The following table is a quick reference for vi , it contains only a few of the many hundreds of commands under vi , but is enough to do all basic editing operations. You then enter text as you would in a normal DOS text editor, but you cannot arbitrarily move the cursor and delete characters while in insert-mode . The word register is used below. A register is a hidden clipboard. This shows you what line and column you are on in the bottom right corner of the screen.
Syntax highlighting is meant to preempt programming errors by colourising correct keywords.
Although U NIX has had full graphics capability for a long time now, most administration of low level services still takes place inside text configuration files. Word processing is also best accomplished with typesetting systems that require creation of ordinary text files 6.1 . Historically the standard text editor used to be ed . Today ed is mostly used in its streaming version, sed . The editor is the place you will probably spend most of your time.