Subject: Vim version 6.0ax BETA is available
From: Bram Moolenaar <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 15:51:23 +0200

Announcing:  Vim (Vi IMproved) version 6.0ax BETA
    Author:  Bram Moolenaar et al.

Announcement
------------

This is a BETA test version of Vim.  Vim 6.0 is a huge step from Vim
5.x.  Many, many new features and improvements have been included.  For
an overview, with a few screendumps, look here:

	http://vim.sf.net/whyvim.php

The past two weeks many bugs have been fixed.  This release is to check
if no mistakes were made.  If nothing important comes up, 6.0 will be
released in a few days.  Thanks to all people who reported problems and
helped fixing them!

If you notice a problem, please report it!  It would be annoying if Vim
6.0 will be released with a problem that could have been fixed if you
would have reported it.

If you are upgrading from Vim 5.x, please look out for problems you run into.
Vim 6.0 is mostly backwards compatible, but not 100%.  Check out ":help
version6" for known incompatibilities.  If you find a problem that can be
solved, please report it to me.

Details about changes since the first beta can be found in these messages:
6.0aq	http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/message/23413
6.0ar	http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/message/23598
6.0as	http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/message/23730
6.0at	http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/message/23941
6.0au	http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/message/24252
6.0av	http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/message/24546
6.0aw	http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/message/24841
6.0ax	http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev/message/25061

You can find the most recent patches here:

	ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/unreleased/patches

What is Vim?
------------

Vim is an almost 100% compatible version of the UNIX editor Vi.  Many new
features have been added: Multi level undo, syntax highlighting, command line
history, filename completion, block operations, etc.  Those who don't know Vi
can probably skip this message, unless you are prepared to learn something new
and useful.  Vim is especially recommended for editing programs.

Vim runs on almost any Unix flavor, MS-DOS, MS-Windows 3.1, MS-Windows
95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP, OS/2, Atari MiNT, BeOS, VMS, RISC OS, Macintosh and
Amiga.

For more information, see http://vim.sf.net.

New since version 5.8
---------------------

The number of changes is huge.  These are just the main new items:

                     Folding - momentarily hide part of the text
    Vertically split windows - mixed with horizontal splits
                   Diff mode - show and remove differences between files
    Easy Vim: click-and-type - for those who really don't like two modes
                 User manual - learn to use Vim, reads like a book
          Flexible indenting - automatic indenting for any language
    Extended search patterns - more regexp power than you will need
               UTF-8 support - Unicode allows editing nearly all languages
      Multi-language support - translated messages and menus
              Plugin support - drop a script in a directory and you can use it
            Filetype plugins - an easy way to setup for editing a type of file
                File browser - browse directories, also on a terminal
Editing files over a network - read and write a remote files directly
 command-line editing window - use any Vim command to edit an Ex command
              Debugging mode - debug your Vim functions and scripts
  Cursor in virtual position - edit tables and draw ASCII pictures
          Debugger interface - use Vim with Sun Visual Workshop
  Communication between Vims - let one Vim tell another Vim what to do
                    Printing - print with syntax colors
           Quickfix extended - see error messages in a window and jump there
      Writing files improved - rename or copy to make a backup file
               Argument list - select groups of files to work on
              Restore a View - save the looks of a window and restore it later
               Color schemes - quickly switch between different color setups

See this page for the details:

	http://vim.sf.net/htmldoc/version6.html

Where to get it
---------------

Information about which files to download for what system:

        http://vim.sf.net/download.php

If you already know what to get, download it from here:

        ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/unreleased

Or use one of the mirrors, see:

        ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/MIRRORS

Mailing lists
-------------

For user questions you can turn to the Vim mailing list.  There are a lot of
tips, scripts and solutions.  You can ask your Vim questions, but only if you
subscribe.  See http://www.vim.org/mail.html.  An archive is kept at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vim.

If you want to help developing Vim or get the latest patches, subscribe to
the vim-dev mailing list.  An archive is kept at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vimdev.

Subject specific lists:
Multi-byte issues: vim-multibyte  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vim-multibyte
Macintosh issues:  vim-mac        http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vim-mac

Reporting bugs
--------------

Send them to <[email-masked]>.  Please describe the problem precisely.  All the
time spent on answering mail is subtracted from the time that is spent on
improving Vim!  Always give a reproducable example and try to find out which
settings or other things influence the appearance of the bug.  Try starting
without your own vimrc file: "vim -u NONE -U NONE".  Try different machines
if possible.  See ":help bugs" in Vim.  Send me a patch if you can!

If something needs discussing with other developers, send a message to the
vim-dev mailing list.  You need to subscribe first.

Happy Vimming!