Mike  <mikee@mikee.ath.cx> wrote:
+---------------
| Tamas K Papp <tkpapp@gmail.com> wrote:
| > Are you using SLIME, or some other IDE?
| 
| I'm a vi user for decades. I used emacs for a while. Emacs is not
| conducive to my style of system administration. Vi is on every unix
| machine (mac and I can get it on windows too).
+---------------

Here are a few small tips on using Vi (or Vim) when editing Lisp:

- Set the following options:

    :se ai icl sm mat=2 sw=1

  or without the abbreviations:

    :set autoindent iclower showmatch matchtime=2 shiftwidth=1

  That is, set:

    - Autoindent [use ^D or 0^D to cancel some/all of the indenting].

    - Ignore case in searches but only if the search string
      is all lower case.

    - Show ("flash") the open matching paren/bracket/brace
      when the closing matching paren/bracket/brace is inserted.

    - Set the "flash" time for paren matching to 200 ms (or whatever
      time is comfortable for you -- editing across slower speed
      network connections may need larger values).

    - Set the amount to shift text left/right to one space. [You can
      use the "." command to quickly repeat the same shift to get larger
      shift amounts.]

- With that done, then you can use the "%" command to bounce back
  and force between matching parens; you can place the cursor on
  [or on front of] a paren and use ">%" to shift a whole sexp right,
  or "<%" to shift it left, or ">%..." to shift a sexp right 4 spaces,
  etc.

- "d%" will, of course, delete a whole sexp; "y%" will "yank" (copy) one;
  "p" will paste it after the current point [and "P" will paste before].
  All of these can be used with prefix Q-register names (e,g, "a etc.)

- Experiment with ":set lisp" and see if it does anything useful
  for you. [It might will not, since it was never well-supported.]

- Vim has more Lisp-friendly options than Vi; it might be worth looking
  into. [I don't use Vim much, "nvi-1.79" is my standard editor, so I
  can't offer much more help there.]

- Create yourself a "map" entry in your "~/.exrc" for some function
  key [I use "shift-<F12>" myself] to type ":r!cat^V^M" for you.
  That will let you paste hunks of Lisp from somewhere else into
  your editing sessions without the autoindenting (turned on above)
  messing up the indenting. [And if you have the "xselection" or
  "xclip" programs, you can make a "map" entry I use <F12>] that
  pastes the current X selection directly, without having to hit
  middle-mouse then EOF, as needed with ":r!cat".]

Not much, I know, but should help some...


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock			<rpw3@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue			<URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403		(650)572-2607