I’ve used the vi text editor for 13 years now. Under Windows, I’ve used vi clones in several flavors:
- The now-defunct shareware editor “Lemmy” which I’d licensed
- The port of Elvis to Windows
- and finally, when I’ve been able to tolerate it for very long, Vim
I’ve always been ecstatic that Vim exists. I’m more ecstatic lately that I stumbled across Cream (for Vim).
The name was inspired by the convergence of several ideas. The initial thought came from my coffee drinking habits as I usually don’t prefer my coffee “black.” It reminded me of my opinion of Vim at the time–despite its inherent sophistication–I needed something to soften it.
Vim has a steep learning curve. It was not primarily designed to be easy to use, favoring performance and technical flexibility instead. Because it is so different, learning to use Vim takes time.
Cream shapes Vim into an interface you probably already know (sometimes called Common User Access [ext.link] ). Whether you are writing emails or developing large software applications, Cream saves you time and gets you up and running quickly.
If you, like me, are just looking for a vi clone for Windows that has syntax highlighting, I highly recommend Cream instead of plain Vim. Just download, install, configure your preferences (they auto-save), and get to it. You should note that Cream’s default behavior is not like traditional vi (insert/command modes), but it’s easily changed so don’t freak out.
