an editor that doesn't require any esc or control keys to be used...

[kentborg at borg.org (Kent Borg)]

On Fri, Aug 16, 2002 at 01:40:52PM +0000, John Chambers wrote:
> kb asked:
> | Any know of a good cheat sheet for ed?
> 
> How about good old `man ed`?

<sarcasm>What's a man page?</sarcasm>

Yes, I just so happen to have the ed man page in an emacs buffer.  But
it is a man page.  It is written by someone who likes regular
expressions.  It is "documentation".  I am looking for a "cheat sheet"
There is a difference!  I cheat sheet is terribly incomplete, but it
gives very quick examples of the several key things one might want to
do.

In the case of ed, these might be:

 - how to a see the current file contents?

 - how do I delete a line?

 - how do I add a line? (at the end? vi always acts wierd when I want
   to do that)

 - how do I change a line?

 - how do I move a line from one place to another? (is there anything
   analogous to a copy/paste?)


Part of the value of a cheat sheet is in its choice of what to tell
the reader.  A good cheat sheet gets the reader pointed in the right
direction maybe with good habits even.  A cheat sheet is designed to
get one started, it is once one is started that the man page becomes
useful.


-kb, the Kent who currently finds the rpm man page quite useful, but
it was worth shit when he first looked at it--exactly when he could
have used a good cheat sheet.