GNU Nano 4.0 Text Editor Released

[F.Ultra]

GUI editors have more features than vim, and in other cases, allow you to do the same vim features without memorizing stuff like keyboard shortcuts or regex patterns.
Nano is as straight-forward as it gets. For the most part it works the same way as most graphical text editors except it has different keyboard shortcuts. But, it tells you what the keyboard shortcuts are at the bottom of the screen, so it's hard to screw it up. The only CLI text editor I've found to be easier is jed.

The same way you would with any graphical text editor... Go to the end of the line and press the delete key... It even responds to stuff like the Home, End, and Page Up/Down keys the same way as any other non-vi program. You're over-complicating it.

Well since he's a vim user he was probably looking for some obscure key sequence to enter "delete with insert" mode... I might have missed the "beauty" of vim et al but for me it all ended when I realized that I had to put the editor into insert mode to be able to enter text as if that wasn't why I fired up the editor in the first place.

Not so fond memories was of some old SUN boxes from Reuters (now Refinitiv) where the only text editor installed was vim and if you pressed the wrong key the whole box just froze and you got an eternally scrolling raster bar.

[sabriah]

Apart from nano I also use mc [Midnight Commander] as file manager, as I got used to Norton Commander in the 80s... Bad habits die hard.

I never worked very fast using vim or emacs, largely because I never gave them enough time to become second nature.

[kpedersen]

I find it interesting that the compiler wars between Vim and Emacs has virtually disappeared. Same with Gnome vs KDE. The only difference is that both Vim and Emacs remain usable

For me, over SSH Vim (and Emacs) beats Nano here purely because of the communication between the compiler and other CLI tools I use. Work involves more than just a text editor and if the editor cannot easily get me the compile errors or recall previous commands, it doesn't seem to be the right tool for the job.

You could argue with "modern" things like terminal multiplexers (tmux, screen) or even job control (ctrl-z), you can suspend the program whilst you use the other CLI tools, but things like copy and paste between tools is simply not as elegant.

[LaeMing]

Nano? That's like a text editor with training wheels. For serious text editing, you need to use Vim.

More like a short range electric cart. I don't really need to fire up the leer jet and arrange flight clearance to get my groceries!, or open a mega-editor to adjust my fstab! :-)

[GI_Jack]

I didn't think fans of Nano even existed o.O
Let there be only Vim.

*the music stops, and the sound of hundreds of knifes and broadswords unsheathing cackles like a summer thunderstorm*

[jc15]

I switched from nano to dte a while back. It's a simple editor like nano, but way more flexible and configurable.

[AndyChow]

I use nano all the time when I'm just looking to edit a config file. I never learned VI, because every time I type "i" to insert some text, next thing I know I'm deleting lines or truncating stuff all over the place. Emacs is overkill in most situations.

[krell]

I am a pervert, I use vim mode inside of emacs.
btw Sun boxes never shipped with vim but rather vi of which there are
several clones.

[man-walking]

The way it's done, Nano has always transmitted me an illogical and harsh feeling, with the result making me always losing more time, archaic standard key bindings...
Just for ex. after opening the help command list, you won't find in first the shortcuts listing those you would need often, the list mix pretty frequent actions used with very specific ones, it seems not having ability to open/add a new file from the interface.
I usually use "Nice Editor", it's pretty straightforward in most things, standard keybindings, drop down menus, selectable syntax highlighting and more

[masinick]

When I was active in software development, maintenance and testing, GNU Emacs was my development editor of choice, vi was my editor for administration and configuration changes.

More recently editors with great XML and Web tools took on a greater importance.

As the development and testing technical details lessened and the simplicity of the interfaces - or the items that requiring change simplified because of the more complex software, more and more something as simple as a notepad editor became plausible for quite a few tasks.

Pico had been around for a while when GNU nano became common. In recent years some kind of notepad editor has been widely available. Windows has notepad, but their implementation is minimal. Nano has user interface simplicity yet the total feature set beats MS notepad and has become widely available in free software.

It's not the only editor that I use, but it's a common thing in my toolbox for many tasks today.