On 2002.01.08, in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Nick Wilson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Sounds fine to me Sam, I don't know what VISUAL is though?
> I presume it's a config var, I'll go look it up on the manual.
> Is that why I sometimes see headers with X-editor: Vim?
>
> How will other apps know what I prefer if this is a mutt thing?
To add a little to this: EDITOR and VISUAL are common environment
variables, and are not particular to any program, application, or suite.
They're just traditional variables for specifying your preferred editor
in. Traditionally, EDITOR should specify a line editor, and VISUAL
should specify a full-screen editor. Not many people use ed, ex, and the
line anymore, though, so it's common to use them interchangeably for
full-screen or graphical editors now.
A common Bourne shell idiom is this:
editor=${VISUAL:-${EDITOR:-vi}}
...
${editor} ${filename}
which illustrates the relationship: first use $VISUAL if it is defined,
because a full-screen editor is usually preferred; then use $EDITOR if
$VISUAL is not defined or is empty. If neither is set, fall back on vi,
because one can almost always rely on its being present even when other
screen editors are not.
But many programs refer to these variables for your editor preferences,
so if you pretty much always want the same editor, it's promising to set
$VISUAL and $EDITOR to your favorite.
--
-D. [EMAIL PROTECTED] NSIT University of Chicago
