Nano 8.0 Text Editor Released With Modern Bindings Option

[F.Ultra]

I have been using nano quite a bit for coding in both C and PHP as well as other random stuff like 6510 assembly etc. It is by far my favorite editor. The 'modern' key bindings might take some time getting used to, but inn theory i am all for a uniform way of doing things. However at the same time I am thinking who the hell decided that Ctrl+C/V was sensible for copy paste. Ctrl+C are supposed to stop execution and Ctrl/shift+insert never hurted anybody anyway.

The super+c, +x and +v key-bindings were first used by Apple in their Lisa computer back in 1983 and Microsoft copied it into Windows 1.0 (they used the Insert/Del and shift/ctrl keys in DOS).

[S.Pam]

I don't quite get why some distributions set this as a default editor. Just recently I noticed one of my Fedora systems opening up nano as $EDITOR. The system itself is huge, the reason can not possibly be <0.1% of disk space savings?

I suppose it is simply because nano is a lot easer to use for the majority of people. Nano has the key shortcuts to save and exit visible at the bottom of the screen, while Vi/Vim does not.

Yes, I know the vi/emacs crowd is out there, but they know how to install their tools anyway.

[bug77]

It's justabout what you learned. There is nothing intuitive about nano if you're somebody used to vim keybindings.

Navigating around with arrow keys and entering weird key combos to quit/save is how I experience it whenever I'm thrown into it. Very similar feeling to how somebody unfamiliar with vim bindings describes it when they get thrown into vim.

I'm using the commandline for a lot of my daily tasks and Nano feels weird to me.

Oh, but it is. If you use an editor infrequently (which is common these days, with so many good GUIs out there), nano bothers to put the most common shortcuts in front of your eyes, so you can do most of the work without googling. That on its own is huge win in my book.

[Chugworth]

Nano has the key shortcuts to save and exit visible at the bottom of the screen, while Vi/Vim does not.

Wasted space. Everyone should have their text editor shortcuts memorized.

[bachchain]

Wasted space. Everyone should have their text editor shortcuts memorized.

Why would I waste valuable time memorizing arbitrary key sequences? I thought masturbating over efficiency was Vim's whole shtick.

[S.Pam]

Wasted space. Everyone should have their text editor shortcuts memorized.

Absolutely, and when you have done so, sinply "set nohelp" to disable it

[NateHubbard]

However at the same time I am thinking who the hell decided that Ctrl+C/V was sensible for copy paste.

It probably made a lot of sense in the early 80s on an Apple.

[uid313]

So to use the modern keybindings you have to run it with the --modernbindings option which users not going to bother to do, especially newcomers. They should just use the modern keybindings by default.

Also what's this that nano has to be compiled with --enable-utf8 option, that is stupid, it is 2024, they should remove that compile-time option and always compile with UTF-8 support.

[Daktyl198]

Micro is just a better editor in every single way, including "normal" bindings, other than install size. And it's still only 12.5 MB on disk. I don't understand how nano is still the default editor other than the fact that it's a GNU project. I highly recommend anybody needing a simple TUI editor that isn't Vim to check it out. I've even modified my windows install to use it instead of Notepad.

[toves]

If you are/were a user of the Pine/Alpine mail client the old nano key bindings are likely familiar. Nano was a GPL rewrite of the editor Pico which was covered by Washington Uni's licensing at the time.

Personally I configured Pine to invoke vi for composition but Pico was the goto editor on Unix boxes for users from msdos/macos/windows environments.

I reckoned that they would find emacs or vi without my assistance (or not.)

Back then knowing /bin/ed was much more useful as that was normally all you had when you were dumped into single user on booting - usually a stuffed up config file.

Michael J Lucas' Ed Mastery is highly recommended for those not having had that pleasure.
He even has the misogynist's Manly McManface version - it costs more but you expect to pay more for (ine)quality.