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GNU Nano Gets New Stable Release
jones_supa writes: GNU Nano 2.4.0 has been released as the first stable update to this UNIX command line text editor in a number of years. The release codenamed "Lizf" brings a wide variety of changes: full undo system, Vim-compatible file locking, linter support, formatter support, flexible syntax highlighting, and random bugfixes.
I always prefer random fixes instead of carefully planned specific fixes.
Nano is a full screen text editor.
Ed is a command line editor.
Have Slashdot editors never used a teletype?
For me, nano fulfills a vital role:
When some inexperienced Linux user has to edit some file in some form of Linux and there is no gui available, I point them to nano, because it behaves pretty closely to what they expect from a text editor (which tends to be something like notepad...sigh).
The other, most common alternatives aren't nice for newcomers. vi comes preinstalled in most *nixes, but it is just alien to your average user, and emacs - though it behaves more like what users expect - always ends confusing them because of the key chords (and it doesn't come installed in most distros, if I am not mistaken).
nano is simple enough and good enough to get the job done, and most Linuxes have it pre-installed.
So, thank you nano developers. Keep up the good work!
I'm a *nix neckbeard, I respect my skills, and I use nano daily. It's a simple, fast, straightforward editor with controls similar to Word Star. Ctl-K to delete line, etc. As I've been busy building my neckbeard for 15 years or so now, and originally learned word processing with WordStar, it's a simple, natural fit.
I code in NetBeans with an IDE but for sysadmin work on any of the 50 or so servers I admin? Nano + mercurial all the way.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
systemd will get an integrated text editor with emacs, vi and nano emulation modes...
Does it have the butterfly macro for real programmers?
https://xkcd.com/378/
The tiny editors do have their uses. They tend _not_ to require dozens of unrelated and bulky graphical packages to support them, the failure of any of which can disable the graphical editor. And they work well over poor bandwidth connections to remote servers, and even work well on overburdened, very lightweight virtualization servers for software routers or proxies.
So making them work really well can save work time and be very appreciated by people doing critical work with very real constraints.
Even modern, GUI based systems have tools that work outside the GUI, or in a text-mode terminal of some kind.
Maintaining such tools is just as needed as maintaining other parts of a system. Or creating new bits, for that matter. If not done, it would only be a matter of time before you'd have (badly) broken bits of software all over the place. To the point where a system becomes unusable to do real work. Text mode editors are just one of many components of modern systems (and imho, not in the "buggy whip" department anyway).
Besides: many people use it. Among other reasons, probably because it saves them time, or does some jobs better than other editors. As long as there are enough users, that alone makes developer's time well spent.
I would simply like if it explained how to cut and paste multiple lines of text at the same time. For that task I have to reach for the mouse (the block of text needs to fit on the screen) or use a graphical editor - that'd be pluma or leafpad, to be free of bullshit.
That was still easier in MS-DOS EDIT.
By the way : (shit, I put it in a pastebin because of the slashdot filter)
http://dpaste.com/3210G6K
It has qwerty-isms. That's perhaps one of my bigger peeves with Free software. The video games in linux are worst, they're likely to be playable with a qwerty keymap only. DOS/Windows games of the 90s at least just read the raw scan codes so the keyboard acted as if it was qwerty.
I use nano because for me it is the best text-mode "text editor". I use it to "edit text". Not for coding, which I guess is what you're talking about. For just "editing text", nano is the most user-friendly. There's no need for all those advanced features you mention when all I want to do is "edit text files". I'm talking about plain "text files", the kind that just have words and punctuation and none of the code tags or whatever that needs to be syntax highlighted. Just normal words in English or other language and none of the programming words that need to be auto-completed. You know what I mean?
Don't fornicate. Seriously, just don't do it.