On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 08:08:38PM +0100, Marc André Tanner wrote: > On Tue, Mar 01, 2016 at 05:23:11PM +0000, Connor Lane Smith wrote: > > On 1 March 2016 at 17:12, Marc André Tanner <m...@brain-dump.org> wrote: > > > I think structural regexp will integrate nicely with multiple selections. > > > > > > Basically if you omit the command of a structural regexp the editor > > > would switch to visual mode and add a selection for every match. If you > > > are already in visual mode then the existing selections would be used > > > as ranges for an implicit leading loop construct (x/ in sam). > > > That is for an existing selection x/ and y/ could be used to split it. > > > Similarly the conditionals g/ and v/ would be used to keep / discard > > > selections. > > > > I agree (strongly!). My main complaint with sam is its inability to > > reflect the multiple selections implied by its command language. It > > would be fantastic if we could get that sorted, and vis may well be a > > good place to do it. > > I finally had some time to experiment with these ideas.
In the meantime lots of bugs have been fixed. I would like to encourage all sam/acme users who are also somewhat familiar with vi(m) to try out current master of vis and report back on their experience: https://github.com/martanne/vis http://repo.or.cz/w/vis.git Some differences compared to sam (see also the man page[1]): * Multiple "dots" (selections) can exist simultaneously. * Commands can be interactively refined, whenever sam would invoke the print command vis instead creates a selection matching the corresponding range. If no selection remains after a command execution, vis switches to normal mode. Otherwise it stays in visual mode. * Changes do not need to be in sequence, but only non-overlapping i.e. the following works as expected: :x/Emacs/ { d i/V/ a/i/ } * The s (substitute) command was dropped. Instead :x/pattern/c/replacement/ can be used for global search and replacement. The registers \1-\9 refer to sub expression matches. & contains the complete matched text, hence: :x/Vi/ c/>&</ has the same effect as: :x/Vi/ { i/>/ a/</ } Substitution of the first match (i.e. similar to s without the global flag) can be achieved using: :/pattern/ c/replacement/ Sam supports a count specifier: s2/pattern/replacement/ only replaces the second occurrence of pattern. This is currently not supported but can be mimicked using: :/pattern/ // c/replacement/ A more general variant of the count concept might be later integrated into the x, y and/or g, v commands. Comments and syntax suggestions welcome. * Besides \n for newlines, \t can be used to insert tabs. * Searches do not wrap around at the start (end) of the file. * Marks are valid addresses which can be referred to using 'm There are also some problems left which could be improved: * Case insensitive search is currently not supported. A global option would be no problem. Integration into the command language inorder to specify it on a per-pattern basis might be more tricky. For example the obvious syntax introducing pattern flags (e.g. `i` for case insensitive): :/pattern/i is already taken by the insert command: :/pattern/i/text/ which denotes insertion at the start of pattern, not a case insensitive search for pattern followed by a case sensitive search for text. Again, comments and syntax suggestion welcome. * Vis is currently incapable of restoring past selections once the corresponding cursors have been disposed. That is :x/pattern/<Enter><Escape>gv works, but a second <Escape> (in normal mode) would get rid of the cursors and hence also of all selections. * There is currently no easy way to specify multi line commands. The command prompt is implemented as a regular file. Hence <Ctrl-v><Enter> inserts a line break without executing the command. We should probably investigate ways to make this a bit more convenient. * Multi file support is not really well supported: - The X and Y commands currently operate on windows, not files. Meaning that if a file is being displayed in multiple windows a given command will be executed once for every window. This is desired in certain cases (e.g. `:X q` to close all windows without unsaved changes) and unwanted in others (e.g. :X 0i,/* ISC licensed */\n to add a license template to the top of every file). - The whole undo concept is file specific, the above insertion command can not easily be undone. Implementing an u command would at least give the possibility to `:X u` undo all changes. vis does currently not allow to switch windows while in visual mode. Comments (and patches) regarding vis in general are also welcome. Either here, in #vis-editor on Freenode or in the Github issue tracker. I would like to do another release relatively soon. Happy editing. Cheers, Marc [1] http://martanne.github.io/vis/man/vis.1.html
