Since 13.37 I notice that vi needs the 'home' key to switch from input to command mode.
I think this is only when I connect via Putty to the machine. When I am on local console it is still ESCape like it used to be.

Does anyone know how to set it so that vi will switch from input to command mode using the ESCAPE key when using Putty?

Another vi question :
When you edit htm files, vi goes automagically into some sort of html display mode. Ofcourse I never want that since all I do is edit the html in vi. So I need to go to command mode and type :normal everytime I want to edit html files. Where can you configure that vi (or vim) default to normal mode allways?

Thanks for any help!

<I see that vi links to elvis : >
# ls -al /usr/bin/vi lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 5 Oct 3 2009 /usr/bin/vi -> elvis*

Hello riwi,

your first issue has nothing to do with the editor but with the configuration of putty or the terminal respectively.

To your second question: the standard-editor on Slackware is not vim but elvis. elvis is executed (by default) if you use the vi command. elvis can display html and I think this is what you mean. There should be a file ~/.elvisrc in your homedirectory, in this file insert a line with the command you described I hope this works for you.

Markus

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Hi Markush,

Thanks for responding.

I tried your suggestion. I added .elvisrc under /root with the command in it. It does not seem to read it or the result gets overwritten later.
I googled more and found that elvis.arf is used to guess what display mode the user wants.
Since there is no way anyone can guess what I want I renamed the elvis.arf file.
Now html mode does not kick in.
Maybe I'll try to modify it later so I will not get html mode but will get syntax mode for when I edit bash or perl scripts. Syntax highlighting could be handy.

root@riwilinux:/usr/share/elvis-2.2_0# mv elvis.arf elvis.old.arf

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If you want syntax hilighting why not use vim?

I'll give it a go. Looks a lot more colorful (rainbow like) when opening a htm file
:wq

Ok, I found a package ex-vi-050325-i486-1sl.txz
That gives me plain standard vi the way I like it.

Also the annoying <home> instead of ESCape is fixed when I use standard vi

For people who do want elvis :
to get syntax mode for html files :

create ~/.exrc
and put the line :
set prefersyntax=writable

logout / login before this is effective.

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Just a tip for future reference...
When you open an html file in elvis you can toggle between modes with
^wd
(Hold CTRL then type wd)

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