Viper provides buffer search, the ability to search the buffer for a region under the cursor. You have to turn this on in .viper either by calling
(viper-buffer-search-enable)
or by setting
viper-buffer-search-char to, say, f3:
(setq viper-buffer-search-char ?g)
If the user calls
viper-buffer-search-enable explicitly (the first
method), then viper-buffer-search-char will be set
to g. Regardless of how this feature is enabled, the
key viper-buffer-search-char will take movement
commands, like w,/,e, to find a region and then search
for the contents of that region. This command is very useful for
searching for variable names, etc., in a program. The search can
be repeated by n or reversed by N.
Emacs provides incremental search. As you type the string in, the cursor will move to the next match. You can snarf words from the buffer as you go along. Incremental Search is normally bound to C-s and C-r. See Customization, to find out how to change the bindings of C-r or C-s. For details, see Incremental Search
Viper also provides a query replace function that prompts through the minibuffer. It is invoked by the Q key in Vi state.
On a window display, Viper supports mouse search, i.e., you can search for a word by clicking on it. See Viper Specials, for details.
Finally, on a window display, Viper highlights search patterns
as it finds them. This is done through what is known as
faces in Emacs. The variable that controls how search
patterns are highlighted is viper-search-face. If
you don't want any highlighting at all, put
(copy-face 'default 'viper-search-face)
in
~/.viper. If you want to
change how patterns are highlighted, you will have to change
viper-search-face to your liking. The easiest way to
do this is to use Emacs customization widget, which is accessible
from the menubar. Viper customization group is located under the
Emulations customization group, which in turn is under
the Editing group (or simply by typing
:customize). All Viper faces are grouped together
under Viper's Highlighting group.
Try it: it is really simple!