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If you stare at text all day long, I've found that high contrast (black on white default) and high color saturation (brightly colored syntax highlighting) is very tiring. Turning both down a notch goes a long way for extending readability.

My terminals all use a light white on dark grey scheme, and my preferred vim color scheme has been ps_color for quite a while. (here's a useful site for visually comparing a ton of color schemes (in iframes) all at once: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~maverick/VimColorSchemeTest/. )

:help uganda

Nobody develops software for charity.

Especially not Bram Moolenaar.

And don't forget to use your editor of choice in conjunction with that whole rigamarole ;).

As a coder and DBA, I often type out long strings of capitalized text, and without capslock, I'd likely shoot myself in the head.

You can do this easily enough in Vim and any other decent text editor.

I think Python is a good choice: http://www.vim.org/htmldoc/if_pyth.html

This is an example of a plugin written in Python(mostly, the beginning is vimscript, but all the heavy lifting is Python): http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1542

I think Python is a good choice: http://www.vim.org/htmldoc/if_pyth.html

This is an example of a plugin written in Python(mostly, the beginning is vimscript, but all the heavy lifting is Python): http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1542

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1464

You would have to be assuming we were talking about vi vs. emacs. Maybe the real issue should be vim vs. vi. I prefer vi.

I prefer to write LaTeX in my preferred editor, using version control. However, this doesn't always permit collaboration with my colleagues. Since OP mentioned commenting, I'd imagine that interoperability would be important. While LyX's GUI makes it more accessible to new users, it still isn't going to convert many who exclusively use OO.o Writer or MS Word. And not all publishers accept the export formats from LyX. So, it is still good that OO.o Writer exists as the lesser of two evils.

Vancouver Island Marmot

Perhaps vim might be interested?

Give slackware booting to runlevel 3, gnu screen, gnu coreutils, vim, lynx/links/w3m/elinks, lftp, rtorrent, and moosic a try. There are many others of course.

CD ripping: abcde. Easy to control and customize.

Text editor: vim Yes, it is bigger than, say, nvi. But on most any machine, it usually runs lightning fast.

Shell: zsh. Not one of the smallest CLI shells, but very capable and well-documented. In many ways, easier to use than any GUI shell (and much lighter compared to any GUI shell.)

Calculator: command-line wcalc

Finances: Ledger whips everything I have ever tried; I would never switch to a GUI program for this again.

Lists and databases: colon-delimeted plain text files. Search and get records with awk or grep. Quicker and easier than spreadsheets, and I could (should) easily encrypt them with GPG.

Nutrition tracking: see sig (immodestly)

Task tracking: todo.txt

Photo sorting: just use GNOME's Nautilus and folders; all the photo album apps seem to be too much trouble. Wrote a zsh script to pull photos from memory cards, rename them so I know what camera they came from, rotate them, and dump them into a hard-drive folder so I can sort them out.

Light doesn't always pay: I got tired of trying to configure Fluxbox and Gentoo; now I'm on GNOME and Ubuntu. Light also doesn't pay for things done infrequently, as light often comes with a bigger learning curve. I usually resort to GUI tools to, for example, add users to the system.

I wish I could find a good CLI audio player--full featured, but CLI. MPD seems to come closest, but it can't get me away from Amarok. Similarly, GNUpod is pretty good for ipods, but I move stuff in and out of my iPod fairly rarely so I found Amarok is just easier to use.

90% of responses above recommend PuTTY, which is a great program. However, if you're looking for the ultimate in bloat-free software that hasn't been mentioned:

Microsoft Word 5.1a for Mac. Some say it is the greatest word processor ever made. I say it's close.

vim. Easily one of the best editors for any platform. And sure, it's more bloated than vi, but it's so much more powerful and usable.

Sounds sort of like what goes on in my code editor of choice.

Yes - low contrast is the way to go. This is why I love the (g)vim ps_color colorscheme: low-saturation colors on a dark grey background is very easy on the eyes for an extended period.

Seems like a simple regular expression to break it into multiple lines is in order, followed by some joins to make it into a nice 25 - 35 line block. Trivial in a modern editor. ;-)

> It may feel good, but if it doesn't do what I want and how I want it to, then I'm not buying it.

I hear you, man. Here's how you go about getting apps like that. You just need a few simple tools:

vi or emacs: you can get from http://www.vim.org/ or http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/, respectively

C compiler: very good one @ http://gcc.gnu.org/

OS: kernelspace of a good one is @ http://www.kernel.org/ but there are others.

And then after you install this stuff, you write a piece of software that does exactly what you want, how you want it done. It might be good to take an OSS app that does /almost/ exactly what you want, how you want it done as your base, because that way you'll have to write less code, but do whatever you feel is easiest from a software engineering perspective.

Unless you at least partially write your own software, you will /NEVER/ get exactly what you want from it, whether you use Windows, Linux, or Plan 9 from Bell Labs. Everyone wants something slightly different and everyone has different tastes. At least with open source, you can start with a good base to build on. With closed-source you're stuck with what they give you. With closed-source, if you want to make it right, you'll have to start from scratch.

What, you're not willing or not able to put forth this effort? Well, OSS owes you nothing; they're trying to make the software THEY want, after all. How about shutting up and letting us get back to that? k thx.

Why choose?

*pulls out the flamethrower*

Wanna fight?? :-D

On an unrelated event, I have donated enough to the vim developer http://www.vim.org/ to get voting rights. Number one is integration with external programs such as Eclipse :-D

Once vi's regexes will be unleashed in Eclipse there's no telling what the world population will do. Mwahahahahahahah....

I'll bet it will run Vim

Inline autocompletion of functions and methods is neato, but it's not worth the other kinds of pain provided (nor is Visual Studio the only place to get it.)

I tried that, but it didn't work. But then again, maybe that's because I've made Windows open text files in a real editor, instead of that braindead piece of crap that hasn't had a new feature added to it since Windows For Workgroups...

• Perform an inventory of the hardware in the machine. Note especially the vendor and model number of the major components. You'll need this later.
• Establish partitions on the boot drive (only if I'm dual-booting Linux or BeOS or something).
• Yank network cable.
• Install Windows from installation media. This takes a ridiculous amount of time, considering that most of the work is (should be) simply copying files. Reboot.
• Install Service Pack 2, which I conveniently have on a separate CD I burned. Reboot.
• Crank up Windows firewall to highest setting, or moral equivalent thereof (I'm behind a NAT router, so that works).
• Visit Windows Update, and download all security and bug fixes. Duration depends on connection speed, but it can easily consume an hour. Reboot.
• Using the hardware inventory you prepared earlier: for $item in $inventory ; do
  • Visit hardware vendor's site.
  • Locate, download, and install latest device driver(s) for $item.
  • Reboot.
• done

At this point, you have a usable machine. If it's my machine (and even if it isn't my machine), I usually install the following software:

• Firefox
• Vim
• VirtuaWin
• TreeSize
• PuTTY
• WinSCP
• TweakUI

Schwab

• Openoffice.org (use word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, database, and similar applications)
• Picasa (view/edit photos)

Internet Tools

• FireFox (browse Web sites)
• Gaim (chat with users of AIM, YIM, MSN, IRC, etc.)
• Thunderbird (e-mail)
• Pegasus Mail (e-mail)
• Macromedia Flash Player (watch Flash animations within Web browser)
• Java Plugin (run Java applications inside Web browser)

Basic Tools

• 7Zip (compress/decompress files)
• EditPad Lite (edit text files)
• vim/gvim (edit text files--advanced)
• Adobe Acrobat Reader (view PDF files)
• PDF Creator (create PDF files)

Security Tools

• ZoneAlarm (firewall - detect unwanted Internet access)
• Avira Antivirus (detect/remove viruses)
• ADAware Personal SE (detect/remove spyware)
• SpyBot Search & Destroy (detect/remove spyware)
• HiJackThis (detect/remove spyware)
• Discombobulator (make Windows more secure)
• Shoot the Messenger (make Windows more secure)
• Unplug-n-pray (make Windows more secure)
• PGP (encrypt/decrypt files or e-mail for privacy) - see admin for more details

Advanced Tools

• Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel for Windows XP (mount ISO images as filesystems) from MSDN
• IMAPSize (manage/search/backup an IMAP mailbox)

Oh noes! Not a feature that exists in both Emacs and Vim!

Vi is the ultimate editor, for one main reason. It's a modal editor, so commands can be mnemonic.

EMACS is a modal editor too. Both EMACS and Vi were written to run on character terminals. Any interactive editor designed for that environment has to be modal, because that's the only way to separate commands from input. EMACS, being designed for powerful terminals with very fast connections, can make text entry the primary mode and commands brief escapes from text entry mode. Vi, which was designed for cheap terminals connected to 30 characters-per-second connections (and was even used on 11 CPS connections), did things exactly the opposite.

And a note to the usual vi-versus-EMACS flamers: which one you use in a modern GUI environment is matter of what you're used to. They're both equally out of date: good GUI programs do not have modes. And I'm not speaking theoretically: I've used vi (or nowadays, vim) almost every working day for 27 years, and I still screw up cut-and-pastes occasionally because I forget which mode I left the vim window in.

So if I think modes are dumb, why don't I switch to a modeless editor? Well, I have jedit, and I keep meaning to try to make it my working editor. But there are always bigger priorities than retooling my brain's text editor zones. I might feel differently if Bram Moolenar and the other vimmers hadn't done such a good job of adapting vi to the GUI world. Speaking of which, no vim user should forget to express their gratitude.

They should have a site where people can vote for features. That way they'll know how popular a particular feature might be ... and that might help them decide what features to implement first. Something like vim does here http://www.vim.org/sponsor/vote_results.php

I'd like to see support for multi row tabs to be native in firefox (I currently get this from the Tab Mix Plus extension). This feature is already on the 'Feature Brainstorming' wiki - but I have no way to reaffirm support for it.

I'm looking forward to Firefox 3.0. I hear it washes your dishes and matches your socks.
I do believe it's time to stop looking for a girlfriend.

You don't need Firefox to do your dishes or impress women, you just need to stop using emacs. Vim can do your dishes, and make your woman smile for a week (among other wondrous things).

I'm looking forward to Firefox 3.0. I hear it washes your dishes and matches your socks.
I do believe it's time to stop looking for a girlfriend.

You don't need Firefox to do your dishes or impress women, you just need to stop using emacs. Vim can do your dishes, and make your woman smile for a week (among other wondrous things).

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=39 This is a script that does % matching over HTML/XML tags. In other words when your cursor is over a tag and you hit % it will move to the matching tag. VERY helpful for XML editing. Also, if you select all text (ggVG) then hit = Vim will fix indenting, another one I use quite a bit when editing XML.

You mean this guy?

On Windows, I'm using WS_FTP, and have the "Edit" button set to use gVim as my default text editor.

It's been said before, but let me reiterate: [g]Vim is one of the first programs I install on a new 'puter, be it Windows, Mac, or something Unix-y. The syntax highlighting makes coding a shit-tonne easier, as does easy reg-exp search and replace. And once you get used to the command mode, you'll find that file navigation with the home-row keys is quicker than using arrow keys (especially on many laptop keyboards).

The biggest drawback: you'll start trying to enter "command mode" when posting to slashdot :-)

Only UltraNoobs use UltraEdit. You need to spend some time learning VIM (http://www.vim.org) and you'll never look back.
Cheers.

Funny, I also carry a thumb-drive with a removable memory card slot. It's this generic one floating around online: http://www.supermediastore.com/supermedia-handy-4i n1--usb-20-flash-memory-card-reader-yellow.html

I think they're a great idea, because I can move with the SD card market as flash memory becomes denser and denser. Speed hasn't been a problem, either. The thumbdrives support USB 2.0 and my SD card seems to be capable of a very decent data transfer rate.

I have a collection of Windows tools on the drive. Not Linux tools, because I can usually accomplish whatever it is I'm doing in the Linux environments I encounter day to day.

Network Tools:
* Raw TCP/IP transfer -> netcat ( http://www.vulnwatch.org/netcat/ )
* SSH/Telnet -> putty ( http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ )
* Port Scanner -> SuperScan4 ( http://www.foundstone.com/resources/proddesc/super scan.htm )
* Classic Port Scanner -> nmap ( http://insecure.org/nmap/download.html )
* Packet Capture and Analysis -> WireShark setup ( http://www.wireshark.org/download.html )

Editors:
* General -> vim 7.0 ( http://www.vim.org/download.php )
* Hex Editor -> xvi32 ( http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi 32/xvi32.htm#download )

Development:
* Tiny C Compiler ( http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/tcc/ )
* nasm ( http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=6208 )

Misc:
* Lightweight Windows md5sum -> md5summer ( http://www.md5summer.org/download.html )
* Process Explorer ( http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplo rer.html )
* MP3 Encoding -> RazorLame with lame ( http://www.dors.de/razorlame/download.php )
* Terminal Emulator -> TeraTerm Pro ( http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002416/teraterm.h tml )

The folder is 26.7MB.

Copy the following into a .reg file (not including the --- lines) and run it to replace Caps Lock with Left-Ctrl:

------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\K eyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,1d,00 ,3a,00,00,00,00,00

------------

If you want to replace it with Escape instead, use this:

------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\K eyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,01,00 ,3a,00,00,00,00,00

------------

You'll need to remove some spurious spaces added by Slashcode (in "Keyboard" and before "3a"). Note that this works on the scancode level and will affect all users and applications, including DirectX ones. It's as close as you can get to physically rewiring the key. You need to reboot for it to take effect. (Stolen from here and here.)

Me too - in case anyone is interested, there is a Borland colour scheme for vim available from http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=92 . I can't live without it.

This also ensures you don't waste your time with web development as there is no tool that is right for web development, just tools that suck slightly less than the others. :)
GVIM works pretty well for me. I also use NVU for RAD prototyping. Oh and I auctually wrote a useful webservice in C# using SharpDevelop so that counts as well.

The sad part is vim sucks the least of these three, although SharpDevelop is starting to support the ASP.NET thing pretty well.

I haven't tried it, so don't know whether it's any good. I seem to remember a while ago I stumbled on something else which does exactly what you're referring to, but can't find it in my bookmarks or history.

ctags + cscope + vim is REALLY the way to go (IMO).

Here's a great introduction: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=51

I've tried a lot of solutions; if you're inclined to go the Vim Way, then tags is great, cscope + tags is even greater.

Vim and tags.

But, you have got to want to learn it if you are not already required to learn it.

The upside?

• It's an absolutely efficient text editor (once you learn the basic command set)
• Variation on some of its basic command set are already used as shortcuts elsewhere
• It's command super set is very huge (and worth programmers getting to know
• It's free.
• It's practically ubiquitous on *Nix machines (Mhy Gentoo's installer doesn't have it is a mystery. For the record: I hate Nano)
• It has a small footprint
• It's predicessor, Vi, is tollerable despite not having the same 'expected behavior' for some commands (if it has that command at all)

I'm using Vim 7.0 too with a 'tags' file generated with Exuberant Ctags.
See :help tags-and-searches

I mapped Alt-Right and Alt-Left to quickly follow a variable/function name to its definition and go back:
map <M-Left> <C-T>
map <M-Right> <C-]>

Two years of using Latex(VIM http://vim.org/+LAtexsuite http://vim-latex.sourceforge.net/ +freemindhttp://freemind.sourceforge.net/+freemind accessorieshttp://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/in dex.php/Accessories+xfig http://www.xfig.org/ cover most of my documentation needs) , and I love it, but in situations where MSoffice users are predominant I wouldnt recomment it. In an office environment where people have their own axe to grind suggesting any "radically different" method can be suicidal.

Maybe it's just a matter of personal preference – not sure about anyone else here, but I've tried both IDE and ordinary text-editor setups, and have always found that I just prefer working with good old vim. Once you get used to all the commands it's addictive – sometimes I find myself trying to [ESC] :wq a Web form, I'm that used to it now – and not to mention just so much faster.

(Most of the time I tend to work with PHP, Python, and shell scripts, if it helps)

how to use outdated editors (Like vi),

Vim 7 was released less than 2 weeks ago. I'd hardly call that outdated.

Bah. As much as I prefer vim, I have yet to see it play tetris.

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=17 2

http://www.vim.org/tips/tip.php?tip_id=1220

Stay classy, world.