hello -- I've just put vile 8.0 up for ftp at the usual place: ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/dickey/vile/vile-8.0.tgz and it should be mirrored soon at ftp://id.wing.net/pub/pgf/vile/vile-8.0.tgz ftp://ftp.phred.org./pub/vile/vile-8.0.tgz The PC binaries will appear soon, time permitting. (I've built the OS/2 and DOS binaries; other people have been building the WinNT binaries). For those that are new around here, don't be put off or excited by the '8' in "8.0". It just means it's the first release of 1998. Highlights since 7.0: + lots of bug fixes, of course + implement optional interface to Perl, which supports extensions to vile, e.g., a recursive grep with hypertext links in Perl. + implement winvile (Win32 port, with mouse, colors, font selection, resizable window) + rewrote the command-line processing to be a minibuffer, with both arrow-key and vi-style cursor movement and insertion. + implementation of majormodes, which supports grouping of buffer modes, together with qualifiers (e.g., cmode and c-suffixes). New commands include define-mode, define-submode, remove-mode, remove-submode, list-majormodes. + procedures now behave more like built-in functions--they may be bound to keystrokes and listed in the [Binding List] pop-up (for which an optional help string may be supplied). Other new features/improvements: + restructured configure script to use improved tests from other programs (e.g., ncurses, tin and xterm). + make search rule for startup file and :so consistent - and always using $VILE_STARTUP_PATH if the file is not found in the current or $HOME directory + modify quote() function to show the accumulated number for ^Vnnn. + add vile-pas-filt program + added "crypt-til" operator (bound to ^X-C) which will encrypt/decrypt an arbitrary region. + add vile-crypt program + add command show-printable to show exactly what vile does with the character classes. + add tagignorecase mode, which causes tag searches to be done ignoring case. + add mode 'tagword', which allows user to lookup the whole word rather than a substring. + implement tags-completion. + add %B substitution for error-buffer regular expressions to allow using [Standard Input] and other scratch buffers as error buffers. + modify format-til command to support comment-prefix mode and handle repeated prefix, so that, for example, vile can now format multiple levels of email replies. + remove limit on length of mapped strings. + add comment-prefix mode, which specifies a regular expression that controls the portion of a line which is prefixed when formatting. + add $ncolors variable to allow run-time modification of the meaning of colors (e.g., white). Improved support for several platforms: + integrated menu-support for xvile (both Motif and Athena) + add a "+fork" option to xvile to override forkOnStartup resource. + distinguish MS-DOS drives from UNC pathnames + implement 'flash' for WinNT console driver + modify termcap and IBM terminal drivers to support 16 colors. + implement color attributes for OS/2 and Win32. + implement mouse and flash in OS/2 VIO driver. + pipes for Win32 (both console and GUI) The bug-fixes include some longterm annoyances: + modify :-line line specification parsing so that statements such as :.,.+2,+3,-4;99p work as in vi. Both the repetition for commas and the character class for semicolon were missing. + modify :-line line specification parsing so that statements such as :1,w filename :.w filename work as in vi. Vi accepts an empty string (e.g., between the "," and "w") as ".", and does not require that both limits in a range be given. Previous behavior of vile would prompt, in the latter example, when the space after "w" is typed, for the number of lines. + corrected :-line parser bug which caused state hang, e.g, when typing :a1 vile would be expecting a command verb when the '1' is read, so it would only allow the user to abort the command. + modify end-character parameter of readpattern so that it is not necessary to escape a '?' when doing a reverse search. + correct logic of set_rect_columns() so that reversed rectangular selection (where DOT > MK) gives the right number of columns + modify 'working' mode so that xvile simply sets the watch cursor. + Fixed both OpenLook and Motif versions so that they don't delete the window when it is shrunk to a size less than 1 line. + change logic that determines whether to set dos mode for a file so that .vilerc (or vile.rc) and source'd files are treated specially. For those files, all lines must end with ^M's to set dos mode automatically when they are read. This will reduce the chances of trimming ^M's from map commands.