Re: [opensuse] mailx set EDITOR="/usr/bin/vi" not working?

----- Original Message ----- From: "Patrick Shanahan" To: Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2008 5:31 PM Subject: Re: [opensuse] mailx set EDITOR="/usr/bin/vi" not working?

* David C. Rankin [09-04-08 17:19]:

...

Listmates,

I am trying to set the default editor for mailx to vi. I have added the following to my .mailrc file:

set EDITOR="/usr/bin/vi"

Still when I start a message, I get some incomprehensible ed like editor that I can't make heads or tails of. Any ideas of how to make vi the default?

From man mailx:

EDITOR

Pathname of the text editor to use in the edit command and ~e escape. If not defined, then a default editor is used.

The setting is formatted the same as my other setting in .mailrc, but I can't make the editor change work. Thanks.

try it w/o the quotation marks

Did you try it yourself? (hint, setting a single word variable in a shell, with or without quotes, makes absolutely 0 difference to what becomes the contents of the variable) The EDITOR variable appears to do just exactly what the man page says. However to get the real clue, do man mailx, then /editor and hit /[enter] several times to hop through and see all the places the word editor appears. It says that EDITOR affects the "edit" cmmand, and "~e" Later on in the file it says that while editing a message, you can hit ~e to escape out to the external editor. And for me, that all seems to work. export EDITOR=`which mcedit` type mailx, get a list of mails, type e1 (or edit 1, or just e or edit) You get put right into midnight commander's editor on some existing message. F10 to get out. type "mail brian@aljex.com" You get put into the built-in line-mode editor, which you exit via ctrl-c or ctrl-d btw. While in the built-in editor, press ~e (first thing on a new line) And there you are in mcedit again. -- Brian K. White brian@aljex.com http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR +++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++. filePro BBx Linux SCO FreeBSD #callahans Satriani Filk! Elsewhere it also says the v/visual command will also invoke the editor. But for me that invoked vi regardless of EDITOR. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org