Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Customize Nano Text Editor (2022)

shafi.ddns.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 69 posts

Re: Customize Nano Text Editor (2022)

#11

Post by ziotom78 »

jasperry wrote: post #7

The line numbers and position bar are some real quality-of-life enhancements! I don't regularly use nano anymore, but I have often thought that more programs should imitate the way it shows the command shortcuts on-screen as a kind of instant tutorial. I remember my physics major friends in college thinking it was pure snobbery for vi not to do that by default. Back then we were dialing in to an HP-UX server and usin…

Absolutely, the shortcut help is so useful!

I believe that Nano and Pico copied it from Wordstar.

Re: Customize Nano Text Editor (2022)

#12

Post by chawyehsu »

It seems few people are aware of how customizable nano actually is. Usually, they use nano with the default preset for quick bootstrapping tasks and then switch to vim without hesitation. While vim/neovim are certainly very powerful, nano remains my go-to editor for many quick terminal operations. I've customized it quite a bit[1], especially the key bindings, though the defaults are already excellent.

[1]: https://github.com/chawyehsu/dotfiles/blob/main/.config/nano...

Re: Customize Nano Text Editor (2022)

#13

Post by flkiwi »

its_notjack wrote: post #4

I must have used nano for years at this point, and I'm shocked to find out how customisable nano actually is! I tend to use micro[0] on most of my systems now just because it comes with really lovely defaults and keybindings that are a bit more familiar, but this might make me take a second look at nano in future. [0] https://micro-editor.github.io/

Same same. Never even occurred to me to look. That's the risk of a (successful) low-friction product though: you use it in quick bursts where the tool is necessary but largely invisible, and you never invest in learning more about it because it works so well with the defaults. There's probably a profound strategic insight buried in there somewhere.

Re: Customize Nano Text Editor (2022)

#17

Post by positron26 »

Right after the nano maintainer got bullied out by the FSF, I noticed two bindings got their defaults changed. They never change. I almost feel like it was graffiti, a flex against the old maintainer, a retribution for not doing whatever the FSF wanted.

Since forever, GNU readline programs and nano had identical bindings. I'm fast moving around the CLI because I'm fast at nano. Emacs has the same defaults. What sane organization only abandons their own defaults and prioritizes that work after pushing the existing maintainer out (or irritating them enough to accomplish this)?

Re: Customize Nano Text Editor (2022)

#18

Post by tpoacher »

its_notjack wrote: post #4

I must have used nano for years at this point, and I'm shocked to find out how customisable nano actually is! I tend to use micro[0] on most of my systems now just because it comes with really lovely defaults and keybindings that are a bit more familiar, but this might make me take a second look at nano in future. [0] https://micro-editor.github.io/

It's not just customisable, it's also insanely scriptable. Any action that you can do in nano itself corresponds to a command, and you can create "string macros" that you can bind to key combinations. Additionally it can execute external commands on any nano buffer and return the result. Combining the two is very powerful.

E.g. I have a configuration which allows me to use nano while editing pdf side-by-side, and be able to click on the pdf and land in the correct line in nano, and vice-versa. (and obviously compiling the latex document itself happens via a custom keystroke).

Re: Customize Nano Text Editor (2022)

#19

Post by digisign »

its_notjack wrote: post #4

I must have used nano for years at this point, and I'm shocked to find out how customisable nano actually is! I tend to use micro[0] on most of my systems now just because it comes with really lovely defaults and keybindings that are a bit more familiar, but this might make me take a second look at nano in future. [0] https://micro-editor.github.io/

Before I used micro & ne I used nano, and configured the keybindings to work in the CUA style. I still have the dot files, didn't delete them, but they rarely get used anymore.

I think they recently added Ctrl+S to save by default, even if unconfigured, woohoo.

Post reply on HN