1 *os_beos.txt* For Vim version 7.3. Last change: 2010 Aug 14
4 VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar
8 This is a port of Vim 5.1 to the BeOS Preview Release 2 (also known as PR2)
11 This file contains the particularities for the BeBox/BeOS version of Vim. For
12 matters not discussed in this file, Vim behaves very much like the Unix
13 |os_unix.txt| version.
15 1. General |beos-general|
16 2. Compiling Vim |beos-compiling|
17 3. Timeout in the Terminal |beos-timeout|
18 4. Unicode vs. Latin1 |beos-unicode|
19 5. The BeOS GUI |beos-gui|
20 6. The $VIM directory |beos-vimdir|
21 7. Drag & Drop |beos-dragndrop|
22 8. Single Launch vs. Multiple
25 10. The meta key modifier |beos-meta|
26 11. Mouse key mappings |beos-mouse|
27 12. Color names |beos-colors|
28 13. Compiling with Perl |beos-perl|
31 1. General *beos-general*
33 The default syntax highlighting mostly works with different foreground colors
34 to highlight items. This works best if you set your Terminal window to a
35 darkish background and light letters. Some middle-grey background (for
36 instance (r,g,b)=(168,168,168)) with black letters also works nicely. If you
37 use the default light background and dark letters, it may look better to
38 simply reverse the notion of foreground and background color settings. To do
39 this, add this to your .vimrc file (where <Esc> may need to be replaced with
40 the escape character): >
42 :if &term == "beos-ansi"
48 2. Compiling Vim *beos-compiling*
50 From the Advanced Access Preview Release (AAPR) on, Vim can be configured with
51 the standard configure script. To get the compiler and its flags right, use
52 the following command-line in the shell (you can cut and paste it in one go):
54 CC=$BE_C_COMPILER CFLAGS="$BE_DEFAULT_C_FLAGS -O7" \
55 ./configure --prefix=/boot/home/config
57 $BE_C_COMPILER is usually "mwcc", $BE_DEFAULT_C_FLAGS is usually "-I- -I."
59 When configure has run, and you wish to enable GUI support, you must edit the
60 config.mk file so that the lines with GUI_xxx refer to $(BEOSGUI_xxx) instead
62 Alternatively you can make this change in the Makefile; it will have a
63 more permanent effect. Search for "NONE_".
65 After compilation you need to add the resources to the binary. Add the
66 following few lines near the end (before the line with "exit $exit_value") of
67 the link.sh script to do this automatically.
70 copyres os_beos.rsrc vim
73 Also, create a dummy file "strip":
79 You will need it when using "make install" to install Vim.
81 Now type "make" to compile Vim, then "make install" to install it.
83 If you want to install Vim by hand, you must copy Vim to $HOME/config/bin, and
84 create a bunch of symlinks to it ({g,r,rg}{vim,ex,view}). Furthermore you must
85 copy Vim's configuration files to $HOME/config/share/vim:
86 vim-5.0s/{*.vim,doc,syntax}. For completeness, you should also copy the nroff
87 manual pages to $HOME/config/man/man1. Don't forget ctags/ctags and xxd/xxd!
89 Obviously, you need the unlimited linker to actually link Vim. See
90 http://www.metrowerks.com for purchasing the CodeWarrior compiler for BeOS.
91 There are currently no other linkers that can do the job.
93 This won't be able to include the Perl or Python interfaces even if
94 you have the appropriate files installed. |beos-perl|
97 3. Timeout in the Terminal *beos-timeout*
99 Because some POSIX/UNIX features are still missing[1], there is no direct OS
100 support for read-with-timeout in the Terminal. This would mean that you cannot
101 use :mappings of more than one character, unless you also :set notimeout.
104 To circumvent this problem, I added a workaround to provide the necessary
105 input with timeout by using an extra thread which reads ahead one character.
106 As a side effect, it also makes Vim recognize when the Terminal window
109 Function keys are not supported in the Terminal since they produce very
110 indistinctive character sequences.
112 These problems do not exist in the GUI.
114 [1]: there is no select() on file descriptors; also the termios VMIN and VTIME
115 settings do not seem to work properly. This has been the case since DR7 at
116 least and still has not been fixed as of PR2.
119 4. Unicode vs. Latin1 *beos-utf8*
121 BeOS uses Unicode and UTF-8 for text strings (16-bit characters encoded to
122 8-bit characters). Vim assumes ISO-Latin1 or other 8-bit character codes.
123 This does not produce the desired results for non-ASCII characters. Try the
124 command :digraphs to see. If they look messed up, use :set isprint=@ to
125 (slightly) improve the display of ISO-Latin1 characters 128-255. This works
126 better in the GUI, depending on which font you use (below).
128 You may also use the /boot/bin/xtou command to convert UTF-8 files from (xtou
129 -f iso1 filename) or to (xtou -t iso1 filename) ISO-Latin1 characters.
132 5. The BeOS GUI *beos-gui*
134 The BeOS GUI is no longer included. It was not maintained for a while and
135 most likely didn't work. If you want to work on this: get the Vim 6.x version
136 and merge it back in.
139 6. The $VIM directory *beos-vimdir*
141 $VIM is the symbolic name for the place where Vims support files are stored.
142 The default value for $VIM is set at compile time and can be determined with >
146 The normal value is /boot/home/config/share/vim. If you don't like it you can
147 set the VIM environment variable to override this, or set 'helpfile' in your
151 : set helpfile=~/vim/vim54/doc/help.txt
156 7. Drag & Drop *beos-dragndrop*
158 You can drop files and directories on either the Vim icon (starts a new Vim
159 session, unless you use the File Types application to set Vim to be "Single
160 Launch") or on the Vim window (starts editing the files). Dropping a folder
161 sets Vim's current working directory. |:cd| |:pwd| If you drop files or
162 folders with either SHIFT key pressed, Vim changes directory to the folder
163 that contains the first item dropped. When starting Vim, there is no need to
164 press shift: Vim behaves as if you do.
166 Files dropped set the current argument list. |argument-list|
169 8. Single Launch vs. Multiple Launch *beos-launch*
171 As distributed Vim's Application Flags (as seen in the FileTypes preference)
172 are set to Multiple Launch. If you prefer, you can set them to Single Launch
173 instead. Attempts to start a second copy of Vim will cause the first Vim to
174 open the files instead. This works from the Tracker but also from the command
175 line. In the latter case, non-file (option) arguments are not supported.
177 NB: Only the GUI version has a BApplication (and hence Application Flags).
178 This section does not apply to the GUI-less version, should you compile one.
181 9. Fonts *beos-fonts*
185 :set guifont=Courier10_BT/Roman/10
187 where the first part is the font family, the second part the style, and the
188 third part the size. You can use underscores instead of spaces in family and
191 Best results are obtained with monospaced fonts (such as Courier). Vim
192 attempts to use all fonts in B_FIXED_SPACING mode but apparently this does not
193 work for proportional fonts (despite what the BeBook says).
195 Vim also tries to use the B_ISO8859_1 encoding, also known as ISO Latin 1.
196 This also does not work for all fonts. It does work for Courier, but not for
197 ProFontISOLatin1/Regular (strangely enough). You can verify this by giving the >
201 command, which lists a bunch of characters with their ISO Latin 1 encoding.
202 If, for instance, there are "box" characters among them, or the last character
203 isn't a dotted-y, then for this font the encoding does not work.
205 If the font you specify is unavailable, you get the system fixed font.
207 Standard fixed-width system fonts are:
209 ProFontISOLatin1/Regular
213 Courier10_BT/Bold_Italic
215 Standard proportional system fonts are:
220 Swis721_BT/Bold_Italic
222 Dutch801_Rm_BT/Italic
224 Dutch801_Rm_BT/Bold_Italic
228 Baskerville/Bold_Italic
229 SymbolProp_BT/Regular
231 Try some of them, just for fun.
234 10. The meta key modifier *beos-meta*
236 The META key modifier is obtained by the left or right OPTION keys. This is
237 because the ALT (aka COMMAND) keys are not passed to applications.
240 11. Mouse key mappings *beos-mouse*
242 Vim calls the various mouse buttons LeftMouse, MiddleMouse and RightMouse. If
243 you use the default Mouse preference settings these names indeed correspond to
244 reality. Vim uses this mapping:
246 Button 1 -> LeftMouse,
247 Button 2 -> RightMouse,
248 Button 3 -> MiddleMouse.
250 If your mouse has fewer than 3 buttons you can provide your own mapping from
251 mouse clicks with modifier(s) to other mouse buttons. See the file
252 vim-5.x/macros/swapmous.vim for an example. |gui-mouse-mapping|
255 12. Color names *beos-colors*
257 Vim has a number of color names built-in. Additional names are read from the
258 file $VIMRUNTIME/rgb.txt, if present. This file is basically the color
259 database from X. Names used from this file are cached for efficiency.
262 13. Compiling with Perl *beos-perl*
264 Compiling with Perl support enabled is slightly tricky. The Metrowerks
265 compiler has some strange ideas where to search for include files. Since
266 several include files with Perl have the same names as some Vim header
267 files, the wrong ones get included. To fix this, run the following Perl
268 script while in the vim-5.0/src directory: >
273 # Simple #include expander, just good enough for the Perl header files.
281 my $filename = $_[0];
282 my $fh = new IO::File($filename, "r");
284 print "/* Start of $filename */\n";
287 if (/^#include "(.*)"/) {
289 print "/* Back in $filename */\n";
294 print "/* End of $filename */\n";
298 print "/* Cannot open $filename */\n";
299 print "#include \"$filename\"\n";
303 chdir $Config{installarchlib}."/CORE";
306 It expands the "perl.h" header file, using only other Perl header files.
308 Now you can configure & make Vim with the --enable-perlinterp option.
309 Be warned though that this adds about 616 kilobytes to the size of Vim!
310 Without Perl, Vim with default features and GUI is about 575K, with Perl
315 [Note: these addresses no longer work:]
316 <rhialto@polder.ubc.kun.nl>
317 http://polder.ubc.kun.nl/~rhialto/be
319 vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl: