Alternative to Vim and Emacs

Message

DebNewbie · #1 Post by **DebNewbie** » 2006-05-30 06:29

Yes, I know those 2 are the most popular.

I like Vim better because it colors more codes, because there are some things that Emacs does not color. But I can not stay with Vim, because its controls are hard to use for a newbie like me.

I like Kate/Kwrite very much, but that is for KDE. And I do not want to be getting the huge K deps just for one thing. Furthermore, I am looking for something that runs off terminal.

So what is available?

ajdlinux · #2 Post by **ajdlinux** » 2006-05-30 07:07

There are quite a few:

nano, the base editor on debian
emacs, the big editor
vim, the enhanced vi
motor, a console C/C++/Java IDE

There are more - apt-cache search text editor.

DebNewbie · #3 Post by **DebNewbie** » 2006-06-01 10:38

I like nano, but it does not have any coding colors. Is it suppose to be a programming editor? If so, how do I get the colors?

Bulkley · #4 Post by **Bulkley** » 2006-06-01 15:37

How about gedit?

Are you sure that vim is too complicated? I use it regularly with only a few instructions: vi [filename] to start, i to edit, and wq to write and exit. What else do you need?

DebNewbie · #5 Post by **DebNewbie** » 2006-06-01 16:58

gedit is GUI, I am looking for something terminal-based.

vim has complicated controls. I been trying to work it for 20 minutes, and still confused over the controls. I have installed and uninstalled it repeatedly in the past to give it new chances. But in the end, it is the same. Confusing controls.

It is just so typical for me to start up a file in vim and get that swap file thing telling me that something crashed. I have no idea what it is talking about.

The moment I open vim, I expect it to let me type. But it doesn't, keywording is disabled and I would have to hit "Insert" or something to let me edit. Whenever I try to Ctrl+ something I would have to hit the Esc first. I would have to switch back and forth between. Too complicated.

So finally, I save and quit, and it would create all these extra file supposely for backup or recovery purposes. If I want that to happen, I would do it manually so I don't have to delete the extra files.

I am looking for something that just works and friendly. Like nano, I like it a lot, but I don't think it is meant for programming.

Bulkley · #6 Post by **Bulkley** » 2006-06-01 20:34

DebNewbie wrote:It is just so typical for me to start up a file in vim and get that swap file thing telling me that something crashed. I have no idea what it is talking about.

It sounds like you have something wrong with yours.

Grifter · #7 Post by **Grifter** » 2006-06-01 23:45

jed for terminal, scite for X

Bulkley · #8 Post by **Bulkley** » 2006-06-02 00:15

BTW, I use vi in a terminal. The vim in the Debian menu looks rather awkward to me.

muffinpeddler · #9 Post by **muffinpeddler** » 2006-06-15 03:30

nano does have syntax highlighting, you just have to enable it in the config file (~/.nanorc). See this site: http://wiki.linuxhelp.net/index.php/Nan ... ghlighting

You are going to come back to vim or emacs sooner or later, so you might want to consider learning one, you will never be the same.

ajdlinux · #10 Post by **ajdlinux** » 2006-06-15 08:29

Thanks for that link muffinpeddler! I'll write a howto for it and post here.

divukman · #11 Post by **divukman** » 2006-06-17 12:33

joe is a great editor