According to the man page, crontab runs the -e option with either the VISUAL or EDITOR editors. Try echo $VISUAL and echo $EDITOR to see which editor you might be picking up. Then you could change it in your .profile or other shell configuration file. Rudy On Thu, Mar 21, 2024 at 04:14:03PM -0500, Martin McCormick wrote: > After an upgrade to debian bookworm, things were working well in > the command-line mode until I ran crontab -e to edit a crontab > file. > > I've been using the vi editor in unix since 1989 so I'm > used to how it works under the command line and it has always > been surprisingly accessible even under very austere conditions > so I thought nothing about selecting vim as the editor in the > crontab app and then I tried to use it. > > I'm not even sure what it is that gets turned on when > using crontab -e because up to now, it has always just ben like > any ASCII text document. > > Now, the arrow keys do let one step through a line of > text but the j, k, h and l keys uselessly let us hear cursor > positions and not even that fully. We just hear 1 2 3 4, etc as > we move to the right with no feedback at all that identifies what > characters we are passing over. > > If one presses the carriage return, we uselessly hear > more advancing digits and, if we insert characters, we uselessly > hear things like 1,2 1,3 and so on with not a hint as to what we > just typed. This is totally unusable and I don't even know what > mode is turned on when running crontab -e which used to just run > vi on the crontab for one's shell with good feedback. > > If I run a command like > > vi SOMEFILE, I get perfectly normal behavior on somefile and can > edit to my heart's content. When I tried to run the botched form > of crontab, I ended up somehow joining some lines together and > didn't know it until a cronjob failed with odd errors and I > simply ran crontab -l >newfile and then ran vi on that and all > was clear and obvious so, if I can figure out how to lose > whatever that mode is that crontab -e turns on, I will be happy > once again. I suspect that the text characters are immediately > being followed by those darned cursor coordinates such that the > last thing sent is what we hear but whatever it is, I have heard > the same junk output I got once when I accidentally got nano > started on a document some years ago and couldn't get out of nano > fast enough. The only useful thing I found about nano was that > ctrl-x triggers the prompt to save everything or not and I answer > no and make sure vi runs next time. Another strategy might be to > turn off speech while typing and lose all feedback but that is > extreme to say the least. > > Thanks for any and all constructive suggestions. > > Martin > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to blinux-list+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxx. -- Rudy Vener Website: http://www.rudyvener.com Check out my latest story: Dwindling at http://www.starshipsofa.com/blog/2024/02/14/starshipsofa-726-rudy-vener/ Need a Limerick Fix? Visit https://limerickdude.substack.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to blinux-list+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxx.