The MAINVI front end is provided so that users of vi can immediately start using the XIDAK's MAINEDIT text editor with a minimum of training. The text editor provides multiple windows, multiple buffers, and display interfaces to important MAINSAIL tools, including MAINDEBUG, the MAINSAIL debugger. MAINVI is not intended to be an exact emulation of vi; the MAINVI command structures and key sequences are as similar as possible to vi's, but screen refresh is often different.

This document describes only the differences between MAINVI and vi; a standard reference should be consulted if you are unfamiliar with the original text editor. Most UNIX system documents include a description of vi.