The Effects of Modes on Text Editing by Experienced Editor Users

Abstract

Experienced nonclerical users of two screen editors, vi and emacs, were asked to do a series of editing and composition tasks. The results suggest that moded editing, as exemplified by the vi editor, may be preferable far fixed editing tasks, whereas modeless editing, as exemplified by the emacs editor, may have some advantages during composing. The vi subjects left fewer errors in their final files and showed a tendency to do the editing tasks faster, though the time differences may have resulted from differences in typing rates. They made few mode errors, and those few were rapidly and easily corrected. The emacs subjects tended to do more of their editing during the first-draft stage of composing than did the vi subjects; this result agrees with the hypothesis that modeless editing is more flexible than moded editing. However, the total editing done while composing, the composing time, and most writing-style variables were similar far the two groups.