Anarchoblogs

I was confronted recently with the task of having to find a free (as in cost) day-to-day editor for Windows and was quite frustrated with the options. It is a pet peeve of mine (re: Windows) to have to use the fucking mouse.

This is one of the reasons that I have moved my primary workstation to Linux (and been happy with the result), but I often suffer under constraints that are not my own so here we are. Windows, text editor, free. There are quite a few options out there for this sort of thing that are basically VB (or is that V#) wrappers around Notepad but that is exactly what I don’t want. Notepad is epic fail.

I want simple but not stupid. In the end I started using a Windows version of vi and while it was ok, it was not quite right (for instance it defaulted to non-shortcut mode where you had to use the arrow keys to move the cursor around)… So here I am typing everything in a terminal window in vi. C’est le vie

viThere was a job in the distant past where I actually spent hours just trying to figure out every available shortcut available to me (in Win). I still attribute this ridiculous labor to why I am not among the ranks of RSI sufferers. The only place where I have notable pain is in my mouse click fingers (index & middle right) and a chronic weakness in my wrists. The only place I feel forced to use a mouse is with my browser (which I will speak to again later).

Anyway, it is fascinating how differently your mind works in different situations. Obviously while one is at work it is difficult to keep focused on ones goals, particularly world changing goals, but it is even more surprising what comes out of ones fingers in vi rather than another editor.

At home I generally begin any writing I do (in windows) with Editplus (in Linux I start with Kate). This is a sophisticated (regular expressions included) text editor that doesn’t format anything. No fonts (although I guess I can configure the screen font, but I never do), no spell or grammar check, no frills. When I type I just want to type. I hate tools that interfere with this process. For most of my writing I am going to have to go over it several more times after the inital dump so the last thing I need is a helpful tool that does nothing but make me focus on the form rather than the content.

Sidebar: Perhaps this is a lesson for anarchists generally. Form is almost entirely a concern for after content. This is even true among the cases within anarchist publishing that are considered the best for design. Contrast this to industrial design or even the design of publishing projects outside of radical space.

vi, if you have never used it, is the only editor you can always assume exists on a Unix machine (this has been true for nearly 30 years). It is bare to the point of absurdity and never requires one’s hands to leave the keyboard. Never. The only question is what style you use to hit the Escape key. Are you of the ‘stretch your pinkie’ school of thought or do you leave the F key?

The logic behind vi is that there are two different modes that you use when you use vi. One mode is “command mode” and is where you do things that you would normally associate with the task bar in a windows application (File, Edit, Tools, etc). To enter command mode you hit escape. The challenging thing for a new vi user is that it is within command mode that you do functions like move around in a block of text, search, and then file commands like saving and exiting the program. Editing mode works just like any other editor. You type and characters appear (magically) on the screen.

Why am I going on an on about something as mundane, or worse technical, as my choice of text editors? Because, to repeat myself, my mind works differently depending on what tool I am using. Right now I am using vi and my mind turns to more-or-less technical things. I am absorbed by the paradigm, I do not absorb it. I am not the wave I am the surfer.

About browsers… This evening I have spent a chunk of time learning to use something called vimperator (http://vimperator.mozdev.org/) which integrates Firefox (my browser of utility) with vi. This might seem insane but it actually allows me to use the browser without the mouse. Total win!

If you haven’t checked out the http://8daysofanarchy.org site, you should and tell me what you think.