Answer to :ab Overload Exercise

In every case, the other meaning would prevail over the :ab meaning. Reason: all the other metacharacters and metastrings take effect as soon as the last character of the string is typed in. But an abbreviation doesn't take effect until you type the next following character in, proving that your string was a word by itself. So the other metavalue will always be triggered first.

Back to the question

Answer to Multi-Line Problem

There are various uses for making some source-file commands unexecutable from screen mode. Here are two examples.

1. You have a source file that makes complex changes in a certain area of your file, then prints the modified lines so you can look over the changes. But when you are in screen mode, the changes are displayed anyway, so the line-mode print command only duplicates the display -- but it does require you to hit the return key and wait for a screen repaint before you can continue screen editing. Putting the command to print on a second line makes sure printing will only happen when you need it.
2. Your source file automates a lot of detail when you are doing a routine cleanup of an imported file while in line mode. But when the file is too messed up for a blind cleanup from line mode, and you must work from screen mode, a few of the commands in your source file are likely to do more harm than good. When those few commands are on a second line in the file, they only run when you are doing routine work from line mode.

Back to the question

Back to the index