[rdb3]

I see you don't like it, but I swear by the vi editor. Yeah, it does take some getting used to. Since I cut my *NIX teeth on it, I'm still partial to it.

Have you checked SourceForge? You may find a text editor there more to your liking.

[Michael Goldsberry]

I use vi. It most certainly does not "suck."

.

[B Knotts]

I am on the other side of this debate. I use Xemacs. :-)

Emacs/Xemacs are a bit "different" for someone coming from a DOS background. But, it is more similar in a way as it is, unlike vi, "modeless." Xemacs is, as it's name implies, geared towards X11 use, but when invoked via 'xemacs -nw' will work in text mode just like regular emacs (which also defaults to X mode these days).

On the other hand, there is nano (widely available) or pico (part of the PINE project), which are pretty similar to your basic DOS text editor.

There are so many Unix/Linux editors out there, I'm sure you can find one that you will like.

[snowsislander]

I prefer emacs.

[hadit2here]

If you used or know WordStar, you should check to see if "joe" is on your machine... if not, install it. It uses most of the old WordStar ctrl-x commands, you can turn on (and off) the onscreen help, and it is pretty simple. Even if you aren't familiar with WordStar.

Most *nix servers should have pico/nano on them. They are pretty much the same program- a basic line editor. I use them for most all simple shell and text file editing. I know they are both available for download... at least nano is, cuz when I couldn't find pico on a new RH9 install, I dl'd nano and installed it (and renamed it to pico).

I wouldn't piss on vi if it was fully engulfed in flames. And every time I accidentally enter it, I wish it *was*. Haven't had the patience to even look at/learn emacs. I just use pico/nano for most everything on the server from the remote command line, and joe if I need something more sophisticated. If I'm on my own Linux systems (console)- not remotely- and I had to do some document production or editing, I'd use OpenOffice. But usually in KDE, I use Kwrite.

Just my $0.02

[Seamoth]

I wanted to get into VI. Really. Very much so. I threw myself into it, because, hey, that's what smart people use. That's what everyone uses. You're an idiot if you can't use VI.

When VI couldn't do a simple regular expression (but worked with grep) I took it to a "guru" and had him proofread it. He said the regular expression was fine... but that VI's regex engine sucked.

I trashed VI in favor of a Windows text editor (on a weird SSH/samba setup) that actually takes the regexps I like and has all the benefits of vi and more. I'm just sooooooo dumb, I guess.