Linux text editors

[Guy Fraser]

I have had to learn a lot of different text editors that ran on a variety
of interfaces from teletype terminals and ADM 3 dumb terminals to VT420
{half witted ;-)} terminals, and of course many different Mac and PC text
editors as well. Remember how cool it was, when single line editors started
to be interactive, and you didn't have to completely retype the line.

Romantic as the notion may be to reminisce on the wonderfull and sometimes
quirky natures of some of these editors, it would be completely off topic.

The question was about a replacement for some featuree filled GUI text
editors, that are simple to learn and use. Well that was not exacly the
question, but having used the editors mentioned, I extrapolated the
requirements.

At one time EMACS was a great asset for me to use, but I prefer to think
I have evolved along with the available software, and have for the most
part moved on to newer software. Not to say that there is anything wrong
with using EMACS, I would just rather use a mouse to manipulate text than
constantly hamering on the keybord. I am not very fast at typing so I
prefer a less keyboard intensive editor.

If you havn't tried NEdit, give it a go. It's a great tool and even allows
you to process selected text with shell commands very easily, so you can
grep, awk, sort or "whatever else you can think of" selections with ease.
and with extended regex supprt in the search and replace it make processing
logs and other machine generated files a piece of cake. It also does syntax
highlighting and bracket matching, so it's great for maintaining code as 
well.

Betht of luck. {Note the LISP :-)}

Kenneth Porter wrote:

> --On Wednesday, September 15, 2004 9:16 AM -0600 Guy Fraser 
> <guy at incentre.net> wrote:
>
>> Emacs can do a lot of things and do them well, but it operates very
>> differently that the editors you noted, and would require a steep 
>> learning
>> curve.
>
>
> I learned it a million years ago using the built-in tutorial. Seemed 
> pretty straightforward. The basic commands were pretty intuitive. 
> Control with F, B, N, P goes Forward character, Backward character, 
> Next line, Previous line. More advanced commands could be learned 
> using the apropos feature. (What commands operate on windows? 
> "Esc-x-apropos window".)
>
> I learned it back before the introduction of the luxurious VT100 
> terminal, when keyboards were much more limited. No arrow keys, and 
> maybe one or two function keys. Maybe no numeric keypad. No meta/alt 
> keys, and only one Control key on the left. F1 was not yet the 
> universal help key.
>
>
>

-- 
Guy Fraser
Network Administrator
The Internet Centre
780-450-6787 , 1-888-450-6787

There is a fine line between genius and lunacy, fear not, walk the
line with pride. Not all things will end up as you wanted, but you
will certainly discover things the meek and timid will miss out on.