reviewed: Wed Oct  7 00:28:20 PDT 1998

Q. What is vile?

A.  For those that haven't heard of vile (and for those that would rather
forget :-), the name is a bad joke of an acronym: "VI Like Emacs", which
most people on both sides of the fence agree is a pretty vile concept.

vile is extremely compatible with vi in terms of "finger feel".  in
addition, it has extended capabilities in many areas, notably:
	multi-file editing and viewing
	key rebinding (in addition to :map, :map!, and :abbr)
	mouse support (in an xterm, or built as xvile, or built for win32)
	infinite undo
	many additional operator commands
	selection highlighting
	rectangular operations
	"next error" cursor positioning after compilation
	full function- and arrow-key support
	filename, command, internal mode, variable, and tags completion
	command, search string, filename history
	auxiliary utilities for man page and C program syntax highlighting
	built-in macro language
	portability to all UNIX platforms, VMS, DOS, OS/2, and win32.
	16-color support (xvile and win32)
	optional embedded perl interpreter support (Unix and win32)
	optional OLE automation support (win32)

xvile is the X11 version of vile.  in addition to the capabilities
listed above for the character-oriented version of vile, xvile offers
scrollbars and more complete mouse integration.

there is a pre-built DOS executable available, which requires a 386 or
better.  it is in vile-dos.zip.  be warned that due to the behavior of the
Watcom extender, startup time is a tad slow.  but it will edit very big
files.

vile and xvile will both run under VMS -- both VAX and alpha versions.

vile runs under OS/2 as a console application and on win32 hosts as either
a console app or GUI.  pre-built executables for both environments are
available in the archives vile-os2.zip and vile-w32.zip.

be warned that i _don't_ claim that vile is a _clone_.  it is _not_,
though it _is_ "extremely compatible".  the differences will especially
show up when attempting to move :map's from real vi (or vim/nvi) to
vile.  you'll probably have to tweak anything complex to get it to
work the same.  that level of compatibility isn't a design center of mine.

in any case, enjoy.  or don't.  let me know if you like it.  we (tom dickey
and kevin buettner, my co-authors, and me) like getting fan mail.  there's
not much other compensation for producing free software...

---------------------------------
paul fox, pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us (arlington, ma)
"And where were you at 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970?"