GNU Nano 4.0 Text Editor Released

[sykobee]

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

I've been using it for nearly 23 years (well, when it was pico before GNU reimplemented it, and I used it with pine).

So this is pretty big news.

And as all systems have it pre-installed, no excuse to not at least know the simple basic commands it offers.

And no frickin' modal interface!

[Zucca]

cybertraveler, schmidtbag: Thank you both.

[Hi-Angel]

That's, at minimum, two key presses:

1. SHIFT
2. J

If you're currently in insert mode, that's 3 key presses:

1. ESC
2. SHIFT
3. J

With Nano it would be 1 to 3 key presses:

1. END (if not already at the end of the line)
2. SPACE (if needed)
3. DEL

(Obviously I am assuming a typical keyboard with a standard configuration of both editors.)

Nope. If you have the following text:

void foo( arg1,
          arg2);

what gonna happen when you try to join it by just deleting a newline? You gonna get a bunch of whitespace between arg1 and arg2

[Hi-Angel]

Yes, and it's also a good program for people to learn vim. But beyond that, I'd rather just use console-based vim or a GUI editor.

Unless I'm missing something, GVim is a "GUI editor". And FWIW, I never understood why are people so like using terminal version of vim (well, besides places where you have no choice, such as ssh sessions).

[schmidtbag]

Unless I'm missing something, GVim is a "GUI editor". And FWIW, I never understood why are people so like using terminal version of vim (well, besides places where you have no choice, such as ssh sessions).

It is; Sorry, I wasn't being very clear. I meant to say "another GUI editor", like Atom, KATE, gedit, Geany, Visual Studio Code, and so on. To my recollection, GVim is basically just vim with some menu shortcuts to substitute some keyboard shortcuts and more mouse control, but it doesn't have all of the features that other GUI tools might have.
Using the terminal version of vim has its uses. For one, it's incredibly light-weight, but if you're SSH'ing into another system, it gives you a lot of power and you'll be almost guaranteed it (or some other vi-variant) will be there. For anyone using vim with local editing, I guess that really just comes down to personal preference.

[Hi-Angel]

It is; Sorry, I wasn't being very clear. I meant to say "another GUI editor", like Atom, KATE, gedit, Geany, Visual Studio Code, and so on. To my recollection, GVim is basically just vim with some menu shortcuts to substitute some keyboard shortcuts and more mouse control, but it doesn't have all of the features that other GUI tools might have.
Using the terminal version of vim has its uses. For one, it's incredibly light-weight, but if you're SSH'ing into another system, it gives you a lot of power and you'll be almost guaranteed it (or some other vi-variant) will be there. For anyone using vim with local editing, I guess that really just comes down to personal preference.

Well, I just opened GVim, and I see in menus stuff like syntax highlight, "make", set compiler, errors window, "convert to HTML", folding, spelling, find&replace, settings… What else do you have in mind that is not there? I don't see "go to definition", but maybe it's just because I didn't load "tags", or whatever else vim supports for code navigation. EDIT: ok, I just missed it, there are menus for bulding tags and their navigation.

[cybertraveler]

Nope. If you have the following text:

void foo( arg1,
arg2);

what gonna happen when you try to join it by just deleting a newline? You gonna get a bunch of whitespace between arg1 and arg2

Good catch. I did actually think of that after writing it. That is a case where you'd have to keep hitting the DEL key after killing the new line. However: most of my point still stands: Vim is never one key press by default and Nano can be the same number of key presses or less in some circumstances. More keypresses in others.

For the record: I am neither for or against Vim. I definitely understand why many people love it. Likewise I see why people love Nano, Emacs and the various GUI editors out there.

Even though it's not at all to my taste, I can even understand why some people love gigantic IDEs like Visual Studio.

[cybertraveler]

I'm wondering if Michael has me on some kind of watch list now. I think I've had at least 4 unapproved posts in 2 days. Have I been naughty? :P

Or maybe I did something to offend the vBulletin anti-spam plugin.

[schmidtbag]

Well, I just opened GVim, and I see in menus stuff like syntax highlight, "make", set compiler, errors window, "convert to HTML", folding, spelling, find&replace, settings… What else do you have in mind that is not there? I don't see "go to definition", but maybe it's just because I didn't load "tags", or whatever else vim supports for code navigation. EDIT: ok, I just missed it, there are menus for bulding tags and their navigation.

Doesn't regular vim support most of that stuff, just without a clickable menu?
It's been a while since I've used GVim so it's hard for me to remember what it supports and what it doesn't. But off the top of my head, other GUI editors allow stuff like color-coded tabs, automatic bracketing, a mini-map, autocompletion, visibly "collapsing" your code's bracketed functions, bookmarked positions within files, a tree view of the local directory, various visual cues (beyond syntax highlighting), and a way to easily edit global preferences within the editor. Again, some of these might be in GVim, I just don't remember if they are.
It is worth pointing out there are some vi-like GUI programs that offer most (if not all) of the "fancy" and convenient features of other editors. Some editors also allow for a "vi mode". So, if you like vi's "quirky" style of operation but want all of the bells and whistles, you can do that.

[starshipeleven]

Because it actually doesn't.

Actually it does, that's all Nano can do.

How do I concatenate the next line with the current line?

Go to the end of the line and press Del to delete the "\n" end-of-line character.
Have you ever used any text editor besides vim? Because that's the standard procedure on any text editor and also on Word and similar document applications.

How do bring up a shell to quickly check something, without exiting altogether?

not supported and usually redundant, you can open another tab in the terminal application or switch to another virtual terminal if you really need it.