[GSoC] About the idea: Unicode support in vi

[Zhihao Yuan]

On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 10:46 PM, Pan Tsu <inyaoo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Zhihao Yuan <lichray at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> If you really want to use vi in a 32MB mem environment, the ex-vi may
>> make sense. It consumes 1600KB memory while nvi consumes 2000KB. Note
>> that the ee editor uses same amount memory as ex-vi.
>
> ex-vi memory usage can be reduced a bit, e.g. by ~20% if you drop
>  -DLISPCODE -DCHDIR -DFASTTAG -DUCVISUAL -DMB -DBIT8
> in particular multibyte support.
>
>> So basically, if no one disagree that we can drop the infinite undo,
>> multiple buffer, multiple window and some other potential missing
>> features, we can replace the nvi in the base system with ex-vi.
>
> If the intent is to make all interactive editors in base unicode aware
> then I wonder if you can use similar excuse when window(1) was kicked
> out but for missing features, i.e. use ports.

If user accepts the window or even screen in ports, they can also
accept ex-vi staying in ports.

>
> As for other editors, ed(1) seems to support editing UTF-8. I've used it
> to read/edit cyrillic and CJK texts in single user mode before found out
> about ex-vi. And ee(1)... why not add unicode support there as a GSoC?
>

ed seems works, but it's not either vi or ex.
I'm not typically like ee... I sill wondering why we kept it in base
system. It does not work when termcap is not correct, so I still need
to use ed in such a case. Same thing happens to ex-vi.

-- 
Zhihao Yuan
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.