Supported editors

The BlackBerry 10 OS includes and supports these editors:

vi (or elvis)

A powerful, but somewhat cryptic text-based editor that you'll find in most—if not all—UNIX-style operating systems. It's actually the Visual Interface to an editor called ex.

On BlackBerry 10 OS, vi is a symbolic link to elvis. To start vi, type:

elvis filename

The vi editor has two modes:

Command mode: The keyboard is mapped to a set of command shortcuts used to navigate and edit text; vi commands consist of one or more letters, but ex commands start with a colon (:).
Insert mode: Lets you type normally.

To switch to command mode, press Esc; to switch to input mode, press one of:

I or i to insert at the beginning of the current line or before the cursor
A or a to append text at the end of the current line or after the cursor
O or o to open a new line above or below the cursor

The two modes can make vi very confusing for a new user; by default, vi doesn't tell you which mode you're in. If you type this when you're in command mode:

:set showmode

the editor indicates the current mode, in the lower right corner of the display. If you always want this option set, you can add this command—without the colon—to the profile for vi, $HOME/.exrc.

Here are some of the vi commands that you'll use a lot:

To:	Press:
Leave vi without saving any changes	:q!
Save the current file	:w
Save the current file, and then exit	:wq, :x, or ZZ
Move the cursor to the left	h (see below)
Move the cursor to the right	l (see below)
Move the cursor up one line	k (see below)
Move the cursor down one line	j (see below)
Move to the beginning of the next word	w
Move to the end of the current or next word (depending on the cursor position)	e
Move to the beginning of the current or previous word (depending on the cursor position)	b
Page back	Ctrl B
Page forward	Ctrl F
Yank (copy) the current line	yy
Yank from the cursor to the end of the current word	yw
Delete from the cursor to the end of the current word	dw
Delete the current line	dd
Paste text before the cursor	P
Paste text after the cursor	p

Note: In some implementations of vi—including BlackBerry 10 OS's—you can also use the arrow keys to move the cursor, whether you're in command or input mode.

You can combine the commands to make them even more useful; for example, type a number before dd to delete several lines at once. In addition, vi has 26 named buffers that let you easily cut or copy and paste different blocks of text.

You can find numerous resources, tutorials, and command summaries online. In BlackBerry 10 OS, vi is actually a link to elvis ; see the Utilities Reference.

Integrated Development Environment (IDE) editors

On Linux and Windows, the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) incorporates various specialized editors for creating C and C++ programs, buildfiles, and so on. For more information, see the IDE User's Guide .