GNU nano - an enhanced clone of the Pico text editor.
Overview
The nano project was started because of a few "problems" with the
wonderfully easy-to-use and friendly Pico text editor.
First and foremost is its license: the Pine suite does not use the
GPL or a GPL-friendly license, and has unclear restrictions on
redistribution. Because of this, Pine and Pico are not included with
many GNU/Linux distributions. Also, other features (like goto line
number or search and replace) were unavailable until recently or
require a command line flag. Yuck.
nano aims to solve these problems by emulating the functionality of
Pico as closely as possible while addressing the problems above and
perhaps providing other extra functionality.
The nano editor is now an official GNU package. For more information
on GNU and the Free Software Foundation please see http://www.gnu.org.
How to compile and install nano
Download the nano source code, then:
tar zxvf 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.
Web Page
http://www.nano-editor.org
Mailing List and Bug Reports
Savannah hosts all the nano-related mailing-lists.
+ info-nano@gnu.org is a very low traffic list
used to announce new Nano versions or other important information
about the project.
+ help-nano@gnu.org is for those seeking to get help without
wanting to hear about the technical details of its
development.
+ nano-devel@gnu.org is the list used by the people
that make Nano and a general development discussion list, with
moderate traffic.
To subscribe, send email to nano-<name>-request@gnu.org
with a subject of "subscribe", where <name> is the list you want to
subscribe to.
For general bug reports, send a description of the problem to
nano@nano-editor.org or directly to the development list.
Current Status
This is the 1.1 or unstable branch of nano. New features
will be added and things will be changed around and basically
stability is not guaranteed. If this is not what you're
interested in, please use the latest 1.0.x release of nano.
New features in this branch include:
+ .nanorc file support (--enable-nanorc configure option,
see sample.nanorc file)
+ Negative -r value for "#cols from right", allows dynamic adjustment
of wrap margin based on window size.
+ Write marked text to separate file (^O after selecting with ^^).
+ Append to file (Meta-A at write file menu).
+ Multiple file buffers! (--enable-multibuffer configure option,
--multibuffer, -F cmdline flag, Meta-F toggle, then ^R to load).
+ Better compatibility with Pico. Mouse mode now supports clicking
shortcuts and files in browser, search toggles that are Pico
extensions moved to Meta keys so as to not interfere with Pico
control sequences.
+ Smooth scrolling through files, instead of the jerky half-page
down, half-page up method. This is available by using the
-S or --smooth switch, or the Meta-S toggle.
+ Better non-*nix file support. GNU nano now automatically
converts files from DOS format or Mac format to standard file
format. It can also write files in either format by using the
appropriate command line (-D, --dos or -M, --mac) or toggle
(Meta-D, Meta-O).
Chris Allegretta (chrisa@asty.org)
$Id$
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