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A-Shell Reference

vue {-r} {-t} {-w} {-y} filename

The vue command is a reasonably complete implementation of a powerful text editor with a similar look and feel to VUE version 3.0. It is available in standalone versions for Unix, as a convenience to those old-timers who prefer it over more popular native editors. Its operation is identical to that of the A-Shell command program, with the exception that the search path for ini.vue is expanded to include /etc/ini.vue (with priority over any other copy of ini.vue.) The available switches are as follows:

Switches

r:   read only mode

The -r switch invokes read only mode. All functions work normally except you cannot save the file.

t:   trace ini file processing

The -t switch causes certain details relating to the locating and processing of the ini.vue file to be displayed on the terminal. This can be useful when trying to figure out why your ini.vue parameters do not seem to be working properly.

w: start in wide (132 column) mode

The -w switch will cause vue to switch immediately to 132 column mode (if the terminal supports it.) You can also switch between 80 and 132 column display from the vue command mode using the WIDE and NARROW commands.

y:  create file if not already existing

The -y switch will cause the file to be automatically created if it doesn’t already exist. Otherwise, vue will ask you if you want the file created.

Comments

It is not necessary for the MIAME environment variable to be set in order to use AshellVUE. Function keys, however, will not work unless the vux file can be located in DSK0:[7,0], which does require that the MIAME environment be set up. Similarly, the help files are expected to be found in the directory corresponding to DSK0:[7,1]. The typical way to take care of this in standalone Unix implementations is to store all of the VUE-related files in /usr/lib/ashellvue, either add that to the PATH or define the MIAME environment variable to point to that directory, and then create a miame.ini (in the same directory) which contains the following lines:

LANGUAGE=/usr/lib/ashellvue/englsh.ldf  ; LDF file

DEVICE=DSK0:[7,0]  /usr/lib/ashellvue/  ; location of VUX files

DEVICE=DSK0:[7,1]  /usr/lib/ashellvue/  ; location of HLV files

 

Under Unix, you can establish VUE as your standard editor by setting the EDITOR environment variable.

Under Unix, file names are typically lowercase, and thus VUE will fold a specified filename to lower case if it doesn’t already exist in upper case. A simple way to force it to use upper case is to prepend a relative or absolute directory specifier such as "./" to the filename (e.g. $ vue ./README.TXT)

If you would like a Windows standalone version of VUE, the best approach is to create a DO file (call it avue.do) that logs you in and executes "VUE $0 $1 $2 $3 $4". You can then associate particular file extensions (e.g. LST, TXT, etc.) using the Windows explorer with an A-Shell command line that might look something like: c:\vm\miame\bin\ashw32.exe –e –i c:\vm\miame\miame.ini "%1". Then when you double-clicked on a file with the proper extension, Windows would launch an A-Shell session and bring up the file in VUE. Alternately you could create a BAT file to launch A-Shell with the specified argument.