----- Original Message -----
From: "Till Maas" <opensource(a)till.name>
To: "Development discussions related to Fedora"
<devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org>
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2020 10:47:58 AM
Subject: Re: Fedora 33 System-Wide Change proposal: Make nano the default editor
Hi,
On Thu, Jun 25, 2020 at 06:48:56PM -0700, Adam Williamson wrote:
> Nothing in vi's default view (if launched with a file, which is what
> happens in this case) tells you you need to press 'insert' in order to
> actually edit anything. Nothing in vi's default view tells you you have
> to type the entirely cryptic sequence ":wq" to save and exit (or gives
since vim addresses this when opened without a file and it is open
source, it seems to me to be a good idea to propose to adjust vim
behaviour to show the help overview when opening a file as well. For
example if there is no ~/.vimrc or some other indicator that shows the
user does not know vim, yet.
Did someone discuss improving the novice user experience with the vim
developers, yet? What was the outcome?
Hello,
TL;DR please, +1 for nano, as "trial by fire" is not a good first experience for
someone who just wants to get something done.
I don't think this should be matter of preference of current Fedora users or
developers. Instead it's all about first impressions with a Linux distro (or second..)
for fresh users. If it's hard "on first look", some people will consider it
too hard to use generally, and will rather not use it at all. Having the same default as
Debian/Ubuntu would certainly help, as well as the simplicity of nano, for someone who
sees commandline editor for the first time. Running a "vim guided tour", or
showing some hints, wouldn't compare in this case.
A developer/poweruser can later change EDITOR to something their familiar with, on
purpose. Invoking vi for fresh user is like deciding for them they need to learn vim
<right now>, although they're learning how to use git f.e., and therefore
worsens the experience they'll have IMO.
Btw. nano is just simple by the looks, but has lots of improvements under the hood. With
options like f.e. -xAFEGHuiBPUWzw it's a completely different editor I use for my
everyday work for years now...
Regards,
Pavel
Thanks
Till