BBEdit instead of vi

I find myself rearranging java methods in a class for organization purposes, and double clicking to select within braces (PB) or quad clicking to grab a "paragraph" and then just dragging the text to its destination, moving it in the same file, or copying into another open file ... it's pretty sweet.

I'm not going to deny that the command line has power, but don't you old weenies try and deny the power of the GUI either. And finally, GUI programs, and pico, and any other program with a menu, is intended for ease of use, and passive recall of commands that you don't use that often. If cars were as hard to use as command line progs, there wouldn't be any highways. vi has power, vi is pain. Gui's have different power.

And quite frankly, the best thing about emacs in the Mac OS X terminal is that I can copy copy from the terminal using the mouse and Apple-c, and then paste at the cursor. Woohooo, suddenly Emacs inherits a system standard command! I usually do emacs when editing remotely, but any GUI when local, and BBEdit is pretty sweet.
 
Maybe that was a little harsh. But hell guys this is a UNIX forum.

You guys that insist of shouting out about the virtues of BBEDIT shouldn't be in the terminal cause I don't really believe you know jack about UNIX.

Which is fine.... nothing wrong with that at all.... but don't come in to a UNIX thread and start crapping on about what you don't understand.

If you don't want to wade through the mirky depths of UNIX don't. If you do and you want to be serious learn a Command Line editor. like vi. Once you have learn't vi enough to be a v i jedi you will no longer harp on about other editors.

May the force be with you in all its unixy goodness

:wq!
 
admittedly vi is everywhere in the unix world, but I don't think that vi IS unix, or that the command line IS unix. This is a UNIX thread, and not a GUI's suck thread. I am a big fan of ugo security, pre-emptive multi-tasking, protected memory, an abstracted micro kernel good at IPC, I like standards compliance, I feel the power of putting a machine in a closet with an IP and flying back home with confidence that I can fix anything I need to remotely. I'm all about UNIX, but I've got to tell you, I'm bad at active recall. I'm a random abstract kind of guy, and whether I'm supposed to type in a capital or small -R to recursively copy a directory I think is some inanity we can all do without.

I'm not gonna shun you for using vi, I've seen it do things that I can't in any reasonable amount of time. However, for what I do, I never need the ability to capitalize the first three letters in every line. So I think we all have valid points here, and I'm not going away ... and I'll take BBEdit over vi any day of the week.

Mostly I think it's different strokes for different folks. I don't think BBEdit is better, I think BBEdit is better for me. And in the end I think that's what this question was all about anyway. From this discussion, I've found largely what I expected, that Mac OS X users are a breed of UNIX users with a non traditional appreciation for graphical navigation and feedback. If I were going to go on a mission to mars to save the world, I'd take MrJohns with me, because the two of us have very different problem solving abilities, and together would be able to handle any problem with great efficiency. I just hope we wouldn't kill each other on the way there.
 
Very well answered Theed. I find myself agreeing with you.

I am a UNIX programmer by trade and I value anything that can save me time. That is why i choose vi(m). (and in the UNIX world you have no choice)

I reacted badly to people in a UNIX forum slagging off the best editor (for UNIX professionals) there is because they don't know how to use it.

Theed I'll go to Mars with you anyday ;)
 
It's been said before, everyone should (and of course will) always use what fits his/her needs.

In my opinion, YES, Mac OS X is a UNIX, and that's why this forum has been created on this board, but also, YES, this forum should mainly discuss the apps and tricks and tips that do not sport a Mac OS X GUI.

The start of the thread was that BBEdit can very well be used as a replacement for your favourite console text editor, whatever that may be.

And I think it's not too bad an alternative, as BBEdit has a long history of being a great text editor with many of the features that the biggies have (vi(m), Emacs) put into a nice graphical user interface.

I myself work on config files mostly in pico, because I never found the need to learn vim or Emacs, and I use BBEdit if I need the overview I don't really get in console text editors. (This is a personal preference I stated, not an opinion that YOU should do the same.)

But since BBEdit has a console command 'bbedit /path/to/file' I use it much more often. And yes you can simply unlock a file owned by root after you've opened it. That of course only applies to files you're able to read but not to write, so if files are strictly only readable by root I still depend on console editors.
 
... you can set many command line tools to have Vi or Emacs key-mappings (e.g. BASH, Python ...) So once you've learned all the niggly shortcuts in, say, Vi(m) you can benefit from that knowledge in many other applications.

PLUS, there are loads of IDE's that have Vi/Emacs plug-ins for them (e.g. JBuilder, NetBeans ...).

Just thought that the ppl that haven't looked at Vi/Emacs all that seriously might be interested to know this ;-)))

C
 
pico forever!
emacs, vi, vim, ed, and joe NEVER!

oh, and ee isn't too bad.. but it is non-intuitive.
 
pico is part of the pine distribution, it is very literally the display used by pine. I think that was already said, but screw that person, I'll say it again. yes. Pico is pine.
 
thought as much ;-) I dimmly remember being very confused the first time I was confronted with Pine on the Unix machines at Uni ;-))) Mind you, not half as confused as the first time I encountered Vi! ;-))))

C
 
Nano is a nice replacement for Pico if you don't need the pine stuff. I've got nano on my Performa running debian linux - works great. Its basically the same as pico, only supposedly improved and with added features.

http://nano.sourceforge.net/ I think :)
 
had to throw in my 2 cents..

vi(m) has a major learning curve.. and at first its a pain in the ass.. however, those of you that do a great deal of text editing should really consider learning. the main advantage is speed. as illustrated in a previous post in this thread ... you can do some serious stuff with unbelievable speed.

also.. i'm anal about line breaks and whitespace.. and i love how vi is equally picky in that sense.

so don't be intimidated --- there's major power hidden behind the learning curve.

eschaton
 
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