors. If there is a majormode in effect for the buffer, vile attempts to run a syntax filter based on the name of the majormode. Check to see if vile is configured to display colors:
:show-colors
If that works, then the problem is with the syntax filter (perhaps vile cannot find it for some reason). If it does not work, then you have to set up colors (assuming your terminal can display color).
For character cell terminals on Unix, i.e., termcap or
terminfo, vile reads the color information
specified by your $TERM variable. See the ncurses FAQ for more
information. The X Window configuration, xvile reads the
color assignments from resources, and is documented in the online
help. The Win32 and other non-Unix ports do not require external
files to set up color.
If colors are working, perhaps vile simply did not find the syntax filter.
Syntax filters may be built-in, or run as separate programs.
The former are more portable, less trouble to run and somewhat
faster. The configure script (and the win32 makefile) provide a
means to specify that any combination of filters can be built-in
or external. Even if they are built-in, vile can still run
external filters—that choice is left to the macro which
performs the highlighting, e.g., HighlightFilter.
You can see which filters are built-in by looking at the result
of
:show-variables
for the $filter-list variable.
Vile looks for external syntax filters in
your path—after adding the library directory
$libdir-path to the end.
Use
2:
which-exec
to display the places where vile looks—an "*" will mark the ones it finds.
We changed the form and use of $HOME/.vile.keywords with version 8.3:
The old scheme had no provision for multiple syntax filters. The new scheme names keyword files according to the syntax filter which is used, and may load two files, e.g., $HOME/.c.keywords and $HOME/.vile.keywords for C.
To see which files are found, run the corresponding filter with the -v option. For example, vile-html-filt -vv on this file produces output beginning
ReadKeywords(vile)
..skip ./.vile.keywords
Opened /home/tom/.vile.keywords
parsed name "" attr "<null>"
parsed name "" attr "<null>"
parsed name "Action" attr "BC1" - class
parsed name "Comment" attr "C1" - class
parsed name "Error" attr "RC1"
parsed name "" attr "<null>"
parsed name "Ident2" attr "C6" - class
parsed name "Keyword" attr "BC3" - class
parsed name "Keyword2" attr "BC1" - class
parsed name "Literal" attr "C5" - class
parsed name "Number" attr "BC6" - class
parsed name "Preproc" attr "C2" - class
parsed name "Type" attr "BC2" - class
ReadKeywords(html)
..skip ./.html.keywords
..skip /home/tom/.html.keywords
..skip /home/tom/.vile/html.keywords
Opened /usr/local/share/vile/html.keywords
The trace notes "..skip" for files that are not found. On Unix, files in the current or home directory are prefixed with "." to hide them. The ".vile.keywords" file is read first, to provide default values for classes.
You can also use the which-keywords macro. For
example,
:which-keywords vile
makes a window showing:
Show which keyword-files are tested for:
vilemode
(* marks found-files)
$cwd
./.vile.keywords
$HOME
* ~/.vile.keywords
~/.vile/vile.keywords
$startup-path
* /usr/local/share/vile/vile.keywords
The syntax filters distributed with vile do not color every
word, but the colors should be consistent, corresponding to the
syntax. (Coloring every word detracts from readability; by design
most of the text is left with the global foreground color
fcolor).
But the coloring may be incomplete or inconsistent, and it may not be due to a coding error in the syntax filter. This may happen when the colors overlaid on your buffer from the syntax filter are not aligned properly. Vile runs the given filter, reads the resulting output and extracts markup from it to paint on your file. If another program produces output, it will confuse vile, since the output is not necessarily aligned with your file.
For example, if your $shell is
/bin/csh, and your .cshrc file contains an
stty command, that program will write an error message
when it is run in a pipe. I work around this by setting
$shell to /bin/sh (my .profile
is empty), which bypasses messages and is faster:
setv $shell=/bin/sh
A better solution bypasses the shell entirely. Build vile
using the --with-builtin-filters option. That
compiles-in the syntax filters, which also runs much faster. The
only drawback to that approach is the size of the executable.
Your system may also support
--with-loadable-filters, which allows you to keep a
relatively small vile executable, with some speed advantage over
the original external filters.
Well, take this in stages:
fcolor and bcolor has an effect? If
not, then you have to setup color for vile.cmode for "c"
majormode. The corresponding filter is named
vile-c-filt, and must be installed in a place where
vile can find it.
^X!vile-c-filt -vv %
to run the "c" filter into [Output] on the
current buffer, in verbose mode. (That's a control/X). The
output should show the markup definitions loaded, as well as
the marked up file (places with ^A).
$shell is resetting $PATH. I work around this
by setting $shell to /bin/sh (my
.profile is empty), which is faster.We recommend building the syntax filters with flex
(e.g., version 2.5.4a). You can build workable filters
with recent versions of lex, but older ones usually lack the
%state support needed for most of the filters.
Some older implementations of lex also assume a different order for the chunks of C code in the lex specification; however these do not appear to work well even when the chunks are moved to make the filter compile.
Chunk-ordering is not solely a problem with antique versions of flex. There is a so-called "new" flex available which introduces similar bugs. While the code can (has been as of 9.4) reordered, the maintainers of this new version do not respond to bug reports (it appears to be a defunct project). Stick with flex 2.5.4a, which works.
In particular, there are two areas where "new" flex is broken:
-P option, which vile uses to construct
built-in syntax filters is broken in every version of "new"
flex, though the exact cause varies from one version to the
next.As an alternative to "old" flex, you may wish to install
reflex and
(setting the $LEX environment variable to "reflex")
build vile using that.
Vile accepts most—not all—commands that vi implements. The few that are not implemented are generally because their syntax is not compatible with vile's command-parsing or name-completion. (For the ones that are compatible—someday).
Vile's extensions over vi are documented in the help file. Detailed descriptions for writing macros, etc., are in the doc directory which is part of the source distribution. But the essential information is in the help file. Just type
:h
The help file is static, and requires you to search it. Far nicer are the features for listing commands, e.g.,
:describe-bindings
That looks like a lot to type. But it is not. With name-completion, one may press tab to fill in the unambiguous parts and see what choices there are.
:des<tab>
:describe-<tab>
:describe-b<tab>indings
:describe-bindings
Submit bug reports via the project mailing list, or via the web-based bug reporting system. Both of these are available here:
https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/vile
Subscribing to the mailing list is also the best way to keep informed of new releases.
Certainly.
Vile does not store or retrieve dates in any form that depends on the year. Vile's use of time information is limited to
Vile is copyrighted by Paul G. Fox, Thomas E. Dickey and Kevin Buettner with some files (e.g., visvile) copyright by Clark Morgan. We distribute it under the terms of the GNU Public License, Version 2.