VIW (Windows Editor) Screwed Up

[Paul McKneely]

I deleted history in SeaMonkey and now the windowed editor always acts
like VI. I hate VI. How can I get it back to normal. I tried deleting
eddat\weditor.ini and it doesn't do anything. I guess something in the
registry was screwed up. Maybe it was an environment variable.

[Hans-Bernhard Bröker]

Post by Paul McKneely
I deleted history in SeaMonkey and now the windowed editor always acts
like VI. I hate VI. How can I get it back to normal. I tried deleting
eddat\weditor.ini and it doesn't do anything.

That's because that's not the file holding your active configuration.
That one is in your home directory. But you shouldn't delete it. Just
go to the configuration menu (Options -> General...), and turn off VI
mode, then save the configuration again.

And no, deleting the copy in eddat was no good idea.

[Paul McKneely]

Post by Hans-Bernhard Bröker
That's because that's not the file holding your active configuration.
That one is in your home directory. But you shouldn't delete it. Just
go to the configuration menu (Options -> General...), and turn off VI
mode, then save the configuration again.
And no, deleting the copy in eddat was no good idea.

The editor comes up with only the window frame. There is no line with
drop-down options at the top so I can't select the Options the way it
is. Also, I am unaware of where my "home directory" is. If I go into the
Users directory from C: and my user name under that, I can't see any
file that might be the saved configuration. Also, I didn't actually
delete the configuration file in eddat. I renamed it. Somewhere I read
in the Watcom notes that, if you delete the file, a new one will be
created the next time you run the editor. Where is this "home directory"
you refer to and what is the file name (same name as the
one in eddat?)?

[Hans-Bernhard Bröker]

Post by Paul McKneely
The editor comes up with only the window frame. There is no line with
drop-down options at the top so I can't select the Options the way it
is.

That would indicate more than just the VI mode option is currently
broken. Your active copy must have gotten royally screwed up.

Post by Paul McKneely
Also, I am unaware of where my "home directory" is. If I go into the
Users directory from C: and my user name under that, I can't see any
file that might be the saved configuration.

You didn't look hard enough :-) The directory in question is best
referred to as

"%APPDATA%\Open Watcom"

The value of %APPDATA% varies with the version of Windows and some of
its environment properties, but it's usually somewhere below your home
directory. The appdata directory may be hidden from plain sight by
default settings of explorer and the command line, but you can see it in
a console window if you know how:

cd /d "%APPDATA%\Open Watcom"
dir

Post by Paul McKneely
Somewhere I read
in the Watcom notes that, if you delete the file, a new one will be
created the next time you run the editor.

That's for _your_ copy. The file you moved away is the master copy that
this new one would be built from.

[Paul S. Person]

On Sun, 18 Jun 2017 18:33:36 +0200, Hans-Bernhard Bröker

Post by Hans-Bernhard Bröker

Post by Paul McKneely
The editor comes up with only the window frame. There is no line with
drop-down options at the top so I can't select the Options the way it
is.

That would indicate more than just the VI mode option is currently
broken. Your active copy must have gotten royally screwed up.

Re-installation time?

[Hans-Bernhard Bröker]

Post by Paul S. Person
On Sun, 18 Jun 2017 18:33:36 +0200, Hans-Bernhard Bröker

Post by Hans-Bernhard Bröker

Post by Paul McKneely
The editor comes up with only the window frame. There is no line with
drop-down options at the top so I can't select the Options the way it
is.

That would indicate more than just the VI mode option is currently
broken. Your active copy must have gotten royally screwed up.

Re-installation time?

I doubt that would help much in this particular situation.
Re-installation will fix problems with files in the %WATCOM% tree, but
not affect editor configuration files kept in the user's own directory.
So the first order of business here must be to find and move away the
files in %APPDATA%\Open Watcom, then see if that helps.

The only other thing that comes to mind is that the OP might have lost
his WATCOM environment variable altogether, so VIW.exe cannot find
_anything_ any more; or he could have define EDPATH to some nonsensical
value.

[Paul S. Person]

On Mon, 19 Jun 2017 22:33:20 +0200, Hans-Bernhard Bröker

Post by Hans-Bernhard Bröker

Post by Paul S. Person
On Sun, 18 Jun 2017 18:33:36 +0200, Hans-Bernhard Bröker

Post by Hans-Bernhard Bröker

Post by Paul McKneely
The editor comes up with only the window frame. There is no line with
drop-down options at the top so I can't select the Options the way it
is.

That would indicate more than just the VI mode option is currently
broken. Your active copy must have gotten royally screwed up.

Re-installation time?

I doubt that would help much in this particular situation.
Re-installation will fix problems with files in the %WATCOM% tree, but
not affect editor configuration files kept in the user's own directory.
So the first order of business here must be to find and move away the
files in %APPDATA%\Open Watcom, then see if that helps.

Perhaps I have misunderstood the facts.

I thought it was estabished the the OP had /deleted/ the master copy,
and so deleting the local copy and restarting viw would not work.

Reinstalling should restore the master copy, allowing viw to recreate
a local copy from it.

Post by Hans-Bernhard Bröker
The only other thing that comes to mind is that the OP might have lost
his WATCOM environment variable altogether, so VIW.exe cannot find
_anything_ any more; or he could have define EDPATH to some nonsensical
value.

Yes, those certainly are possible.