
GNU Nano 4.0 - snird
https://www.nano-editor.org/news.php
======
xeeeeeeeeeeenu
>An overlong line is no longer automatically hard-wrapped.

Finally. It was one of the most insane defaults in the history of text
editors. Things like this are the reason why it's so hard to recommend nano to
beginners.

~~~
unveres
I like the idea of hard wrap, line of code shouldn't be longer than 80
characters... sure it's confusing for beginners + sometimes data shouldn't be
hard-wrapped, but in general (imho) it's better than worse

~~~
r3bl
Nano is a text editor, not an IDE. There's no reason why _every text_ (not
just code) should contain less than 80 characters in every line.

~~~
opan
Can you explain your thought process here? I believe the idea is that old
terminals were 80 characters wide. Also, even with modern monitors it can be
nice to have shorter lines so you don't have to move your eyes/head as much. I
can't think of why the rule would be specific to source code or why it would
apply any differently to other forms of text.

------
mmastrac
"nano" is an interesting creature - it was originally developed as a
replacement for the "pico" command that shipped with "pine" (an amazing
curses-based email client) because the license on pico was just not really
clear.

I still use nano 50% of the time because it's so easy to jump into a file,
make some quick changes, and jump out. Plus the mark/cut/paste keystrokes are
seared into my memory after years of use.

~~~
nicoburns
I would recommend micro. It's simple like nano, but has full mouse support.
The only real downside is that it's not installes by default.

~~~
Scarblac
So one day someone will write the improvement and call it milli, but then
what? Is there a prefix for 10^0? Do these people not plan ahead?

~~~
blattimwind
Well you can use some of the convenience steps around 1, e.g. centi and deci
and then skip the 1.0 and go straight to deca and hecto.

~~~
sandov
You can call it one, or alternatively:

------
sscarduzio
It's amazing how, no matter how old or small a piece of software is, as long
as it keeps being used, itremains a living thing and keeps on changing and
evolving.

~~~
blattimwind
For a stable piece of software the build script(s) somehow turn into a change
hotspot. You might have not touched the core of the software in five years,
but guess what, every couple months some change to the build script is
necessary.

~~~
saagarjha
Depends on how much nonstandard stuff you’re using, and whether you have flags
such as -Werror that can cause “new” build failures.

~~~
blattimwind
And on how many platforms the software is used. E.g. when people try to
compile things on HP-UX, perhaps even an older version, things often get
interesting.

------
mixmastamyk
There needs to be a console text editor installed by default with CUA
keybindings, like notepad, sublime text, dos edit, and borland tools were back
in the day.

Nano can get partially there, micro is the current best though it has a few
MacOS oddities around home/end but can be configured, in the past used ne.

~~~
lbruder
mcedit, the editor of mc, is a nice DOS-like editor, complete with blue
background and pulldown menus. The mc suite contains a simple but powerful hex
editor, too.

------
fevangelou
Here's a bash script to install Nano Editor v4.0 with syntax highlighting
enabled on the Mac (should work as-is on Ubuntu, Fedora etc. as well)...

[https://gist.github.com/fevangelou/be744753730e86b8783fd481f...](https://gist.github.com/fevangelou/be744753730e86b8783fd481f311a7c9)

------
roschdal
[https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/rope+of+sand](https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/rope+of+sand)

------
geuszb
I'm sure nano/pico and the like are _nice_ but to me there's two things a
terminal editor can try to solve for: being nice, or bring ubiquitous. The
nicest ones (say emacs) are way nicer than nano in terms of features,
extensibility, etc. Now for being ubiquitous, nothing beats vi to date. I
can't tell what nano is aiming for?

EDIT

I guess I had assumed that vi/vim was significantly more widespread than nano.
Maybe that's an outdated assumption? I feel like I've come across a few
instances where vi has been the only choice...

~~~
mamcx
Why nano? nano is sane.

With Emacs/VI you need to bring a HUGE mental framework to just use it.

And maybe, with luck or some years of pain training, to just EXIT it :)

\---

Vim/emacs are powerful. Nice? Never. Easy? never. Good for most common editing
task in the terminal?. Nope.

Claim that Vim/Emacs are good is like say "why people use Sublime Text when
Eclipse is so much better?"

Except, with eclipse, you know how exit it.

~~~
dunnevens
Vi's not too bad. 'i' to edit text. ESC to get out of editing. ':w" to save
changes. ":q" to quit. ":wq" to do both. ":q!" to quit without saving. "hjkl"
for navigation in case the arrow keys don't work.

That's enough to get by for quick edits. I haven't used vi a ton in my life,
but I've managed to remember that much.

~~~
mamcx
Yeah, but you NEED TO KNOW THAT before use it.

With nano, all is straight in the UI. That is powerful, and so obvious.

Why Vim/Emacs not have that?

~~~
michaelmrose
Emacs comes with extensive built in documentation. At the bottom it says hit
C-h C-a which takes you to an about page which has various help links.

The GUI app as a menu bar, a standard gui feature that includes at the far
right an entry entitled HELP under which one can find a manual, docs, a
tutorial, a FAQ and various other options.

------
tofflos
It's too bad the Windows Store only contains Ubuntu LTS editions. It'll be
July 2020 before all the improvements from 2.9.3 on up become available for
most WSL users. :(

~~~
AlexeyBrin
No need to wait until 2020. From the GNU nano README:

\-------------------------------

 _How to compile and install nano:_

    
    
        Download the nano source code, then:
    
            tar xvzf nano-x.y.z.tar.gz
            cd nano-x.y.z
            ./configure
            make
            make install
    
        It's that simple.  Use --prefix with configure to override the
        default installation directory of /usr/local.
    
        If you haven't configured with the --disable-nanorc option, after
        installation you may want to copy the doc/sample.nanorc file to
        your home directory, rename it to ".nanorc", and then edit it
        according to your taste.

~~~
Moto7451
This indeed. This is one of my first steps on any new computer/OS install.

I’m a daily Nano user and in my experience the only real headache you can run
into is missing the right version or configure not finding where readline and
nucrses/ncursesw are. Those are really easy to install on any platform (even
from source).

------
pvtmert
Did anyone noticed that date at the top right is 2018?

------
faissaloo
Does anyone have an Ubuntu PPA with up to date versions of GNU Nano?

------
l24ztj
>A newline character is no longer automatically added at end of buffer.

yesssssssssss

~~~
mruts
Such an insane default. Currently programming a bittorrent client and was
edited files to test some functionality. Was confused for a long time until I
realized nano was turning my "echo 'this is a test' > test" into "echo 'this
is a test\n' > test"

~~~
lexicality
Pretty sure nano was changing your code to

    
    
        echo 'this is a test' > test\n
    

and then echo was adding the newline because you didn't specify -n.

~~~
pushpop
...and also

    
    
      echo 'this is a test\n'
    

doesn't produce an additional new line because -e _wasn 't_ specified.

------
thom
Serious question: how often do you log into a box where it would be impossible
or considered rude for you to install a proper editor? I feel like I must have
been blessed by the sysadmins in my life (them often being me) but it's never
happened in 25 years of logging into *nix boxes.

~~~
theonemind
In any large-ish organization, you probably don't do this on a production
machine. You _absolutely_ do not do it if you aren't _the_ person (or on the
team) who will get called/paged if it breaks, or you're probably risking your
job if the package manager goes sideways or you flub it up and let the package
manager throw in a couple of extra upgrades or whatever.

~~~
thom
So you ask that team to install Emacs (because you're less likely to mess up
config with a proper/familiar editor) and they just say no, forever?

~~~
theonemind
Probably, yes. If you're lucky, it might get rolled into the next
deploy/upgrade.

Luckily, you usually don't need to do extensive editing there, because you
usually can't change much. Most of the changes you'd want to make to config
files, etc. also have to go into the next deploy or through some change
management process anyway.

You definitely get used to using vi, though.

~~~
thom
I suppose I have been lucky. If I ever actually had to edit something critical
on an unfriendly box, I suspect I'd still just do it in Emacs via tramp
because I know I'd be less error prone. But as you suggest, for many years now
I've experienced a strict divide between config changes, which are managed
properly and not just done as ad-hoc edits, and boxes that are meant to be
interactive, in which case the environment is tailored to the users.

