Hi everyone :)

I’m slowly getting used on how to navigate and edit things in the terminal without leaving the keyboard and arrow keys. I’m getting faster and It improved my workflow in the terminal (Yeahhii).

ctrl + a e f b u k ...
alt + f b d ...

But yesterday I had such a bad experience while editing a backup bash script with nano. It took me like an hour to completely edit small changes like a caveman and always broke the editor when I used memory reflex terminal shortcuts.

This really pissed me… I know nano also has minimal/limited shortcuts but having to memorize and switch between different one for different purpose seems like a waste of time.

I think I tried emacs a few month ago but It didn’t clicked. I didn’t spend enough time though, tried it for a few minutes and deleted it afterwards. Maybe I should give it a second try?

I also gave Vim a try, but that session is still open and can’t exit (😂 )! Vim seems rather to complex for my workflow, I’m just a self-taught poweruser making his way through linux. Am I wrong?

Isn’t there something more “universal” ? That works everywhere I go the same? Something portable, so I can use it everywhere I go?

I’m very interested in everyone’s thought, insight, personal experience and tip/tricks to avoid what happened yesterday !

Thanks !

  • The Doctor@beehaw.orgEnglish
    2·
    11 months ago

    Every text editor has a learning curve. It looks like the terminal shortcuts you’ve been learning were bleeding over into nano. That’s not a nano problem, that’s just where you’re at on the learning curve right now. You probably would have made the same trip-ups in another text editor for the same reason. Even DOS’ EDIT.COM had a learning curve back in the day.

    I don’t want to get into a text editor flame war here. Suffice it to say that trying lots of different text editors is a good way to see what works and doesn’t work for you. If it helps, I used pico as my primary editor for a good fifteen years, until I forced myself to learn vi just because I wanted to branch out a little.

    I don’t think you have to learn every last little thing about a text editor, just what you normally do: Move the cursor around, enter text, delete text, search, replace. Don’t worry about learning everything, learn what you need as you need it.

    As for universal, I’m afraid that it’s probably going to be vi and its descendants. It’s been included in many UNIXes and UNIX-alikes for decades (it’s even built into busybox) for a reason: It’s small, lean, mean, and if you absolutely, positively have to rescue a broken box, it’s always there in /bin.

    • N0x0nOP
      1·
      11 months ago

      Hiii !

      That’s not a nano problem, that’s just where you’re at on the learning curve right now. You probably would have made the same trip-ups in another text editor for the same reason.

      You’re right ! but I have to add that I found nano’s default shortcuts really “out-of-tune” and not intuitive at all (personal opinion). Sure I could have changed them to my liking, but that would cause portability issues I do not want to cope with !

      I don’t think you have to learn every last little thing about a text editor, just what you normally do: Move the cursor around, enter text, delete text, search, replace. Don’t worry about learning everything, learn what you need as you need it.

      👍

      As for universal, I’m afraid that it’s probably going to be vi and its descendants. It’s been included in many UNIXes and UNIX-alikes for decades (it’s even built into busybox) for a reason: It’s small, lean, mean, and if you absolutely, positively have to rescue a broken box, it’s always there in /bin.

      Ouch ! A lot of people actually tend to suggest that also, while I only tried vim once, I just uninstalled it after I had to google “how to exit vim” :| ! It was way to much of a hassle to just edit text :/. But as I read above, and as you said, just learning the basic stuff is enough to begin to like it and get comfortable.

      I’m uncertain which one I should stick with, someone suggested Micro, which seems really cool and more in sync on how I use the terminal at the moment. But there’s also the fact that vim is more universal and present everywhere, and even If you, as a long timer, switched to vi after 15 years, shouldn’t I just make the switch right now?

      One last technical question if you don’t mind, I already asked someone else but I’m interested in your long lasting technical expertise.

      Does It make sense to adapt/sync the keybinding shortcuts between the terminal and the text editor? Or do you know which one to use in every case scenario? Probably stupid, but that was probably my initial question with my Post, because I was sooo frustrated I couldn’t use the same shortcuts in nano… That’s what I was referring as “universal”, (wrong word choice :).

      Thank you for your inputs !!!

      • The Doctor@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        Ouch ! A lot of people actually tend to suggest that also, while I only tried vim once, I just uninstalled it after I had to google “how to exit vim” :| ! It was way to much of a hassle to just edit text :/. But as I read above, and as you said, just learning the basic stuff is enough to begin to like it and get comfortable.

        vi and vim take a little getting used to. There’s no shame in needing a cheatsheet; I used one when I was getting used to it (and the first time I had to use it in an emergency, I was looking up what I needed pretty much every minute). This looks like it might have something useful.

        Ultimately, what got me used to vi was using it every day to write blog entries (because, at the time, it was still hand-crafted HTML). I just had to use it a little every day.

        I think it would be helpful if you used vi a little bit to get used to how it feels. It couldn’t hurt to use Micro for a week, also, for the same reason. There’s no rush, there’s no deadline, give yourself a week of each to play around with them.

        As for updating the keybindings, I don’t think it’s a good idea, because the minute you find yourself on a system that doesn’t have them installed you’re back to square one. And, if you’re in the middle of fixing something you probably won’t have time to import them (and you may not even be able to, depending on what’s wrong).

        …doesn’t nano still have the menu bar at the bottom by default? I know pico (its predecessor) used to.