Text editors that run from the terminal.

C

CrazedNerd

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I posted a thread a while ago asking people what their favorite text editors are in general, I want to ask here about which terminal text editors you prefer, or your thoughts/opinions on them. I recently stopped using gedit because i realize using tab shortcuts in general disturbs my workflow in comparison to tabs. I've started using terminal tabs with Vim instead. However, i'm not really a huge fan of how Vim is configured from the start even though it's a neat program. Here is my .vimrc file:

Code:
"files must be closed/re-opened for this to take effect"
"creates line numbers"
:set number

"causes F1 to mean ':w Enter'"
nnoremap <F1> :w<CR>

"causes F2 to mean ':wq Enter'"
nnoremap <F2> :wq<CR>

"turns on cursor selection"
set mouse=a

This makes saving/quitting really fast, plus gives me what i liked about gedit and allows me to jump to the end of the document etc. the Vim way. It's cool to be able to erase a line with "dd" in normal mode, but not cool to have to get to a word i want with "33l" and ridiculous stuff like that that requires lots of counting and memorization.

From what I understand, both nano and nice editor have a lot of configuration capacity as well, but not sure if you can do everything i've done here...
 


Vim, always vim - in the terminal, in the GUI and even in other editors (where vim plugins are available, with vim-like keybinds and behaviours.)

At some point I’ll share the most interesting/useful parts of my extensively modified .vimrc!
 
I've forgotten (it was largely muscle memory) the vim bits that I used to know - 'cause I've not used it much in a long time. At one point, I was going to go back and relearn, but I only got as far as compiling resources. Of all of them, this actually looked the most approachable:

 
I've forgotten (it was largely muscle memory) the vim bits that I used to know - 'cause I've not used it much in a long time. At one point, I was going to go back and relearn, but I only got as far as compiling resources. Of all of them, this actually looked the most approachable:

i learned typing through typing video games...it's really funny, when i was in middle school computer lab they made us play mavis beacon to learn how to type, but i didn't just because i hated it so much and didn't really understand how to learn anything. When i was learning computer skills a few years ago, i figured it wouldn't hurt to try it again, but instead not hating it...it only took a couple hours before learning how to type quickly.

Vim gets pretty addictive after using it a few hours...besides more developed IDEs i'd say it's the best text editor possible just because of the huge number of possibilities...i can understand why anyone would hate it or not want to use it though, it has a very steep learning curve. You can program it so that it's a lot faster than an IDE though, i'm not there yet...
 
I learned to type when IRC was new. Prior to that, I hen-pecked many thousands of hours. When IRC rolled up, I just refused to look at my keyboard and memorized the backspace key's location. These days, when I take a typing test, I'm generally over 80 wpm and sometimes over 90 wpm. All 'cause I refused to look at the keyboard to chat on IRC...

These days, nano meets my needs. I don't actually have much in the way of needs.
 
I use echo

Almost as good as edit it in notepad and paste it to the terminal.

I'm surprised no one mentioned pico (before nano)
It was the editor built into 'pine'. A console based email client.
If you think vi is difficult. Try emacs. :)
 
i'm really surprised how much vim users in general like the hjkl keys for navigation...today i switched them back to the arrow keys, and man is the program so much easier to use:

Code:
nnoremap h <Left>
nnoremap j <Down>
nnoremap k <Up>
nnoremap l <Right>

not only can i hit "2<Up>" and very effortlessly/quickly jump two lines, but Visual Line Mode and Insert Mode both use the arrow keys, i hate having to think about directional keys in a different way between the modes...i've been addicted to fooling around with vim for a week now, such an awesome program! I'm going to get murdered for my key mapping, i know it!
 
My go-to console editor is nano, if for nothing else than it's ubiquity and my muscle memory. Used it since my entry into Linux. I've configured a color scheme for it, which makes it a bit nicer.

I'm surprised no one mentioned pico (before nano)
I used pico in the 90s as part of my employer's mail service. Was it also a standalone editor?

My next go-to would be micro, which has a more modern key binding (Ctrl-Q to quit, Ctrl-S to save, etc.), mouse support, and color theming.

Never could quite grasp vi/m editors, and never found a really good reason to learn them.
 
I can't remember where I heard this, but it may have been a comment by Linus, but it may be mangled:
"the measure of a programmer is to be able to write the kernel with cat".
 
My go-to console editor is nano, if for nothing else than it's ubiquity and my muscle memory. Used it since my entry into Linux. I've configured a color scheme for it, which makes it a bit nicer.


I used pico in the 90s as part of my employer's mail service. Was it also a standalone editor?

My next go-to would be micro, which has a more modern key binding (Ctrl-Q to quit, Ctrl-S to save, etc.), mouse support, and color theming.

Never could quite grasp vi/m editors, and never found a really good reason to learn them.
Nano supports Ctrl+S in Debian 10. Found that out by mistake (muscle memory).

<joke>
I use echo and >>. Works wonders.
</joke>
Nah, printf, saves you using -e for multiline stuff.
 
I'm actually kind of dissapointed by vim's keyboard mapping...there's actually a lot you can't do, plus i decided to go back on the arrow key adjustment i made and nothing works to get rid of it, not even getting rid of the .vimrc file temporarily.
 
I use nano; simple and easy to use. I also use kate on the GUI side, it has a vim mode, too - which I never use lol. Oh, another one I've been playing with lately is cuda text; quite handy, if you ask me. There's a lot of add-ons/plugins available you can install to extend its functionalities, too. https://sourceforge.net/projects/cudatext/files/
 
I use nano; simple and easy to use. I also use kate on the GUI side, it has a vim mode, too - which I never use lol. Oh, another one I've been playing with lately is cuda text; quite handy, if you ask me. There's a lot of add-ons/plugins available you can install to extend its functionalities, too. https://sourceforge.net/projects/cudatext/files/
Yeah I'm coming over to the nano camp as well...vim has lots of features but I can't stand the modal thing, especially since we are not in an age of terminal computers. Plus, nano has all of vims best features...you can still jump to the end of the document in a flash, there's still text search, and there's keyboard mapping. Nice editor has macros, but I don’t see the purpose outside of a spreadsheet type program.
 
I'm surprised no one mentioned pico (before nano)

Pico and Pine had licensing issues so they were not included for Linux, hence Nano sought to duplicate the best features of Pico.

Wiz

Avagudweegend
 
Plus, nano has all of vims best features...you can still jump to the end of the document in a flash, there's still text search, and there's keyboard mapping.
Yeah, like I said, it's simple and easy to use yet feature-packed. One of the keys-combo I use quite often is Alt + A to mark a line, then with the arrow keys select text, then Alt + 3 to comment out those lines. :)
 
Pico and Pine had licensing issues so they were not included for Linux, hence Nano sought to duplicate the best features of Pico.
According to apt:
Code:
$ apt show alpine-pico
Package: alpine-pico
Version: 2.24+dfsg1-1
...
Description: Simple text editor from Alpine, a text-based email client
 "pico" is a simple but powerful text editor.  It was originally the pine
 composer,  the editor used by the pine email client for writing email messages.
 .
 It has gained popularity since its initial use in that context and is now used
 as a stand-alone editor by many users.
 .
 It is similar to but less powerful than GNU Nano, an editor created with the
 pico interface when the pico license was non-free.
 
vi: Using me is difficult.
emacs: hold my beer.
 

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