| |
| 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) |
| |
| $Id$ |