Re: Hard to switch from vi

[Mathias Dahl]

floyd@apaflo.com (Floyd L. Davidson) writes:

>>To be fair, Emacs is full of modes, all the time you are working in
>>different ones. Most are very similar when it comes to basic text
>>editing, but think about Dired or the M-x prompt, or isearch or...
>
> To be specific, the type of interface used by emacs is known as
> modeless.  It has many modes, but it *automatically* defaults back
> to insert mode when any of the other modes is completed.

>From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modeless):

  Modelessness is a property of computer user interfaces. In a
  modeless interface, the same input from the user will always trigger
  the same perceived action. This is opposed to a modal interface,
  where the action perceived to have been executed is dependent on the
  current state of the system.

  The purpose of modeless interfaces is to avoid mode errors by making
  it impossible for the user to commit them.

If we agree on the definition above, Emacs is indeed a modal
application in many ways.

/Mathias