The text editor

Cream/Vim

Most people that know me wouldn't be surprised to hear that I was peturbed by the 64k limit in Microsoft Notepad during the 1990s. The millenium came and went without a bang, 9/11 happened, I got busy working for workaholics, and I even had a chuckle at the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_hid_the_facts or http://www.google.com/search?q=bush+hid+the+facts.  The fact was that Notepad irritated me, and I wasn't going to accept WordPad as a replacement (or wait for Windows 2000 to remove the 64k limit.)  You can argue the editor war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_war) if you like, but I like I learned a little Vi a long time ago and I'm not bound to change (I don't use it *THAT* much.)

We are starting this series of articles with the basics of computer, a text editor.  Just about everybody that has used a computer has used a text editor, whether they knew it or not, during their computer time.  I don't spend enormous amounts of time in a text editor anymore (I'm not designing and maintaining web-based systems currently) but I usually open SOME basic text editor (whether it be good old Notepad of Vim (VI-improved, a clone of the original UNIX text editor) during the process of my day.

In 1996 I met a computer programmer that works in Oracle all day long.  He's a whiz, one of those Wrambling Wrecks from GATech.  Reminds me of my cousin a wee little bit.  Anywho, he taught me a little Vim and I was hooked...or was it Vi, or well...anyway, no matter if you use Vi or one of it's clones if you're willing to try any of them, give Cream a whirl.

Why would you want to replace Notepad?  Because it's not hard to do just that, and you can learn a lot in a small amount of time.  Why do:

ALT+F S

When you can:

:w

in order to save a file?  If you're a lost as I think you are, read on...

 Cream Vim editor with html file open

This is what the "Cream" version of Vim looks like.  Cream is a separate project to Vim, but it is perfect for Windows-only users to play with Vim.  In this example, I have a plain HTML file open (this is my Ustream page) that is color-coded for easy reading (that's just icing on the cake for me...I really don't spend a WHOLE lot of time with code either during most days.)  There are a lot of advanced functions that Cream can perform for you, but if you just curious and want to try something more useful than Notepad, I suggest that you go download Cream from http://cream.sourceforge.net/.  They have made Cream easy enough for regular Windows-only users to use a great text editor, with the advanced features within reach for the advanced users.