Learning the vi Editor, Sixth Edition

12.5. Multiwindow Editing

vile is somewhat different from the other clones. It started life as a version of Micro-Emacs, and then was modified into an editor with the "finger-feel" of vi.

One of the things that versions of emacs have always done is handle multiple windows and multiple files; as such, vile was the first vi-like program to provide multiple windows and editing buffers.

As in elvis and vim, the :split command^[3] will create a new window, and then you can use the ex command :e filename to edit a new file in the new window. After that, things become different, in particular the vi command mode keys to switch among windows are very different.

^[3] That this works is an artifact of the fact that vile allows you to abbreviate commands. The actual command name is split-current-window.

<preface id="VI6-CH-0">
<title>Preface </title>

<para>
Text editing is one of the most common uses of any computer system, and
<command>vi</command> is one of the most useful standard text editors>
With <command>vi</command> you can create new files, or edit any exist>
file.
</para>

					
					 ch00.sgm                                                         top
# Makefile for vi book
# Arnold Robbins

CHAPTERS = ch00_6.sgm ch00_5.sgm ch00.sgm ch01.sgm ch02.sgm ch03.sgm \
	ch04.sgm ch05.sgm ch06.sgm ch07.sgm ch08.sgm
APPENDICES = appa.sgm appb.sgm appc.sgm appd.sgm

POSTSCRIPT = ch00_6.ps ch00_5.ps ch00.ps ch01.ps ch02.ps ch03.ps \
	ch04.ps ch05.ps ch06.ps ch07.ps ch08.ps \

					
					=== Makefile =[modified]========================================= top ==

The split ...