[9fans] using sam

[Digby Tarvin digbyt@acm.org]

I am making an effort to feel more comfortable in a native
Plan9 environment by using SAM under X on my unix system.

There are a couple of things which I find a bit awkward,
which keep tempting me back to vi or emacs, which I assume
are probably symtematic of my not using sam optimally.
I would appreciate any tips from sam experts out there.
(And yes - I have read Rob Pike's article in the plan9
documents, and also the tutorial which comes with it..)

The mouse paradigm works really well when I want to do
something that involves selecting arbitrary blocks of
text, but I find that I keep having to reach for the mouse
when I want do simple things like move the cursor, which I
find slows down my editing.

Is there an easy way to move backwards or forwards (or up/down)
in a file using the keyboard? The arrow keys seem to jump whole
screens of information.

Cut and paste is a bit more tedious than just using vi in
combination with X's swipe and paste with middle button.
I guess I am looking for an 'insert highlighted text at
cursor' key or menu option.

Perhaps I should be leaving myself in the sam window more?
Is there a way to get to and from the sam window without using the mouse?
Once there, I find I frequently have trouble getting it to accept
commands. Half the time it just accepts my command as text to be
stored in the buffer, so somehow I need a quick way of getting my
cursor to the end of the buffer where presumably commands will be
accepted (preferably without more mouse reaching)...

Is all of this normal behaviour, or is there a problem with
my sam setup?

Any tips gratefully received.

Thanks,
DigbyT
-- 
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk