UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi all--

I'm using a SunOS machine at my campus and my pageup and pagedown keys are unresponsive inside of vi.

I'm not too thrilled about using ctrl+f and ctrl+b to do this operation, so I'm wondering how I might remap these keys to scroll up in down within the terminal as opposed to scrolling the actual terminal up and down.

The same occurs with the home and end keys, and I am looking to remap those as well.

Any thoughts?

Hi,

I don't work with SunOs, but what about mapping them?? Is it possible?? (Not tested)
(Inside Vi)

Code:

:map <PageUp> <C-b>
:map <PageDown> <C-f>

Use other keys if PageUp and PageDown cannot be used, like:

Code:

:map ,b <C-b>
:map ,f <C-f>

I hope it helps.

Regards,
Birei

You will need to create a ".exrc" file in your home directory. The "vi" editor looks for this file to to map the keyboard to "vi" functions such as "page up", "page down", "insert" etc..
Please post your Operating System version (blotting anything private) because the term "SUNOS" covers umpteen years of Sun Operating Systems. Please post your terminal type. I may not be able to provide a suitable .exrc (unless I have had your SunOS version in the past) but there are many Sun unix users on this board.

Code:

uname -a
echo $TERM

SunOS marge 5.10 Generic_142910-17 i86pc i386 i86pc Solaris
xterm

This can be a bit of trial-and-error.

This in a .exrc file worked for me on Sunos with vt220 emulation and X-Windows. I have used "cat -v" to display the contents of the file because it contains control codes.
For example where we have "^[" this is actually the Escape character. Where we have "^B" this is the control code ctrl/B.
Notice the mapping to k,j,h,l - the basic "vi" cursor movement keys.
We are mapping what the keyboard generates to what "vi" expects.
The real control code needs to be in the .exrc file - not the ascii characters ^key.

Code:

 Within the .exrc file

map ^[[A k
map ^[[B j
map ^[[D h
map ^[[C l
map ^[[2~ i
map ^[[5~ ^B
map ^[[6~ ^F

That specific .exrc text didn't work in this case.

How might I determine the character code for these keys?

I know ctrl+v + key usually works, but it isn't for reasons I do not know

What I do is use "vi" and ctrl/V to generate the escape sequence.

vi .exrc
^V <then press the control key concerned>, then the rest of the escape sequence, then space character, then press the key vi expects using ^V if necessary.