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Elvis 1.4 OPTIONS Page 5-1
E5. OPTIONSF
Options may be set or examined via the colon command "set". The
values of options will affect the operation of later commands.
For convenience, options have both a long descriptive name and a
short name which is easy to type. You may use either name
interchangably. I like the short names, myself.
-1long name short type default meaning -0
autoindent ai Bool noai auto-indent during input
autoprint ap Bool ap in EX, print the current line
autowrite aw Bool noaw auto-write when switching files
charattr ca Bool noca interpret \fX sequences?
cc cc Str cc="cc -c" name of the C compiler
columns co Num co=80 width of the screen
digraph dig Bool nodig recognize digraphs?
directory dir Str dir="/usr/tmp" where tmp files are kept
edcompatible ed Bool noed remember ":s//" options
errorbells eb Bool eb ring bell on error
exrefresh er Bool er write lines indiviually in EX
flipcase fc Str fc="" non-ASCII chars flipped by ~
hideformat hf Bool hf hide text formatter commands
ignorecase ic Bool noic upper/lowercase match in search
inputmode im Bool noim start vi in insert mode?
keytime kt Num kt=2 timeout for mapped key entry
keywordprg kp Str kp="ref" full pathname of shift-K prog
lines ln Num ln=25 number of lines on the screen
list li Bool noli display lines in "list" mode
magic ma Bool ma use regular expression in search
make mk Str mk="make" name of the "make" program
modeline ml Bool noml are modelines processed?
paragraphs pa Str pa="PPppIPLPQP" names of "paragraph" nroff cmd
readonly ro Bool noro prevent overwriting of orig file
report re Num re=5 report when 5 or more changes
scroll sc Num sc=12 scroll amount for ^U and ^D
sections se Str se="NHSHSSSEse" names of "section" nroff cmd
shell sh Str sh="/bin/sh" full pathname of the shell
showmatch sm Bool nosm show matching ()[]{}
showmode smd Bool nosmd say when we're in input mode
shiftwidth sw Num sw=8 shift amount for < and >
sidescroll ss Num ss=8 amount of sideways scrolling
sync sy Bool nosy call sync() often
tabstop ts Num ts=8 width of tab characters
term te Str te="$TERM" name of the termcap entry
vbell vb Bool vb use visible alternative to bell
warn wa Bool wa warn for ! if file modified
wrapmargin wm Num wm=0 wrap long lines in input mode
wrapscan ws Bool ws at EOF, searches wrap to line 1
There are three types of options: Bool, string, and numeric.
Boolean options are made TRUE by giving the name of the option as
an argument to the "set" command; they are made FALSE by prefixing
the name with "no". For example, "set autoindent" makes the
autoindent option TRUE, and "set noautoindent" makes it FALSE.
Elvis 1.4 OPTIONS Page 5-2
To change the value of a string or numeric option, pass the
"set" command the name of the option, followed by an "=" sign and
the option's new value. For example, "set tabstop=8" will give the
tabstop option a value of 8. For string options, you may enclose
the new value in quotes.
E5.1 AutoIndentF
During input mode, the autoindent option will cause each added
line to begin with the same amount of leading whitespace as the
line above it. Without autoindent, added lines are initially
empty.
E5.2 AutoPrintF
This option only affects EX mode. If the autoprint option on,
and either the cursor has moved to a different line or the previous
command modified the file, then Elvis will print the current line.
E5.3 AutoWriteF
When you're editing one file and decide to switch to another -
via the :tag command, or :next command, perhaps - if your current
file has been modified, then Elvis will normally print an error
message and refuse to switch.
However, if the autowrite option is on, then Elvis will write
the modified version of the current file and successfully switch to
the new file.
E5.4 CCF
The :cc command runs the C compiler. This option should be set
to the name of your compiler.
E5.5 CharAttrF
Many text formatting programs allow you to designate portions of
your text to be underlined, italicized, or boldface by embedding
the special strings \fU, \fI, and \fB in your text. The special
string \fR marks the end of underlined or boldface text.
Elvis normally treats those special strings just like any other
text.
However, if the charattr option is on, then Elvis will interpret
those special strings correctly, to display underlined or boldface
text on the screen. (This only works, of course, if your terminal
can display underlined and boldface, and if the TERMCAP entry says
how to do it.)
Elvis 1.4 OPTIONS Page 5-3
E5.6 COlumnsF
This is a "read only" option. You can't change its value, but
you can have Elvis print it. It shows how wide your screen is.
E5.7 DIGraphF
This option is used to enable/disable recognition of digraphs.
The default value is nodigraph, which means that digraphs will not
be recognized.
E5.8 DIRectoryF
Elvis stores text in temporary files. This option allows you to
control which directory those temporary files will appear in. The
default is /usr/tmp.
This option can only be set in a .exrc file; after that, elvis
will have already started making temporary files in some other
directory, so it would be too late.
E5.9 EDcompatibleF
This option affects the behaviour of the
":s/regexp/text/options" command. It is normally off (:se noed)
which causes all of the substitution options to be off unless
explicitly given.
However, with edcompatible on (:se ed), the substitution command
remembers which options you used last time. Those same options
will continue to be used until you change them. In edcompatible
mode, when you explicitly give the name of a substitution option,
you will toggle the state of that option.
This all seems very strange to me, but its implementation was
almost free when I added the ":&" command to repeat the previous
substitution, so there it is.
E5.10 ErrorBellsF
Elvis normally rings a bell when you do something wrong. This
option lets you disable the bell.
E5.11 ExRefreshF
The EX mode of Elvis writes many lines to the screen. You can
make Elvis either write each line to the screen separately, or save
up many lines and write them all at once.
The exrefresh option is normally on, so each line is written to
the screen separately.
Elvis 1.4 OPTIONS Page 5-4
You may wish to turn the exrefresh option off (:se noer) if the
"write" system call is costly on your machine, or if you're using a
windowing environment. (Windowing environments scroll text a lot
faster when you write many lines at once.)
This option has no effect in visual command mode or input mode.
E5.12 FlipCaseF
The flipcase option allows you to control how the non-ASCII
characters are altered by the "~" command.
The string is divided into pairs of characters. When "~" is
applied to a non-ASCII character, Elvis looks up the character in
the flipcase string to see which pair it's in, and replaces it by
the other character of the pair.
E5.13 HideFormatF
Many text formatters require you to embed format commands in
your text, on lines that start with a "." character. Elvis
normally displays these lines like any other text, but if the
hideformat option is on, then format lines are displayed as blank
lines.
E5.14 IgnoreCaseF
Normally, when Elvis searches for text, it treats uppercase
letters as being different for lowercase letters.
When the ignorecase option is on, uppercase and lowercase are
treated as equal.
E5.15 InputModeF
This option allows you to have Elvis start up in insert mode.
You can still exit insert mode at any time by hitting the ESC key,
as usual. Usually, this option would be set in your ".exrc" file.
E5.16 KeyTimeF
The arrow keys of most terminals send a multi-character
sequence. It takes a measurable amount of time for these sequences
to be transmitted. The keytime option allows you to control the
maximum amount of time to allow for an arrow key (or other mapped
key) to be received in full.
The default keytime value is 2. Because of the way UNIX
timekeeping works, the actual amount of time allowed will vary
slightly, but it will always be between 1 and 2 seconds.
Elvis 1.4 OPTIONS Page 5-5
If you set keytime to 1, then the actual amount of time allowed
will be between 0 and 1 second. This will generally make the
keyboard's response be a little faster (mostly for the ESC key),
but on those occasions where the time allowed happens to be closer
to 0 than 1 second, Elvis may fail to allow enough time for an
arrow key's sequence to be received fully. Ugh.
As a special case, you can set keytime to 0 to disable this time
limit stuff altogether. The big problem here is: If your arrow
keys' sequences start with an ESC, then every time you hit your ESC
key Elvis will wait... and wait... to see if maybe that ESC was
part of an arrow key's sequence.
NOTE: this option is a generalization of the timeout option of
the real vi.
E5.17 KeywordPrgF
Elvis has a special keyword lookup feature. You move the cursor
onto a word, and hit shift-K, and Elvis uses another program to
look up the word and display information about it.
This option says which program gets run.
The default value of this option is "ref", which is a program
that looks up the definition of a function in C. It looks up the
function name in a file called "refs" which is created by ctags.
You can subtitute other programs, such as an English dictionary
program or the online manual. Elvis runs the program, using the
keyword as its only argument. The program should write information
to stdout. The program's exit status should be 0, unless you want
Elvis to print "<<< failed >>>".
E5.18 LiNesF
This "read only" option shows how many lines you screen has.
E5.19 LIstF
In nolist mode (the default), elvis displays text in a "normal"
manner -- with tabs expanded to an appropriate number of spaces,
etc.
However, sometimes it is useful to have tab characters displayed
differently. In list mode, tabs are displayed as "^I", and a "$"
is displayed at the end of each line.
Elvis 1.4 OPTIONS Page 5-6
E5.20 MAgicF
The search mechanism in Elvis can accept "regular expressions"
-- strings in which certain characters have special meaning.
The magic option is normally on, which causes these characters
to be treated specially.
If you turn the magic option off (:se noma), then all characters
except ^ and $ are treated literally. ^ and $ retain their special
meanings regardless of the setting of magic.
E5.21 MaKeF
The :make command runs your "make" program. This option defines
the name of your "make" program.
E5.22 ModeLineF
Elvis supports modelines. Modelines are lines near the
beginning or end of your text file which contain "ex:yowza:", where
"yowza" is any EX command. A typical "yowza" would be something
like "set ts=4 ca kp=spell".
Normally these lines are ignored, for security reasons, but if
you have "set modeline" in your .exrc file then "yowza" is
executed.
E5.23 PAragraphsF
The { and } commands move the cursor forward or backward in
increments of one paragraph. Paragraphs may be separated by blank
lines, or by a "dot" command of a text formatter. Different text
formatters use different "dot" commands. This option allows you to
configure Elvis to work with your text formatter.
It is assumed that your formatter uses commands that start with
a "." character at the front of a line, and then have a one- or
two-character command name.
The value of the paragraphs option is a string in which each
pair of characters is one possible form of your text formatter's
paragraph command.
E5.24 ReadOnlyF
Normally, Elvis will let you write back any file to which you
have write permission. If you don't have write permission, then
you can only write the changed version of the file to a -1different-0
file.
Elvis 1.4 OPTIONS Page 5-7
If you set the readonly option, then Elvis will pretend you
don't have write permission to -1any-0 file you edit. It is useful
when you really only mean to use Elvis to look at a file, not to
change it. This way you can't change it accidentally.
This option is normally off, unless you use the "view" alias of
Elvis. "View" is like "vi" except that the readonly option is on.
E5.25 REportF
Commands in Elvis may affect many lines. For commands that
affect a lot of lines, Elvis will output a message saying what was
done and how many lines were affected. This option allows you to
define what "a lot of lines" means. The default is 5, so any
command which affects 5 or more lines will cause a message to be
shown.
E5.26 SCrollF
The ^U and ^D keys normally scroll backward or forward by half a
screenful, but this is adjustable. The value of this option says
how many lines those keys should scroll by.
E5.27 SEctionsF
The [[ and ]] commands move the cursor backward or forward in
increments of 1 section. Sections may be delimited by a {
character in column 1 (which is useful for C source code) or by
means of a text formatter's "dot" commands.
This option allows you to configure Elvis to work with your text
formatter's "section" command, in exectly the same way that the
paragraphs option makes it work with the formatter's "paragraphs"
command.
E5.28 SHellF
When Elvis forks a shell (perhaps for the :! or :shell
commands) this is the program that is uses as a shell. This is
"/bin/sh" by default, unless you have set the SHELL (or COMSPEC,
for MS-DOS) environment variable, it which case the default value
is copied from the environment.
E5.29 ShiftWidthF
The < and > commands shift text left or right by some uniform
number of columns. The shiftwidth option defines that "uniform
number". The default is 8.
Elvis 1.4 OPTIONS Page 5-8
E5.30 ShowMatchF
With showmatch set, in input mode every time you hit one of )}],
Elvis will momentarily move the cursor to the matching ({[.
E5.31 ShowMoDeF
In visual mode, it is easy to forget whether you're in the
visual command mode or input/replace mode. Normally, the showmode
option is off, and you haven't a clue as to which mode you're in.
If you turn the showmode option on, though, a little message will
appear in the lower right-hand corner of your screen, telling you
which mode you're in.
E5.32 SideScrollF
For long lines, Elvis scrolls sideways. (This is different from
the real vi, which wraps a single long line onto several rows of
the screen.)
To minimize the number of scrolls needed, Elvis moves the screen
sideways by several characters at a time. The value of this option
says how many characters' widths to scroll at a time.
Generally, the faster your screen can be redrawn, the lower the
value you will want in this option.
E5.33 SYncF
If the system crashes during an edit session, then most of your
work can be recovered from the temporary file that elvis uses to
store changes. However, sometimes the OS will not copy changes to
the hard disk immediately, so recovery might not be possible. The
[no]sync option lets you control this.
In nosync mode (which is the default, for UNIX), elvis lets the
operating system control when data is written to the disk. This is
generally faster.
In sync mode (which is the default, for MS-DOS), elvis forces
all changes out to disk every time you make a change. This is
generally safer, but slower. It can also be a rather rude thing to
do on a multi-user system.
E5.34 TabStopF
Tab characters are normally 8 characters wide, but you can
change their widths by means of this option.
Elvis 1.4 OPTIONS Page 5-9
E5.35 TErmF
This "read only" option shows the name of the termcap entry that
Elvis is using for your terminal.
E5.36 VBellF
If your termcap entry describes a visible alternative to ringing
your terminal's bell, then this option will say whether the visible
version gets used or not. Normally it will be.
If your termcap does NOT include a visible bell capability, then
the vbell option will be off, and you can't turn it on.
E5.37 WArnF
If you have modified a file but not yet written it back to disk,
then Elvis will normally print a warning before executing a ":!cmd"
command. However, in nowarn mode, this warning is not given.
Elvis also normally prints a message after a successful search
that wrapped at EOF. The [no]warn option can also disable this
warning.
E5.38 WrapMarginF
Normally (with wrapmargin=0) Elvis will let you type in
extremely long lines, if you wish.
However, with warpmargin set to something other that 0
(wrapmargin=10 is nice), Elvis will automatically cause long lines
to be "wrapped" on a word break for lines longer than wrapmargin's
setting.
E5.39 WrapScanF
Normally, when you search for something, Elvis will find it no
matter where it is in the file. Elvis starts at the cursor
position, and searches forward. If Elvis hits EOF without finding
what you're looking for, then it wraps around to continue searching
from line 1.
If you turn off the wrapscan option (:se nows), then when Elvis
hits EOF during a search, it will stop and say so.
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