Try this: a) start INSERT mode, b) type "abcdefghijkl", c) hit backspace 3x, d) hit ESCAPE to leave INSERT mode. You should see the last three characters disappear.
Backspace on most UNIX vi editors that I work on is not visibly destructive but when you hit ESCAPE, the backspace delete becomes evident. I haven't used VIM for a few months now and I can't recall whether it behaves the same or not.
There is a reason why most seasoned vi users (at least from my point of view), who have learned how to utilize its considerable functionality, chose vi over other editors. It's not because they don't like other editors per se but, rather, it's more attributed to vi's utility and availabilty.
vi! yeah!.
just wish that vi commands worked inside of wordpad & notepad.
lke everyone else said, vi is everywhere, always works the same, and shows me
the line feeds if they are present.
C.
i voted for vi, because i use it by default. it is always there, and works the same (well, you know what i mean) on different systems. My first laptop had a nonfunctional escape key though, so somebody advised me to use emacs instead of vi (as, at that time i was a 100% newbie). I did like emacs, however having heard a lot of comments from people about bloat and unneccessary features, i tend to agree. also, emacs is not default on many systems, it is a third party application, as it were.
For GUI text editors though, i would choose gedit. It's not in the list i noticed, i was about to choose nedit in its absence, but had to go for vi, since i do actually use it more. When writing html i use bluefish, it has nice colour highlighting, but you'll need to rattle through the preferences on first run to set it up.
Other text based editors i liked were joe, nano, pico and jed. joe has a nice thing where it can sort of emulate emacs and pico (called by typing jmacs or jpico instead of joe) which i liked a lot. on smaller systems for older PCs, it can be a better idea to have joe instead of emacs for this reason.
If you ever expect to really use Unix or if you ever expect to use other Unix systems (SCO, Solaris etc), yes. vi is the standard Unix editor; you'll probably have to learn how to use it eventually.
Vim 6.4 for Windows and then transfer it to the unix system
This is more out of practicality since I just like having the menu bars at the click of a mouse and I'm just more comfortable with the GUI version. Also most of the system I work with are set to run level 3 and don't have any GUIs installed or configured so it's not going to do me much good to startx.
Personal favorite editor of mine is rm -f :rolleyes:
Never complains about syntax and the result is always as expected, a blank line and no file
i have a mac (with system 7 on it though) which uses an editor called teachtext.
This is a gui editor, which is fine and simple, but it only allows one file or window to be open at a time! to be honest i would really like to have good old bash and vi on that mac! well, c'est la vie i suppose.
it's a classic ][e so no hope of upping it to OSX!
this stands for "advanced easy editor" but mostly referenced only as "easy editor" you may find it 
