[Vimperator] [jakobi at acm.org: Re: request statusbar / q regex / possible bug: 'all extensions incompatible']

[Peter Jakobi]

----- Forwarded message from Peter Jakobi <jakobi at acm.org> -----

Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:58:38 +0200
From: Peter Jakobi <jakobi at acm.org>
To: Doug Kearns <dougkearns at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Vimperator] request statusbar / q regex / possible bug: 'all extensions incompatible'

On Wed, Jun 27, 2007 at 02:17:04AM +1000, Doug Kearns wrote:
Rehi Nigel,

> >The problem is "merely" how  to  reduce  "number"  length
> >and  visual confusion (discontinuities,...) to something that makes
> >them usable for line-range-entered-by-user-navigation in a GUI.
> 
> What would line numbers offer over a page percentage counter?

A  "line"  number  should  be  a 1:1 match to a DOM object.
Searches thus would start at the exact object. Regex and line
numbers are currently the still missing navigation aids from vi.

Such numbers may be used to allow  e.g. defining regions, filtering
those in external processes, etc.

:.,.+40s///
will probably not work sanely, as I'd prefer the numbers
to refer to the source/tree instead of visual display lines. 

:set nu
:.,<looked up displayed linenumber from some object in the panel>s/// 
however work nicely as :ex command.


33% is approximate and good to go somewhere quickly, and then just
navigate the remaining few lines to the object you really want.



> Secondly, can you point us to an existing implementation in comparable
> software to indicate how this might work?  I've noticed MS Word has
> line numbering but it doesn't strike me as being anymore use than
> percentages or similar.  Is Word a good example of what you have in
> mind?

Maybe wrt the displaying of the numbers and the numbering. 
Framemaker might be a better example than word (better object trees,
and some of the MIF tools might indeed implement such ideas). 

Vim itself is the best example of using numbers for 
navigation/copying/filtering in the :ex mode.

Imagine working in vim and looking at the resulting point
movements (or effects) in Word.

If you're more of an emacs user than me, the web browser mode
would be a good example with rendered and source views. Now
use emacs commands to navigate, define and copy/filter regions.
With vim you can do pretty much the same, but after :set number,
you're can also quickly use linenumbers in addition to regex
searches. 

(for me, :.,130s/  */ /g just doesn't have the emacs feeling of 
M-x-impossible-to-remember-very-long-command-name :).

===

q: is there a vim-variant of the emacs-webbrowser? Or some
embedding of lynx/w3m output or interaction?

Taking a quick look at vim.org now, I didn't find any 
such scripts.


-- 
cu
Peter
jakobi at acm.org

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
cu
Peter
jakobi at acm.org