https://invisible-island.net/vile/
vile, xvile, uxvile, lxvile - VI Like Emacs
vile [@cmdfile] [+command] [-FhIiRVv] [-gNNN] [-kcryptkey] [-spattern]
[-ttag] [filename]...
vile is a text editor. This man page is fairly terse. More
information can be obtained from the internal help, available with the
-h option or by using the ":help" command from within vile.
xvile is the same text editor, built as an X-windows application, with
fully integrated mouse support, scrollbars, etc.
uxvile is a wrapper around xvile which invokes the latter program with
the correct locale environment required to use a unicode character set
and the "UXVile" X resource class set.
lxvile is a wrapper around xvile which invokes the latter program with
a font chosen to match the current locale environment.
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.
Vile accumulates most options into two temporary buffers [vileinit] and
[vileopts]. The former is executed before reading the first file into
a buffer. The latter is executed after reading the first file into a
buffer. Each is removed after executing (unless an error is detected).
-ccommand
vile will begin the session on the first file invoking the given
command. Legal commands include many ex-style commands, vile-
commands, etc., subject to shell quoting. This option is used
most often with a line number or search pattern. For example
vile -c123 filename
vile -c/pattern filename
They correspond to ex-style commands on the given file:
:123
:/pattern
These are more verbose equivalents:
vile -c'123 goto-line' filename
vile -c'search-forward /pattern/' filename
You can use more than one command, e.g.,
vile -c'123' -c'10*goto-col' filename
to put the cursor on column 10 of line 123. The "*"(or ":"
separates the repeat count (used by goto-col) from the line- or
range-specification used by line-oriented commands.
@cmdfile
vile will run the specified file as its startup file, and will
bypass any normal startup file (i.e. .vilerc) or environment
variable (i.e. $VILEINIT). This is added to [vileinit].
-D tells vile to trace the results of macro execution into the
hidden buffer "[Trace]".
-e | -E
Invokes vile in "noview" mode - changes are permitted to any
buffer while in this mode (see "-v".
-F will run the syntax filter that applies to each filename on the
command-line, and write the attributed text to the standard
output.
-h Invokes vile on the helpfile. See "-?" for a short usage
message.
-i | -I
Tells vile to use vileinit.rc (which is installed) as the
initialization file. If you do not have a .vilerc, vile will
make a short one that sources vileinit.rc This is added to
[vileinit].
-k cryptkey | -K cryptkey
Specifies an encryption/decryption key. See below for further
discussion. This option applies only locally to the buffers
named on the command-line, and is not added to [vileopts], since
that is executed too late.
-R Invokes vile in "readonly" mode - no writes are permitted while
in this mode. (This will also be true if vile is invoked as
view, or if "readonly" mode is set in the startup file.)
-s pattern | -S pattern
In the first file, vile will execute an initial search for the
given pattern. This is not the same as "-c/pattern" since that
positions the cursor to the line matching the pattern. This
option positions the cursor within the line.
-t tag
vile will edit the correct file and move the cursor to the
location of the tag. This requires a tagsfile created with the
ctags(1) command. The option -T is equivalent, and can be used
when X11 option parsing eats the -t.
-U overrides the $system-crlf variable, making new buffers start in
dos mode.
-u overrides the $system-crlf variable, making new buffers start in
nodos mode.
-v Invokes vile in "view" mode - no changes are permitted to any
buffer while in this mode (see "-e".
-V vile will report its version number.
-? If an option is not recognized (or the special option "?" is
given), vile prints a short usage message. Normally that is
sent to the standard output. The GUI winvile displays this
information in a window.
Screensize can be set from the command line for certain configurations:
-25 -43 -50 -60
On PC systems you may be able to set the initial screen
resolution from the command line.
-80 -132
On VMS systems you may be able to set the initial screen
resolution from the command line. See vile.hlp for details.
xvile-specific command-line options are detailed in the help file (see
"Standard X command line arguments". The standard ones (e.g.,
-display, -fn, -geometry, -name, etc.) are all supported.
vile recognizes some options which duplicate the functionality of the
POSIX "-c" option:
+command
This has the same effect as "-ccommand"
-g NNN | -G NNN
This has the same effect as "-cNNN" vile will begin the session
on the first file jumping to the given line number NNN.
vile will edit the files specified on the command line. If no files
are specified, and standard input is not connected to a terminal, then
vile will bring up a buffer containing the output of the pipe it is
connected to, and will re-open /dev/tty for commands. Files (except
for the first) are not actually read into buffers until "visited" All
buffers are kept in memory: machines with not much memory or swap space
may have trouble with this.
If the @cmdfile option is given, then the file given as "cmdfile" will
be run before any files are loaded. If no @ option appears, startup
commands will be taken from the user's VILEINIT variable, if it is set,
from the file .vilerc in the current directory, if it exists, or from
$HOME/.vilerc, as a last resort. See the help file for examples of
what sorts of things might go into these command files.
Please refer to the help available within vile for vile-specific
commands. (That document, however, assumes familiarity with vi.)
Short descriptions of each vile command may be obtained with the
":describe-function" and ":describe-key" commands. All commands may be
listed with ":show-commands"
Additional documentation on writing macros using the internal scripting
language can be found in the file macros.doc, distributed with the vile
source.
vile may also be built and installed as xvile, in which case it behaves
as a native X Windows application, with scrollbars, better mouse
support, etc.
The help file has more information on this in the section X Window
System specifics.
There is a program distributed with the vile source which is usually
installed as vile-manfilt. It may be used in conjunction with vile or
xvile (with the help of the macros in the file manpage.rc) to filter
and view system manual pages. xvile will even (with your font set
properly) display certain portions of the manual page text in bold or
italics as appropriate.
See the help file section on Filtering "man" pages for details.
Likewise, there are several language filters, e.g., vile-c-filt for C,
which can embolden, underline, or perform coloring on program source
code.
Again, see the help file section on Syntax Coloring for more
information.
Vile is not simply an interactive program. Its macro language and use
of environment variables lets it be useful in scripting.
The syntax filters and vile-manfilt may not be installed where you
would execute them in your PATH. The vile-libdir-path script looks in
the usual places and prints an updated PATH variable which other
scripts can use when executing these programs.
Vile can be used as a pager (typical examples include more and less).
This script uses vile-manfilt to preprocess a file which is piped to
vile, adding markup which vile displays properly.
Unlike a typical pager, vile-pager handles multi-line color escape
sequences, and multiple levels of overstrikes. But unlike a typical
pager, vile-pager expects the pipe to be closed before it starts
displaying.
Vile's "-F" option makes it act like a smart interface to the
collection of syntax filters. But its output uses vile's internal
markup rather than standard escape sequences. Vile's utilities include
programs which translate that markup into different formats:
atr2ansi
converts the markup to ANSI escape sequences.
atr2html
converts the markup to HTML (with color).
atr2text
converts the markup to plain text.
The vile-to-html script uses atr2html to convert a text file into HTML
using color.
The program vile-crypt can be used to encrypt/decrypt files using the
same algorithm as microEmac's internal crypt algorithm. This program,
which uses public domain code written by Dana Hoggatt, is no longer
used in vile, though it is provided for compatibility.
vile currently uses the crypt(3) function for encryption/decryption,
which is available on most Unix systems. This ensures that vile is
able to read and write files compatibly with vi (but not vim, which
uses an different algorithm derived from info-zip). The editor's
encryption/decryption key can be specified on the command line with "-k
key" Text to be encrypted can be specified as filenames on the command
line, or provided as the standard input.
On systems with a getpass() library routine, the user will be prompted
for the encryption key if it is not given on the command line. To
accommodate systems (such as linux) where the getpass() library routine
is not interruptible from the keyboard, entering a crypt-key password
which ends in ^C will cause the program to quit.
See the help file for more information on vile's encryption support,
including a discussion of a collection of macros that interface with
GNU's gpg package.
VILEINIT
Editor initialization commands in lieu of a startup file. These
are copied into [vileinit], and executed.
VILE_HELP_FILE
Override the name of the help file, normally "vile.hlp".
VILE_LIBDIR_PATH
Augment $PATH when searching for a filter program.
VILE_STARTUP_FILE
Override the name of the startup file, normally ".vilerc" (or
"vile.rc" for non-UNIX systems).
VILE_STARTUP_PATH
Override the search path for the startup and help files.
Your favorite vi document, the file macros.doc, and the vile help page,
available with the -h option or as the text file vile.hlp.
vile was originally built from a copy of microEmacs, so a large debt of
gratitude is due to the developers of that program. A lot of people
have helped with code and bug reports on vile. Names are named at the
bottom of the help file.
vile was created by Paul Fox, Tom Dickey, and Kevin Buettner.
The "VI Like Emacs" joke isn't really funny. It only sounds that way.
:-) Other suspicious behavior should be reported 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
VILE(1)