The River
User's Manual

Appendix B--Text Editors

There are several text editors that can be used for making posts, sending email, creating files, and editing the setup files mentioned at the beginning of the manual. By default, your first text editor is red. Also available are pico, vi/ex, emacs and jove.

Since you are already on the net when you join the River, we presume you have some experience with a text editor. If that isn't the case, this section can get you started with one, but the best way for you to use an unfamiliar editor is to get into one and experiment in the Test conference. The help screens for these editors are fairly simple for most users who have net experience or experience with a plain text (ascii) editor.

How to find help for editors

• red
  • There is a man page for red, type "man red" at the OK prompt to review it. This is the default editor.
• pico
  • Pico is a menu-driven text editor. By following the menu selections, it's fairly easy to find your way around. Pico also has abundant help screens.
• vi/ex
  • There is a man page for these editors. Type "man vi" to see the page.

To change your default editor, you need to change the appropriate command in your .login file. You'll see a section in .login about your editor. If you want to change it to pico, for instance, this is what it should say:

# Yapp should be handling this for us. If you need an EDITOR and aren't
# in Yapp, then uncomment this.
setenv EDITOR  /usr/bin/pico
setenv  VISUAL  /usr/bin/pico

To uncomment a line, remove the # sign and start the text flush left.

One more word about pico. As you exit it after typing a post, you'll end up with several prompts to navigate. You can make that process easier by putting this line in your .cfonce file:

define editor 'pico -t -z'

If you want to use vi as your default editor, these lines should look like this:

# Yapp should be handling this for us. If you need an EDITOR and aren't
# in Yapp, then uncomment this.
# setenv        EDITOR  /bin/red
setenv  VISUAL  /usr/bin/vi

Please be sure you understand the changes you make. You can get help in Launch with this. The YAPP manual is an excellent resource which lists every possible command and variable permitted.

If your question has not been answered by these manuals, you can send mail to (support08@river.org).

This Manual was prepared by a team of River volunteers, under the leadership of Elizabeth Lipson. Send comments or revisions about manual content to (support08@river.org).

These web pages are maintained by support08. Send notes about the page coding itself to (support08@river.org)