Hi all, I'm a bit frustrated by a particular behaviour of vim, and today I modified the source code to 'fix' it. I'd be very grateful for some opinions if you a) agree with my thoughts, or b) have a better solution.
The problem - is when you run a command that outputs "messages" to vim - over multiple lines. For example, :!ls or :set They scroll messages up the screen, and a kind of Unix 'less' function is effectively invoked (since it steals it's scrolling commands from vi(m)). In Unix "less" (and also Unix "more"), a simple, close-to-the-fingers way to exit is to type the letter 'q'. This works no matter whether you're at the start, middle or end of the file. In vim, if only a part of the messages would fit on the screen, you get the prompt '-- More --' - and if you press 'q', it will exit message display. If you press Enter, it will just scroll one line. However, if all the messages would fit on the screen, you get the prompt 'Press ENTER or type command to continue'. Now the 'q' and 'Enter' keys do totally different things - q heads you towards macro recording, and Enter exits message display. Often, the line I want to see is at the top of the message output - and I don't care whether all the messages fitted on the screen, or whether there are more - I just want to exit message display. To me, it makes perfect sense that, just as with the unix 'less' program, pressing 'q' should exit message display - regardless of whether there are more lines to display or not. Sure, I can press Escape, but it's much harder to press than 'q'. Yes, I can press Ctrl-[ - but that's also much harder than 'q'. (Both of these options will also trigger the 'error bell' (audible or visual) - which seems rather unnecessary to me in this situation.) Otherwise - I have to look to the bottom of the screen to see whether vim wants 'q' or Enter to exit message display. Is it just me that finds this open for improvement? I've tried finding good mappings to solve this problem, but it's not at all easy. The source code change I made today was to change line 1004 of message.c from if (vim_strchr((char_u *)"\r\n ", c) == NULL && c != Ctrl_C) to if (vim_strchr((char_u *)"\r\n ", c) == NULL && c != Ctrl_C && c != 'q') It seems to work fine I think. If I'm the only one who finds this a problem, how do all of you exit from message display? Do you do different things depending on the message at the bottom? Use Escape? Otherwise, would anyone else like to see this tiny change accepted into vim? Thanks for your thoughts, John ********************************************************************************************************* "This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and privileged information of Catapult Communications" *********************************************************************************************************
