For many users, working in the UNIX environment means using vi, a full-screen text editor available on most UNIX systems. Even those who know vi often make use of only a small number of its features. The vi Editor Pocket Reference is a companion volume to O'Reilly's updated sixth edition of Learning the vi Editor, a complete guide to text editing with vi. New topics in Learning the vi Editor include multi-screen editing and coverage of four vi clones: vim, elvis, nvi, and vile. This small book is a handy reference guide to the information in the larger volume, presenting movement and editing commands, the command-line options, and other elements of the vi editor in an easy-to-use tabular format.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 17 Ratings

Not a useful reference, pocket or otherwise - 2006-10-07
Reviewer Rating:
This book has a major deficiency as a reference: you can't easily find a specific topic. The book has no index and the table of contents is too high-level to help you find a particular topic (for example, "vi Commands" as a table of contents entry isn't really going to help you locate a particular command).

The level of detail that is presented varies widely throughout the book. For example, Chapter 4 gives multi-sentence descriptions of the substitute command and regular expressions. Chapter 1 lists each command line option with a brief one-sentence description. Chapter 7 lists the vi options with no descriptions (the name of the option is often not self-explanatory--what does "magic" or "beautify" do?). If something is worth listing in this book, at least give it a brief description.

A quibble is with the four chapters on vi clones. It would have been nice if the author briefly described each of the clones and pointed out their strengths and weaknesses. These four chapters occupy over half of the book, so adding an extra overview paragraph to each chapter would not have significantly added to the bulk of the book.

On the positive side, I found the lists of command line options and vi commands useful.

Instead of buying this book, I would recommend searching for the various vi quick reference guides available on the Web for free. Some might argue that I'm expecting too much from a "pocket reference" and that it is intended for experienced users. My view is that the book could have been so much more useful. As it is, I do not feel the cost of the book is justified by its content.

Vi - your answers - 2006-03-20
Reviewer Rating:
Great Vi book for Unix Beginners. It gives great examples to use the command being inquired.

Commandline editor guide - 2006-01-31
Reviewer Rating:
This is a handy little book to have around if you use the "vi" text editor and haven't mastered all the commands. Or if you use a different text editor regularly, but find yourself in a place that has only vi. I have about 5 of the O'Reilly Pocket reference books and find them handy reminders for languages, etc. This book is not intended to "teach" a person how to use vi. It is what it says, a "reference" to jog your memory or possibly find how to cut and paste text or one of the numerous functions systems folks wind up doing at times. I do prefer a different editor but vi is ubiquitous.

Small Book, Big Help - 2008-10-09
Reviewer Rating:
I use this book as a reference all too often. The authors do a good job at laying this book out, and the secrets of vi are all released in this book. I recommend this book mainly because of it's size. It's small enough to keep on the corner of your desk to reference when you need it.

Necessary? Maybe. - 2008-03-05
Reviewer Rating:
If you use the vi editor often, you won't need this book. If, however, you're like me and use it once in a while to make changes in Linux system files, it can come in handy when you can't remember a command or two.

Also, the cover is darn cute! :-)

So basically this is a quick reference to the vi editor, with additional chapters covering all the other text-based editors that are based on vi (like vim, for instance).

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