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.

Comments

Random bugfixes, good

[Anonymous Coward]

I always prefer random fixes instead of carefully planned specific fixes.

Nano is not a command line editor

[ShanghaiBill]

Nano is a full screen text editor.
Ed is a command line editor.
Have Slashdot editors never used a teletype?

Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Nice

[jeffmeden]

It's easy. You just use "vi [filename]" and then inside the file you hit lower case i to actually edit it and then escape to stop editing it and then ctrl to activate the command prompt inside vi and w to write it and exclamation mark because youre sure you want to save it and then q to quit.

And after that I have configured resolv.conf and apt.sources to the point where I can just install nano and get back to work.

Re:This is a great excuse

[mcrbids]

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 wonder when

[RightwingNutjob]

systemd will get an integrated text editor with emacs, vi and nano emulation modes...

Real programmers

[Antique Geekmeister]

Does it have the butterfly macro for real programmers?

            https://xkcd.com/378/

Re:More help needed

[Trepidity]

I would simply like if it explained how to cut and paste multiple lines of text at the same time.

Use Alt+a to set a mark for the start of highlighting, then move your cursor to the desired end of the highlighted region. Now if you copy or cut, it'll operate on the highlighted region.