EE (1) | General commands | Unix Manual Pages

SYNOPSIS

ee [-eih] [+#] [] ree [-eih] [+#] []

DESCRIPTION

The ee utility is a simple screen oriented text editor. It is always in text insertion mode unless there is a prompt at the bottom of the terminal, or a menu present (in a box in the middle of the terminal). The ree utility is the same as ee, but restricted to editing the named file (no file operations, or shell escapes are allowed).

For ee to work properly, the environment variable TERM must be set to indicate the type of terminal being used. For example, for an HP 700/92 terminal, the TERM variable should be set to "70092". See your System Administrator if you need more information.

The following options are available:

-e	Turn off expansion of tab character to spaces.
-i	Turn off display of information window at top of terminal.
-h	Turn off highlighting of borders of windows and menus (improves performance on some terminals).
+#	Move the cursor to line ’#’ at startup.

"Control keys"

To do anything other than insert text, the user must use the control keys (the Control key, represented by a "^", pressed in conjunction with an alphabetic key, e.g., ^a) and function keys available on the keyboard (such as "Next Page", "Prev Page", arrow keys, etc.).

Since not all terminals have function keys, ee has the basic cursor movement functions assigned to control keys as well as more intuitive keys on the keyboard when available. For instance, to move the cursor up, the user can use the up arrow key, or ^u.

^a	Prompt for the decimal value of a character to insert.
^b	Move to the bottom of the text.
^c	Get the prompt for a command.
^d	Move the cursor down.
^e	Prompt for the string to search for.
^f	Undelete the last deleted character.
^g	Move to the beginning of the line.
^h	Backspace.
^i	Tab.
^j	Insert a newline.
^k	Delete the character the cursor is sitting on.
^l	Move the cursor left.
^m	Insert a newline.
^n	Move to the next page.
^o	Move to the end of the line.
^p	Move to the previous page.
^r	Move the cursor to the right.
^t	Move to the top of the text.
^u	Move the cursor up.
^v	Undelete the last deleted word.
^w	Delete the word beginning at the cursor position.
^x	Search.
^y	Delete from the cursor position to the end of line.
^z	Undelete the last deleted line.
^[ (ESC)
	Pop up menu.

"EMACS keys mode"

Since many shells provide an Emacs mode (for cursor movement and other editing operations), some bindings that may be more useful for people familiar with those bindings have been provided. These are accessible via the settings menu, or via the initialization file (see below). The mappings are as follows:

^a	Move to the beginning of the line.
^b	Back 1 character.
^c	Command prompt.
^d	Delete character the cursor is sitting on.
^e	End of line.
^f	Forward 1 character.
^g	Go back 1 page.
^h	Backspace.
^i	Tab.
^j	Undelete last deleted character.
^k	Delete line.
^l	Undelete last deleted line.
^m	Insert a newline.
^n	Move to the next line.
^o	Prompt for the decimal value of a character to insert.
^p	Previous line.
^r	Restore last deleted word.
^t	Move to the top of the text.
^u	Move to the bottom of the text.
^v	Move to the next page.
^w	Delete the word beginning at the cursor position.
^y	Prompt for the string to search for.
^z	Next word.
^[ (ESC)
	Pop up menu.

"Function Keys"

Next Page
	Move to the next page.
Prev Page
	Move to the previous page.
Delete Char
	Delete the character the cursor is on.
Delete Line
	Delete from the cursor to the end of line.
Insert line
	Insert a newline at the cursor position.
Arrow keys
	Move the cursor in the direction indicated.

Commands

Some operations require more information than a single keystroke can provide. For the most basic operations, there is a menu that can be obtained by pressing the ESC key. The same operations, and more can be performed by obtaining the command prompt (^c) and typing in one of the commands below.

! cmd	Execute cmd in a shell.
0-9	Move to the line indicated.
case	Make searches case sensitive.
character
	Display the ASCII value of the character at the cursor.
exit	Save the edited text, and leave the editor.
expand
	Expand tabs to spaces.
file	Print the name of the file.
help	Display help screen.
line	Display the current line number.
nocase
	Make searches insensitive to case (the default).
noexpand
	Do not expand tab to spaces when the TAB key is pressed.
quit	Leave the editor without saving changes.
read file
	Read the named file.
write file
	Write the text to the named file.

"Menu Operations"

Pop-up menus can be obtained by pressing the escape key (or ^[ if no escape key is present). When in the menu, the escape key can be used to leave the menu without performing any operations. Use the up and down arrow keys, or ^u for moving up and ^d for moving down to move to the desired items in the menu, then press return to perform the indicated task.

To the left of each menu item is a letter, which if the corresponding letter is pressed on the keyboard selects that menu entry.

The main menu in ee is as follows:

leave editor
	If changes have been made, the user will get a menu prompting whether or not the changes should be saved.
help	Display a help screen, with all of the keyboard operations and commands.
file operations
	Pop up a menu for selecting whether to read a file, write to a file, or save the current contents of the editor, as well as send the contents of the editor to a print command (see the section "Initializing ee from a file").
redraw screen
	Provide a means to repaint the screen if the screen has been corrupted.
settings
	Show the current values of the operating modes, and right margin. By pressing return when the cursor is on a particular item, the value can be changed. To leave this menu, press the escape key. (See Modes below.)
search
	Pop up a menu in which the user may choose to enter a string to search for, or search for a string already entered.
miscellaneous
	Pop up a menu that allows the user to format the current paragraph, execute a shell command, or check the spelling of the text in the editor.

"Paragraph Formatting"

Paragraphs are defined for ee by a block of text bounded by:

Begin or end of file.
Line with no characters, or only spaces and/or tabs.
Line starting with a period (’.’) or right angle bracket (’>’).

A paragraph may be formatted two ways: explicitly by choosing the format paragraph menu item, or by setting ee to automatically format paragraphs. The automatic mode may be set via a menu, or via the initialization file.

There are three states for text operation in ee: free-form, margins, and automatic formatting.

"Free-form" is best used for things like programming. There are no restrictions on the length of lines, and no formatting takes place.

"Margins" allows the user to type in text without having to worry about going beyond the right margin (the right margin may be set in the settings menu, the default is for the margin to be the right edge of the terminal). This is the mode that allows the format paragraph menu item to work.

"Automatic formatting" provides word-processor-like behavior. The user may type in text, while ee will make sure the entire paragraph fits within the width of the terminal every time the user inserts a space after typing or deleting text. Margin observation must also be enabled in order for automatic formatting to occur.

Modes

Although ee is a ’modeless’ editor (it is in text insertion mode all the time), there are modes in some of the things it does. These include:

tab expansion
	Tabs may be inserted as a single tab character, or replaced with spaces.
case sensitivity
	The search operation can be sensitive to whether characters are upper- or lower-case, or ignore case completely.
margins observed
	Lines can either be truncated at the right margin, or extend on forever.
auto paragraph formatting
	While typing in text, the editor can try to keep it looking reasonably well within the width of the screen.
eightbit characters
	Toggle whether eight bit characters are displayed as their value in angle brackets (e.g. "<220>") or as a character.
info window
	A window showing the keyboard operations that can be performed can be displayed or not.
emacs keys
	Control keys may be given bindings similar to emacs, or not.
16 bit characters
	Toggles whether sixteen bit characters are handled as one 16-bit quantities or two 8-bit quantities. This works primarily with the Chinese Big 5 code set.

You may set these modes via the initialization file (see below), or with a menu (see above).

><!sort

This would send the contents of the editor to be piped into the sort(1) utility and the result would be placed into the edit buffer at the current cursor location. The old information would have to be deleted by the user.

"Initializing ee from a file"

Since different users have different preferences, ee allows some slight configurability. There are three possible locations for an initialization file for ee: the file /usr/share/misc/init.ee, the file .init.ee in the user’s home directory, or the file .init.ee in the current directory (if different from the home directory). This allows system administrators to set some preferences for the users on a system-wide basis (for example, the print command), and the user to customize settings for particular directories (like one for correspondence, and a different directory for programming).

The file /usr/share/misc/init.ee is read first, then $HOME/.init.ee, then .init.ee, with the settings specified by the most recent file read taking precedence.

The following items may be entered in the initialization file:

case	Set searches to be case sensitive.
nocase
	Set searches to be insensitive to case (default).
expand
	Cause ee to expand tabs to spaces (default).
noexpand
	Cause ee to insert tabs as a single character.
info	A small information window is displayed at the top of the terminal (default).
noinfo
	Turn off the display of the information window.
margins
	Cause ee to truncate lines at the right margin when the cursor passes beyond the right margin as set by the user while text is being inserted (default).
nomargins
	Allow lines to extend beyond the right margin.
autoformat
	Cause ee to automatically try to format the current paragraph while text insertion is occurring.
noautoformat
	Turn off automatic paragraph formatting (default).
printcommand
	Allow the setting of the print command (default: "lp").
rightmargin
	The user can select a value for the right margin (the first column on the screen is zero).
highlight
	Turn on highlighting of border of information window and menus (default).
nohighlight
	Turn off highlighting of border of information window and menus.
eightbit
	Turn on display of eight bit characters.
noeightbit
	Turn off display of eight bit characters (they are displayed as their decimal value inside angle brackets, e.g., "<220>").
16bit	Turns on handling of 16-bit characters.
no16bit
	Turns off handling of 16-bit characters.
emacs	Turns on emacs key bindings.
noemacs
	Turns off emacs key bindings.