[HN Gopher] Using Microsoft's New CLI Text Editor on Ubuntu
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Using Microsoft's New CLI Text Editor on Ubuntu
Author : jandeboevrie
Score : 278 points
Date : 2025-06-18 05:25 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.omgubuntu.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.omgubuntu.co.uk)
| tedunangst wrote:
| That sound you hear is all the old men yelling at clouds that a
| full screen terminal editor is not a CLI editor.
| JdeBP wrote:
| There have definitely been two so far. (-:
|
| * https://mastodon.social/@cks/114704709419805125
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Right - if you can't use it on teletype, then it's not a CLI
| editor.
| seabrookmx wrote:
| I checked this out. It's kind of neat. It's barebones from a
| programming perspective though.. it didn't seem to have syntax
| highlighting out of the box for example.
|
| If you want a TUI text editor with CTRL-C/V and mouse support,
| I'd recommend looking at micro: https://github.com/zyedidia/micro
| Milpotel wrote:
| I used micro for some years but recently switched to
| https://github.com/craigbarnes/dte. A lesser known, more
| 90s-like, alternative I used several years ago is ne:
| https://github.com/vigna/ne/.
| pepa65 wrote:
| Craig Barnes is epic. Great, versatile editor, dte.
| sheepscreek wrote:
| Back when I was in school (like junior/middle school), we would
| program in a DOS based IDE call QuickBasic, and eventually
| Turbo C++ (in higher grades/high school). That blue background
| is so nostalgic.
|
| For quick editing, my go to is vim. It's a real superpower to
| have if you're confined to the terminal. However, in the modern
| post-AI/vibe coding days with super fast AI completions and
| agentic editing, I think GUIs are the way to go. They make the
| constant context switching more seamless. Whereas terminal
| editors work best for very focused zen coding. That's just my
| opinion.
| adhamsalama wrote:
| There are several AI plugins for Neovim. Copilot's auto
| complete seems to be working fine.
| sheepscreek wrote:
| Indeed - AI auto-completion works well. But chat and more
| conversation heavy workflows were not available back when I
| tried it (granted it was over a year ago).
|
| I think Claude Code + vim might be a better solution.
| You're using the best tool for the job - Claude Code for
| agentic assistance and vim for editing + review.
| marssaxman wrote:
| Years ago I wanted a TUI text editor with ctrl-C/V, so I wrote
| one. I've been using it every day, ever since:
|
| https://www.github.com/marssaxman/ozette/
|
| I didn't care about mouse support, though.
| aa-jv wrote:
| I wonder if anyone has ever given any druthers to porting PC-
| Write to linux ..
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-Write
|
| I must have written a million lines of code with PC-Write in the
| 80's .. seems kind of odd to me that it has just disappeared into
| oblivion, given that its an extremely powerful editor.
|
| Huh, the source is out there somewhere .. might be a fun
| Lazarus/Free Pascal project one of these days ..
| Y_Y wrote:
| Noun
|
| druthers pl (plural only)
|
| (US, informal, often humorous) Wishes, preferences.
| JdeBP wrote:
| This article is a pile of rubbish from top to toe. Starting with
| the conflation of TUI with CLI, and ending with the claim that
| one has to extract it from an archive afresh "each time you want
| to use it".
|
| Microsoft hasn't designed a new text editor to "avoid VIM memes".
| It has re-implemented its old EDIT editor, which was a DOS
| program with a PIF on Windows NT, and which came out with MS-DOS
| 5 in 1991. There weren't silly "VIM memes" in 1991. Indeed,
| Stevie had barely turned into VIM in 1991.
|
| The original announcement was discussed on Hacker News about a
| month ago.
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44031529
|
| And the idea that "Windows devs are forced to fire up Notepad" is
| just risible. Even by 1991 there was a wide array of text editors
| available in the Microsoft world. EDIT was over half a decade
| late to the party. DR-DOS had had EDITOR for a while. And if
| memory serves E and T2 were already in IBM's PC-DOS and OS/2.
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44041533
|
| It was pointed out _back in 1991_ that it was late to the party.
| Quite how someone from the world of Ubuntu can think that there
| are no text editors in the Windows world in 2025 apart from
| Notepad and so developers are "forced", its word, to use it,
| boggles the mind.
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44037559
|
| Anyone who actually does Windows development, and has probably
| discussed with other developers the merits of the various editors
| available, from MobaEdit through EditPad, WordPad, Brief,
| CodeWriter, and many others to Notepad++, would question the
| apparently zero knowledge that has informed this piece.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Although there are vim memes, the whole "Oh no, I'm trapped in
| the editor" problem with modal editors is certainly there for
| vi which begins in the 1970s.
|
| By 1994 when I was first using vi, (not vim) the rather faded
| "cheat sheet" I was handed already had remarks about the need
| to teach beginners how to leave the editor. I think I went
| years writing :q! which isn't the fastest way out but does do
| what I meant.
| croes wrote:
| > Windows devs are forced to fire up Notepad
|
| I think that's a joke
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Apropos of the shortcuts here, I always wonder why developers
| don't go out of their way more often to memorize the Ctrl+C,
| Ctrl+V, ... shortcuts in use basically everywhere today _except_
| the terminal. I believe they stem from the IBM Common User Access
| (CUA) design standard.
|
| In particular the fact that Ctrl + anything letter-oriented makes
| something that is word-oriented instead, for example Ctrl + Left
| Arrow and Ctrl + Right Arrow let you skip word-by-word in
| documents, and Ctrl + Backspace lets you delete entire words at a
| time. This feels like it should be way more common knowledge than
| it is, like how copying and pasting any multiline document into
| your browser's URL bar will almost certainly format it into a
| sane single-line format.
| kgwxd wrote:
| > developers don't go out of their way more often to memorize
| the Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V
|
| I get freaked out enough seeing devs that can't touch type. Now
| you're telling me there's a large number that also don't know
| the copy/paste shortcuts!?
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> devs that can't touch type._
|
| Hey, that's me :)
|
| Out of curiosity, why is this a yardstick for SW developers?
| I assumed the more valuable skill of the profession would be
| critical thinking and problem solving skills, not finger
| dexterity on pressing buttons without looking. That's why I
| didn't become a secretary or court stenographer.
|
| I mean, a lot of doctors can't hand write for shit, but is
| that in anyway relevant to being a good doctor?
|
| What about SW devs with handicaps or mobility issues?
|
| Touch typing feels like a pretty niche hill to die on.
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| It's exactly because of having more valuable things to do
| that you should have typing just be a subconscious act
| instead of having to take your eyes off the monitor all the
| time.
| moron4hire wrote:
| Exactly. Because of this, I tend to think that there are
| no useless skills, or skills not worth refining as far as
| possible. Sure, there is contention for _which_ skill you
| refine _now_ , but asking yourself "should I get better
| at X?" in isolation should almost always get answered
| "yes". The more things you're really good at (typing,
| mental math, sharpening a knife, fixing your computer,
| navigating and merging git commits, cooking food,
| cleaning house, etc), the less time you'll spend on each
| thing, giving you more time to do other things.
|
| Plus, writing code is not the only kind of typing that I
| expect a developer to do. Even if I could accept that
| typing speed is not important for writing code, it's
| certainly important for writing documentation, good
| commit messages, communication with team mates and
| stakeholders, etc.
| skydhash wrote:
| Yes! It's quite nice not to have to think about typing.
| Just like you don't monitor the way you're handling a pen
| when you write. It's not related to being a good
| developer, but when you type as much as you do, having it
| done quickly and with the help of muscle memory helps
| with cognitive load.
|
| In other words, the only thing I think about is what to
| write, not how I do it.
| chuckadams wrote:
| I'm pretty sure most devs who can't touch-type aren't
| hunting and pecking either. I never learned the "proper"
| home-row technique, and type with four fingers most of
| the time, but neither am I looking down unless I'm making
| enough typos that I need to realign my fingers. No one
| gives me crap about that because well, the people I hang
| around with just aren't that damaged.
| mbeex wrote:
| Did this for 30 years. Two years ago I finally took the
| time to acquire the whole thing.
|
| There is no way back. Relaxed posture, no UI elements
| stealing my focus unnoticed, parallelism (partially):
| continually "big-picturing" text; speaking with people
| while typing. The rhythm of this motoric skill and his
| quite specific form of memory alone, strangely decoupled
| from and coupled to the other mental processes at the
| same time, the interplay is simply marvelous.
| chuckadams wrote:
| I grew up on all those "typing tutor" programs, and hated
| every moment of them, even the extra-game-ified ones. But
| at least they weren't high school typing classes like my
| gf took, those seemed like some proper sweatshop
| training. Would love to learn piano too, another thing I
| couldn't focus enough to make happen, but I guess I'm
| more comfortable now knowing my limits, and there's worse
| things to regret -\\_(tsu)_/-
| kstrauser wrote:
| If you're not looking at your hands, you're touch typing.
|
| I move my hands around as I type, too. I learned piano
| before typing, and it's weird to me to try and keep them
| in one place. I type as fast as I'd ever want or need to,
| though, so I couldn't care less if it's not "proper". I'd
| still say you and I both touch type.
| dlachausse wrote:
| I see it as being willing to invest time into your craft. A
| few hours spent learning to touch type will save countless
| time over a lifetime.
|
| It's an invaluable skill not just for developers, but for
| anyone whose job requires frequent typing.
| climb_stealth wrote:
| Consider me amazed! I would have thought it's something
| people pick up naturally by virtue of spending hours every
| day working with a keyboard.
|
| I wouldn't link it to competency as a dev.
| CactusRocket wrote:
| Thoughts go faster than fingers. It's already hard enough
| to keep up with my stream of thoughts when coding, when I'm
| touch typing pretty fast. I can't imagine my coding
| experience if I had to look at the keyboard to input my
| thoughts into the editor. It's subjective, everyone has a
| different experience, but I feel I would be severely
| impaired.
| bena wrote:
| The main output of doctors is not written notes though.
|
| Our main output is typed code.
|
| Yes, our most valuable skill is critical thinking. So I
| don't want to waste time and thought on wondering where the
| "f" key is. If I'm thinking about typing, I'm not thinking
| about the problem.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| > Our main output is typed code.
|
| Pretty sure my main output (at least by volume) is text
| files detailing things such as requirements,
| implementation strategies, and algorithmic tradeoffs.
| hbnjgf wrote:
| As a software developer, written communication is your main
| output -- no matter whether it's code, Mails, documentation
| or presentations
|
| Unless you are thinking slower than you are typing, you
| should invest in learning a basic and very easy skill
| sureglymop wrote:
| I would personally say that you should ignore it.
|
| Programming isn't bottlenecked by how fast you can enter or
| type text, it is about focusing and thinking and then
| solving a problem. In other words, being able to enter text
| faster does not imply also being able to solve a problem
| faster.
|
| I would even say that on the contrary, taking longer and
| reflecting on what you are typing more may perhaps result
| in a better quality solution of the problem being solved.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| It's not bottlenecked, but it's much easier to think
| about a problem if I don't have to think about typing at
| the same time.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Touch typing is not super useful. I picked it up naturally
| over time, but it was just an accident. In general, the
| desire to type fast is a symptom of insufficient
| automation.
|
| It is sort of nice to turning your laptop screen red and
| dim, and code on a dark porch at night (OLED screen
| required to get real darkness). Just you, the vim, and some
| fireflies. Your eyes will adjust to the darkness, and maybe
| you'll see some animals that you don't normally see.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| It's a signaling mechanism more than anything, as you can
| see from the other responses here.
|
| "I can touch type" == "I spend enough time writing things
| on the computer every day that I have invested in the
| fluidity and comfort of my own hands" == "I'm enough of a
| nerd to actually be good at my job".
|
| But it's _also_ worth it from an ergonomics standpoint. I
| learned to touch type over the space of a few weeks of
| practice, meant years ago, and it 's the reason I can use a
| split ortho keyboard today, which is much nicer on my
| wrists than the alternatives. I can also keep a notebook
| between the two keyboard halves which is much nicer to
| scribble on than having it to the side somewhere.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> "I have invested in the fluidity and comfort of my own
| hands" _
|
| That's exactly why I don't touch type.
|
| Forcing my hands in the optimal "home-row" positioning
| for touch typing gives me wrist pain. Moving my hands
| towards my most comfortable position disables the ability
| to touch type.
|
| _> It's a signaling mechanism more than anything, as you
| can see from the other responses here._
|
| Firstly, what if that type of signaling is flawed and
| might even be discriminatory if applied to screening
| people for an actual job, especially that SW devs conder
| themselves highly liberal and open minded to diversity.
|
| Secondly, I also can't fathom how keeping my eyes focused
| on one screen continuously for long periods is healthy
| for them versus exercising them having to occasionally
| refocus towards the keyboard and back.
|
| Thirdly, even if I would touch type, my job needs me to
| take my eyes of the "IDE screen" occasionally to look at
| other things like datasheets, PCBs, notes, etc. Then the
| amount of distractions in the office far outpace any
| supposed efficiency gains from not having to take my eyes
| off the screen, so there's no benefit to it anyway as the
| job has many other bottlenecks.
|
| Reading the comments on this thread, makes me feel like
| I'm watching that scene from American Psycho where
| they're all in their bubble flaunting and judging each
| others' business card designs when they're all the same
| design. Glad I don't work with such judgmental
| individuals who scrutinize such pointless details like
| the way you type, as if their way is the only right way.
| Must be a nightmare.
|
| _> "I'm enough of a nerd to actually be good at my
| job"._
|
| Well then, I guess I'm lucky to be good at my engineering
| job without the way I type being an issue.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| I never said I thought it was a _good_ signal. Please don
| 't go around shooting the messenger like that.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| I think you misunderstood me or I made myself
| misunderstood. I wasn't "shooting" you, I know what you
| were saying, I have no issue with your PoV.
|
| I chose to reply to you while addressing the rest of the
| comments since yours distills them, so it makes sense to
| reply to all in one comment than to each individually.
| Apologies for the misunderstanding.
| skydhash wrote:
| Let me start by stating that touch typing is orthogonal
| to coding well.
|
| The nice thing about touch type is to not think about
| typing. One quick glance to position your hands on the
| home row (there's helper on F and J), and then whatever
| you want to write just flow out. While I use two thumbs
| to type this on mobile, I'm mostly using my peripheral
| vision. Typing on a real keyboard is better as I have
| better feedback and can use all my fingers.
|
| It's only one reason: No need to think about typing, it's
| all muscle memory.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Not sure why you assume people who don't touch type
| actually need to think about typing.
| wredcoll wrote:
| Because that's the definition of touch typing. What did
| you think it meant?
|
| Also signals are heuristics and thus important because
| it's impossible to evaluate _everything_ from first
| principles every time.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Because that's the definition of touch typing_
|
| Touch typing means not looking at the keyboard while
| typing, not not-thinking about typing.
|
| _> What did you think it meant?_
|
| What do YOU think it means?
|
| Can't you not touch type while still not thinking about
| typing?
|
| Am I the only human capable of doing an activity while
| not thinking about it?
| icedchai wrote:
| Yes. I don't "touch type" in the traditional way. I have
| my own technique I developed when I was a teenager. I
| don't look at the keyboard and I don't "hunt and peck". I
| basically use index/middle/ring fingers on each hand for
| most of the keyboard, thumbs mostly handle the spacebar
| and alt keys, left pinky is mostly for shift, control,
| tab, right pinky is mostly for return, backspace, arrow
| keys, etc.
| cdash wrote:
| Same here. Whatever I do could not be defined as
| traditional touch typing but it kind of works. I
| definitely do not look at the keyboard at all but my
| fingers kind of just hover over the keyboard instead of
| resting on the home row.
| bjornasm wrote:
| >Thirdly, even if I would touch type, my job needs me to
| take my eyes of the "IDE screen" occasionally to look at
| other things like datasheets, PCBs, notes, etc.
|
| What if I told you that touch typing means you could do
| that while you are typing.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Out of curiosity, why is this a yardstick for SW
| developers?_
|
| In my college, if you couldn't type 40 WPM, you didn't
| graduate.
| rpdillon wrote:
| I started programming in grade school, and never learned to
| touch type. I was faster than my teachers, and ended up
| becoming a professional dev without touch typing.
|
| When I was 29, I got very bad RSI in my right wrist, and
| re-evaluated my whole computing life as a result: switched
| to dvorak, removed the mouse/touchpad in favor of keyboard-
| centric tools, and swapped to a trackball when the pointer
| was needed. I also learned to touch type.
|
| Of all the changes I made, I think the one with the most
| lasting value was touch typing. I didn't want to learn it,
| but I just bit the bullet, and I'm glad I did. It makes
| doing everything else on the computer very fluid and
| comfortable. It sounds like the touch typing position
| doesn't work for you, but the core point is that being able
| to effortlessly interface with the machine while your eyes
| can do something else is empowering.
|
| I bothered writing this because I spent decades both before
| and after learning to touch type, so I feel I have some
| perspective on how they compare.
| wredcoll wrote:
| Did "touch type" get redefined to "using a very specific
| set of finger positions for each key" or something? I
| thought it was just typing without looking at the
| keyboard...
| marssaxman wrote:
| The term "touch typing" could be taken to literally mean
| just typing without looking at the keyboard, but in
| practice it usually refers to the style of typing where
| the eight fingers all rest on the home row.
| petepete wrote:
| Also the number who click around to position the cursor when
| they could hold ctrl and skip there in a fraction of the
| time. Same goes for shift and highlighting.
| vintermann wrote:
| There are old studies from the 70s showing that moving the
| cursor with mouse is faster than navigation keys. Tog
| famously claimed that Apple's internal studies consistently
| showed that mouse _felt_ slower than it actually is,
| whereas keyboard navigation felt faster.
| hbnjgf wrote:
| I guess it depends on the distance. If you are currently
| typing and need to get to the beginning of the word,
| obviously it's way faster to navigate using the keyboard
| than the mouse.
|
| If instead you need to navigate somewhere you don't
| exactly know the location of, scanning and clicking is
| faster.
|
| Then again, if you happen to know the exact location,
| going there by command is much faster
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Selecting text is also a good example where the mouse is
| faster. One of the few for me. Having to switch modes,
| move to a line, then move to a character, then repeat
| that, is quite cumbersome in comparison.
|
| I'll take good keyboard controls for pretty much anything
| else though.
| skydhash wrote:
| With Vim and Emacs, you have nice commands for getting to
| an exact position. And if you're replacing, you don't
| need selections. Selection is mostly for copying,
| cutting, and applying commands.
| skydhash wrote:
| > _If instead you need to navigate somewhere you don 't
| exactly know the location of, scanning and clicking is
| faster._
|
| Search is better especially with code. I used emacs and
| vim more than other editors, so I got use to their
| navigation shortcut. And on macOS, the trackpad is nice
| and convenient. But I still prefer search and paging
| shortcuts when I need to scroll.
| petepete wrote:
| I'm not sure it'll hold up when you factor in moving your
| hand between the keyboard and mouse repeatedly.
|
| Skipping forward 3 words on the line, for example, could
| be ctrl+right x3.
|
| I can do that faster than I can move my hand from the
| keyboard to the mouse, let alone drag it around.
| Quarrel wrote:
| I'm more worried that there might be lots of devs that can't
| send a sigint!
| lupusreal wrote:
| I know them but I virtually never use them. I've used X for
| more than 20 years and almost exclusively use the highlight
| and middle click method (outside of emacs, in which case I
| use evil bindings)
| stronglikedan wrote:
| One of my juniors could not only not touch type, but would
| hit caps lock, type a letter, and hit caps lock again - every
| time they wanted to capitalize a word. They just happened to
| go on to become the most successful dev I've ever mentored
| and have now forgotten about us little guys, but I always
| wondered if they still did that.
| floam wrote:
| I knew someone smart who did that and it ended up being
| related to them having shift bound since they were a child
| to something they used differently than me, to change their
| inputs to Chinese pinyin.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| In Microsoft's input method, shift will toggle you
| between ascii input and pinyin input while not switching
| you out of the pinyin input method environment.
|
| I tend to use win+space, which instead toggles the input
| method you're using, as opposed to toggling how the
| pinyin input method interprets your input. But I had to
| learn about this secret special functionality of shift,
| because (some time ago; I don't know if it's still true)
| after switching your input method with world of warcraft
| running, the chat UI in the game would become
| nonresponsive.
|
| After all, who ever heard of wanting to switch between
| different languages while using a chat interface?
| floam wrote:
| Interesting, that's perhaps where the idea came from
| then. What I witnessed was actually on a MacBook Air
| running macOS maybe 10-12 years ago, probably a version
| of macOS before they really improved the native pinyin
| input. The person had installed a third party input
| method (icon was an S is all I recall) / manager which
| changed by default how the shift key worked as you
| describe, it'd keep using that input method but it'd be
| in English mode.
|
| I recall thinking shift was an insane default but it did
| explain why she used CAPS LOCK to capitalize single
| characters.
| teo_zero wrote:
| > I get freaked out enough seeing devs that can't touch type.
|
| Do you get freaked out the same way seeing professional
| drivers that don't race? I've never related the speed of
| typing to the _quality_ of coding (maybe to the _quantity_ ,
| but not a reason for being freaked out).
| appreciatorBus wrote:
| I don't think the concern is that they cannot type really
| really fast as in your comparison of professional drivers
| who don't race.
|
| In any domain where typing is the dominant activity, it
| would make sense to invest the small effort it takes to
| learn to touch type, and to learn basic keyboard shortcuts.
| You don't have to reach 120 words per minute for the
| investment to pay off.
|
| I used to be a one or two finger typist. Eventually, I took
| a touch typing class. For a long while it seemed like a
| waste of time. I could already type with one or two fingers
| at 40 words per minute. However, as I became proficient
| with touch typing, and as my touch typing speed approached
| my hunt and peck speed I started to realize what a powerful
| technique it was. I no longer needed to look at the
| keyboard, and my thoughts more easily flowed into the
| computer. This was a qualitative difference, not just about
| speed.
|
| To continue the driving metaphor, IMO a driver who has had
| some basic driver education, and achieved some basic level
| of familiarity with the machine, will be a better driver,
| even if they never go faster than 40 miles an hour.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > I used to be a one or two finger typist.
|
| > as my touch typing speed approached my hunt and peck
| speed I started to realize what a powerful technique it
| was. I no longer needed to look at the keyboard
|
| There's no connection between these things. I use two
| (sometimes three) fingers per hand. Do I need to look at
| the keyboard? Of course not.
|
| I don't need to look at the keyboard because, when I
| would sneak downstairs to use the computer at night, I
| didn't want to turn on the lights.
| jasonjayr wrote:
| Eons ago, Ctrl-C was mapped to 'Break' on various terminals,
| which will halt the running program, and was a useful function.
| Desktop/GUI's mapped Ctrl-C to (C)opy, since the mnemonic made
| way more sense, and interrupting a GUI program hard like Break
| tends to do was not very useful.
| yoz-y wrote:
| This is where I find cmd+c/v better. It just works
| everywhere. On windows win+v works, not sure if win+c does,
| it's been a while.
| bmacho wrote:
| Win+c works too on windows. So does
| ctrl+insert/shift+insert on the terminals I just tested
| (cmd.exe, microsoft terminal with tabs, git bash, blue
| powershell terminal).
|
| Win+c/win+v looks like a good compromise, using the Windows
| button for OS/DE commands, instead of application commands.
| int_19h wrote:
| On Win11 Win+C launches Copilot by default these days.
| Win+X and Win+V also have functions assigned to them that
| are in no way related to the keyboard.
| bmacho wrote:
| Eww, that's very unfortunate. Well, so much for a cross-
| os copy-paste shortcut.
| vintermann wrote:
| It's not just the mnemonic, it's also that the location on
| the keyboard makes ctrl-c "prime real estate" so to say, and
| cutting and pasting is one of the most common and useful
| things you do.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > It's not just the mnemonic, it's also that the location
| on the keyboard makes ctrl-c "prime real estate" so to say
|
| Considering the hotkeys for xut and vaste, I think it's
| safe to say the mnemonic accounts for zero of the decision
| and the keyboard location accounts for all of it.
| andrewshadura wrote:
| X is for the scissors, V is for the insertion mark
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Also worth noting that many other ctrl-letter combinations
| map to signals in the terminal. In all the terminal emulators
| that I've used shift-ctrl-c & co are mapped by default for
| clipboard operations.
| mprovost wrote:
| On terminals, the control key masked off the 6th and 7th
| bits of the 8-bit value sent by the letter key. That's a
| bitwise AND with octal 037, or in decimal subtracting 96
| from the lower case key value. This happens in the terminal
| (or keyboard) itself, so the computer doesn't see it as two
| pressed keys, it just gets the masked value. In ASCII 'c'
| is 99 (decimal), so when modified with control is 3, ETX
| (end of text), which teletypes used to indicate the end of
| text. So unix shells reused that control character to
| terminate the current program with SIGINT. But every letter
| key maps to a control character at the start of the ASCII
| range, like 'g' maps to BEL for the bell, or 'h' maps to BS
| (backspace). '[' maps to ESC (escape) which is handy when
| Apple decides to move the escape key on their laptop
| keyboard.
| tedunangst wrote:
| The funny bit is the other six control codes are mapped
| ctrl-2 to nul, and ctrl-3 forward to the five remaining.
| int_19h wrote:
| Unless we're talking about ancient hardware terminals,
| the computer sees the actual raw scancodes coming from
| the keyboard. Control (whether by itself or in
| combination with something else) is no different than any
| other key. It's the software that maps those combinations
| to ASCII control characters, which is why this works the
| way you described on most Unices (where, if I remember
| correctly, it's the tty that is doing the mapping) but
| not e.g. on DOS/Windows.
| ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
| > and interrupting a GUI program hard like Break tends to do
| was not very useful.
|
| I find it extremely useful, GUI or not. Too bad it doesn't
| work half the time when it matters, especially on Windows.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Alt-F4 is pretty reliable on Windows, but it's not as
| catchy because no one likes craning their left hand to
| reach the function key (even though you could just hold
| right Alt).
| tom_ wrote:
| Right Alt doesn't exist on all keyboard layouts. On the
| UK layout it's replaced by AltGr, which doesn't do much
| appart from fail to act as Alt for Alt+F4 purposes, but
| it has actual uses in other layouts:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltGr_key
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Nobody ever uses right alt even if it exists, but it's
| straightforward to hit F4 with your right hand.
|
| Alt+F4 on Windows has the undesirable property that if
| you hit it several times, and it works, you'll close
| several different things. Ctrl-C in the terminal won't do
| this.
| spauldo wrote:
| American Emacs-using touch typists use right ALT all the
| time. ALT-x prompts you for a command, ALT-q in most
| modes runs fill-paragraph, ALT-f moves the cursor forward
| by one word, etc.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| When I want alt in emacs I use C-[.
| spauldo wrote:
| I suspect you're in the minority there.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I can believe that.
| makapuf wrote:
| In French and other European countries, #[@{}|\\] need
| altgr. You re using this quite a lot developing on Linux.
| lupusreal wrote:
| The mnemonic logic of the copy shortcut is undermined by the
| arbitrary paste shortcut. Also, from what I've seem a whole
| lot of average Joe computer users don't know or use these
| shortcuts, I think they're a lot further to the power user
| side of the skill spectrum than a lot of people here might
| expect.
| chuckadams wrote:
| On a US keyboard where these shortcuts were developed,
| you'd have to stretch your hand across the keyboard to
| reach Ctrl-P. That's why it's Ctrl-V, it wasn't arbitrary.
|
| I miss Sun keyboards and their dedicated copy/paste keys.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| And a control key in the right place. Dammit.
| silon42 wrote:
| I have a conspiracy theory that MS made IBM move the
| control key to kill WordStar, which had the superior
| keyboard shortcuts.
| physicles wrote:
| Seems plausible. If anyone else is curious about the
| history here, I found [1]:
|
| > The original computer terminals and microcomputers for
| which WordStar was developed, many running the CP/M
| operating system, did not have function keys or cursor
| control keys (arrow keys, Page Up/Page Down). WordStar
| used sequences of alphabetic keys combined with the
| "Control" key, which on keyboards of the time was
| conveniently next to the letter A in the position now
| usually occupied by the Caps Lock key. For touch typists,
| in addition, reaching the function and cursor keys
| generally requires them to take their fingers off the
| "home keys" with consequent loss of typing rhythm.
|
| [1]: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Wordstar
| lupusreal wrote:
| Ctrl-V is arbitrary from a mnemonic sense. "Vaste"?
| chuckadams wrote:
| eh, vy vaste ze energy zinking about eet too moch ah ha
| ha...</the-count>
|
| :)=
| andrewshadura wrote:
| V looks like the insertion mark
| layer8 wrote:
| The V isn't arbitrary. Apart from the close location on the
| keyboard, the V looks like the handwritten mark often used
| to insert text in a physical document. This is similar to
| how the X suggests crossing out something.
| whartung wrote:
| What's funny is when I started on SCO Unix ages ago, the
| default break key was DEL.
|
| It quickly morphed into ^C, but the first few months were
| interesting.
|
| Coming from the VAX, it was ^T.
| kule wrote:
| "Except the Terminal"...
|
| Of course in the Mac you have the same shortcut in every app
| because you use cmd+c/v
|
| It really bugged me that by default you use ctrl+shift+c/v on
| Linux but only in the terminal.
|
| Found a lovely feature in kitty term that does the right thing
| for ctrl+c depending on if you have text selection or not.
| Works great for me.
| hbnjgf wrote:
| Unless you are not using X, selected text us also
| automatically available for copy using the middle mouse
| button
| sureglymop wrote:
| Actually, on macOS you have the same shortcuts as gnu
| readline in any text editing field.
|
| You have these same shortcuts in bash, zsh, the python repl,
| html form fields, etc. And anything that doesn't use gnu
| readline can be wrapped in rlwrap.
|
| Note that copying and pasting is an exception. Otherwise,
| navigating words with shortcuts seems to fairly universally
| use these shortcuts.
| kule wrote:
| Yep, which is really handy. I was specifically talking
| about copy and paste shortcuts being the same even in the
| terminal though.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| They're really emacs keybindings that readline adopted if I
| may be allowed a small amount of pedantry.
| nyarlathotep_ wrote:
| Appreciate the clarity here; I always wondered which
| "came first"
| culebron21 wrote:
| My experience on MacOS is that every program has different
| shortcuts regarding text editing. Home/End/PgUp/PgDn on my
| external keyboard just not working, and if added to system
| settings, they still don't work in some apps, Ctrl+Left
| sometimes working sometimes not, etc.
|
| And what Ctrl/CMD/Shift keys do together looks very random,
| no logic in it. Like, Ctrl+Left in Zsh scrolls the entire
| log to top, rather than move the cursor to the start of the
| line.
|
| I use zsh, slack, Chromium, SublimeText and Zed on Mac.
| meindnoch wrote:
| What do you mean? Ctrl+C is SIGINT. Copy is Cmd+C.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| What's cmd? I've only got ctrl, alt, super, and hyper over
| here. /s
|
| I guess I've also that useless "right click menu" keyboard
| button that's not even worth repurposing for anything due to
| the placement making it incredibly awkward to use. I'd be
| curious to know if anyone here actually uses the ctrl or alt
| keys that are located on the right.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| I used to use them back when Ctrl-Alt-Del was something you
| had to press daily.
| mkotowski wrote:
| Many keyboard layouts use the right alt as the AltGr key
| for additional characters like language-specific letters or
| currency symbols (or at least many European ones do).
|
| As for the right ctrl, by association with the AltGr, I
| usually map it as the Compose key.
| mprovost wrote:
| Hmm my Lisp Machine has control, meta, super, and hyper but
| no alt!
| teo_zero wrote:
| > I'd be curious to know if anyone here actually uses the
| ctrl or alt keys that are located on the right.
|
| You must be located in the US, because the US is probably
| the only keyboard layout with a right Alt key. All the
| others have an AltGr key in that position.
|
| I use the right Ctrl key in combination with the arrow,
| Backspace and Delete keys. Also with Return to enter the
| same content in multiple cells in Excel.
| int_19h wrote:
| "All the others" is a rather drastic overstatement. Some
| European layouts do that. Many non-Latin layouts do not,
| however. E.g. I can't think of any common Cyrillic
| keyboard layouts with AltGr.
| igniuss wrote:
| A lot of eu keyboard layouts use right alt as alt-gr for
| special characters. Because of that right control gets a
| lot of usage since you're using right alt constantly
| anyways.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| Hello there, Mr. I-Only-Have-a-Left-Hand.
|
| I use the right control keys, I use Ctrl+Ins/Del, I use
| "Context menu" key, when it's available. And hey, I have
| almost a 30 years of muscle memory for them, so when some
| another idiot replaces the right Ctrl with F23 (which even
| can't be remapped by default AND pops up the stupidest menu
| for _selecting what F23 should do_ ) I really what to punch
| him in the face.
|
| NB: as someone up in the thread mentions, right Ctrl is
| extremely useful for navigating in the text.
| somat wrote:
| This is X11 centric but I mapped the largely useless
| context menu button to the compose key. where it actually
| gets used.
|
| For those unfamiliar with the compose key it is a superior
| input mechanism for rare characters that maps a mnemonic
| sequence to the character in question. you want an o type
| compose o /
|
| A tutorial if you do not have a compose key configured, I
| tend to run a minimal bare bones X11 setup, A more full
| featured environment may have it's own way of doing it.
|
| map the compose key in ~/.xsession
| xmodmap -e 'keysym Menu = Multi_key'
|
| I also set up a ~/.XCompose mainly because it is fun to add
| your own include "%L" #include the
| compose file found in
| /usr/X11R6/share/X11/locale/<localemapping>/Compose
| <Multi_key> <w> <e> <b> : "" # spiderweb
| <Multi_key> <c> <c> <c> <p> : "\xe2\x98\xad" #symbol
| representing proletarian solidarity between agricultural
| and industrial workers
|
| https://man.openbsd.org/Compose
|
| I don't know if the compose system is found any where else
| but I regard it as one of the better things to come out of
| the X11 project. A little below select / middle click
| paste.
| int_19h wrote:
| The "right click menu" keyboard button is surprisingly
| useful if you ever happen to be in a situation where you
| need to deal with a GUI app without a mouse.
|
| Although these days, chances are good that some things will
| not be accessible at all, because many devs these days just
| don't care to do even the basics like submitting dialogs on
| Enter properly. Historically, though, Windows at least was
| very thorough in making sure that everything GUI could be
| operated entirely from keyboard. Much of that is still
| there, just increasingly obscure - e.g. few people know
| that Alt+Space will open the same menu that you can get by
| clicking the window icon in the title bar (the one with
| Maximize, Minimize, Move, Size etc). Even fewer know that
| when you pick Move or Size from that menu, you can use the
| arrow keys to move and resize the window.
| muixoozie wrote:
| > like how copying and pasting any multiline document into your
| browser's URL bar will almost certainly format it into a sane
| single-line format.
|
| Didn't know that. I learned the other day that one can paste a
| password into the URL bar and drag it to a password field on
| the website that's annoyingly blocking paste (on Firefox at
| least). Probably a bad idea for security reasons (telemetry?).
| Just found it surprising. Also noticed many crappy sites that
| block paste will forget to block Ctrl + insert or Ctrl + Shift
| + v. I usually don't have this problem because the plugin of my
| password manager usually works..
| diggan wrote:
| > Didn't know that. I learned the other day that one can
| paste a password into the URL bar and drag it to a password
| field on the website that's annoyingly blocking paste (on
| Firefox at least). Probably a bad idea for security reasons
| (telemetry?).
|
| You could probably drag it directly from the password manager
| to the password field, instead of using the URL bar as an
| intermediate (which indeed is a bad idea as whatever you
| enter there usually gets sent _somewhere_ ).
| enricozb wrote:
| Since I do not really use Ctrl-X on the terminal to cut text, I
| have changed my terminal configs to have Ctrl-X be sigint, and
| Ctrl-C to be copy. Makes for a nicer experience, also X looks
| more like a "kill" :)
| adastra22 wrote:
| That makes way more sense.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Nice, but eons of muscle memory to retrain. :-/
| physicles wrote:
| Wow, in 7 years of daily Linux use, I somehow never thought
| of doing this. Thank you.
|
| ~/.bashrc:
|
| stty intr ^x
|
| ~/.inputrc (at the end):
|
| "\C-v": "" # Unbind Ctrl-V
|
| ~/.config/terminator/config (in case anyone happens to be
| using terminator):
|
| [keybindings] copy = <Control>C
| paste = <Control>V
| dotancohen wrote:
| I used to do similar bindings, but one mistype of muscle
| memory on somebody else's box, or in an SSH session, will
| teach you not to do that.
|
| Do you want to be productive on your own snowflake system, or
| employable?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| IBM didn't invent this scheme. Apple Lisa had Cmd+X,C,V. Early
| Mac apps switched to K,C,V but obviously they switched back at
| some point.
| teddyh wrote:
| > _IBM didn 't invent this scheme._
|
| Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V isn't even part of the IBM CUA
| specification. CUA places the Cut command at Shift-Del, Copy
| on Ctrl-Insert, and Paste on Shift-Insert.
| scelerat wrote:
| cmd-K for Cut? I don't ever remember that on the Mac.
|
| I remember the lower left row on the US keyboard was always
| the first four operations from the nearly-ubiquitous Edit
| menu since day one. Z - Undo X -
| Cut C - Copy V - Paste
|
| Certainly not the flagship apps from Apple. Can you remember
| an app that did this specifically? I seem to remember even
| early apps from Microsoft were fairly respectful of the early
| Mac HIG
|
| Early apps frequently also had "Clear" in the Edit menu,
| which was like Cut except the cleared item didn't go into the
| system Clipboard
| jonhohle wrote:
| This has always been one of my favorite aspects of macOS (ne OS
| X). GUI app shortcuts and Terminal control sequences are
| mutually exclusive where it matters and shared where it's
| convenient. I find it very natural to navigate text in any app.
| I find it surprising that no Linux window manager has taken
| this approach.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Most terminal now accept ctrl + shit C/V as an alternative on
| linux.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| They could also not use Ctrl for gui keybindings and join
| the 21st century
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Very rare to have a Mac keyboard with Cmd on it on a PC.
| Only common on a Mac with Linux. There it can be
| reprogrammed but yes, should be better.
| int_19h wrote:
| If you connect an Apple keyboard to a PC, you'll find out
| that Cmd is the same as the Win key.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| IC, though the Win key has useful shortcuts assigned as
| well. But I suppose they could be sacrificed and/or
| remapped.
| rz2k wrote:
| It started with "System Software" or "Mac OS" (as opposed to
| "macOS"), since it was an advantage of using terminal
| software like ZTerm on the pre-OS X operating system. You
| could select and copy text without unintentionally sending a
| break.
| cxr wrote:
| > I always wonder why developers don't go out of their way more
| often to memorize the Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, ... shortcuts in use
| basically everywhere
|
| What developer doesn't have these shortcuts memorized? It
| sounds like you're living in some bizarro world.
| skydhash wrote:
| I know devs that still right click for copy and paste.
| cxr wrote:
| I don't know what function the word "still" is intended to
| perform in this sentence. I, too, copy and paste using the
| context menu--sometimes, i.e.: when it is most appropriate
| and/or convenient to do so.
|
| But the question is: what developers _don 't know_ about
| the standard keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste? Do they
| exist in any statistically significant numbers? ("There
| exists X" is not a very meaningful contribution if the Xs
| involved are something like 0.01% and are outnumbered by
| the number of programmers who write all their code on their
| mobile phone or whose version control strategy is to
| inscribe all their programs on a Tic Tac or a grain of rice
| or who think that Commodore 64-inspired homegrown operating
| systems are specially positioned to reveal the Word of God
| and offer protection against being pursued and persecuted
| by the CIA. Or are these some special breed of 9-to-5
| darkmatter programmers who aren't going to show up on the
| radar, anyway?)
| jayd16 wrote:
| Its safer in an unfamiliar terminal than accidentally
| killing the app with Ctrl-c.
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| I also criss cross enough different terminals and systems
| that I never know if it is Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Shift-C. Same
| with paste.
| silon42 wrote:
| It would be nice if we could use Ctrl+Break instead of
| Ctrl+C... also, use SysRq instead of Ctrl+Z.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Legacy bullshit from the 70s still making people facedesk
| today and probably for the next hundred years or more. At
| least ctrl-shift-c and ctrl-shift-v are now somewhat more
| common.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Rare to have these on a laptop. Sometimes you can find an
| non standard alternative key combo.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Try Shift-Insert. Works everywhere, never overloaded by
| something destructive.
| JulianWasTaken wrote:
| Always a take which sprouts vehement arguments, but this
| is something macOS gets extremely right, as Cmd-C, Cmd-V,
| etc. indeed work everywhere _including_ the terminal, and
| Ctrl-C in the terminal is reliably SIGINT.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Oh so IBM is to blame for the worst keybindings imaginable
| layer8 wrote:
| The CUA bindings for Cut, Copy, Paste are actually
| Shift+Delete, Control+Insert, Shift+Insert.
|
| Microsoft adopted the X/C/V shortcuts from the Macintosh for
| Windows 3.0 (replacing Command by Control; Alt was already used
| for invoking menus and the like), in addition to the existing
| CUA shortcuts (which are still supported and used today).
| slashdave wrote:
| > Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V
|
| You mean CMD+C and CMD+V, right?
| smokel wrote:
| There are even developers who do not learn to touch type.
| Baffles the mind.
|
| Making Caps Lock an additional Ctrl, and using Emacs
| keybindings (supported in nearly every IDE and on many command
| lines) makes one even more productive, because your hand
| doesn't have to travel all the way to where the arrow keys are.
| (A similar thing can be said about Vi keybindings.)
|
| It is a strange phenomenon that many people do not wish to
| invest a few hours to make their lives easier later on.
| croemer wrote:
| Yeo. I map capslock to Esc and use vi bindings.
| spauldo wrote:
| It baffles my mind that a lot of schools don't even offer
| keyboarding anymore. I took it in high school, and I was
| fortunate to be born late enough that being male wasn't a
| barrier (only girls could take it when my parents were in
| school) but early enough that they offered it at all. Out of
| all the skills I learned in high school, it's probably the
| one I use the most.
| int_19h wrote:
| It takes way more than a few hours to get used to a new setup
| like that when you're already very proficient in something
| else (like using arrow keys).
|
| As for Caps Lock, some of us have good reasons to have it
| mapped to something else that needs to be done frequently,
| e.g. switching keyboard layouts.
| culebron21 wrote:
| Because on Ubuntu, they're Ctrl+SHIFT+C/V/X. I've seen Ctrl+C/V
| not work, and assumed that Bash didn't implement it at all.
| I've learned the right way casually about 7 years into using
| Ubuntu.
| tzot wrote:
| Ctrl-Shift-C/V/X are not implemented in bash; it's the
| terminal emulator program that handles these. So the default
| terminal emulator of Ubuntu (gnome-terminal I assume, but
| ICBW) knows about a "system" clipboard and copies stuff to it
| and on paste feeds bash with the copied data. If you press
| Ctrl-Alt-F1 (and F2, F3, depends on your distribution's
| defaults) you can login and in your login shell, which I
| understand is bash, Ctrl-Shift-C/V/X have no difference to
| shiftless Ctrl-C/V/X.
| spauldo wrote:
| When you press CTRL and a letter or symbol at the terminal,
| shift doesn't do anything (unless it's required for the
| symbol, as in CTRL-@). The code that gets sent is the same
| either way. Emacs users have to be wary when setting custom
| keybindings because GUI Emacs can see the difference but
| terminal Emacs can't.
|
| Likewise, ALT just sends ESC assuming you're using the
| standard US keymap.
| financypants wrote:
| i use ctrl + <key> quite often but didn't know about ctrl +
| backspace! Also, I think mac's cmd + shift + left arrow or
| right arrow work so well.
| neoden wrote:
| What font is on the screenshot? https://github.com/microsoft/edit
| muziq wrote:
| Cascadia Code ? https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code
| moefh wrote:
| That's not it, the lower case 'a' is very different.
| CactusRocket wrote:
| Could it be Consolas? It would make sense I believe it's the
| default monospace font on recent Windows.
| wlkr wrote:
| I think it's Maple Mono.
|
| https://font.subf.dev/en/
|
| https://github.com/subframe7536/maple-font
| lhecker wrote:
| It's indeed Maple Mono. I love that font!
| felineflock wrote:
| I appreciate the effort that went into writing the article but it
| conflates different concepts missing some historical context and
| technical distinctions.
|
| For example, TUI (text user interface) and CLI (command-line
| interface) are quite different. "CLI Text Editor" sounds more
| like someone editing a file using ECHO commands.
|
| This new editor is actually a reimplementation of the classic MS-
| DOS 5 EDIT program from 1991. At that time, VIM was still very
| new, so "VIM memes" weren't yet part of the tech landscape.
|
| Before VIM, there was vi. In Usenet posts - about 15 years before
| Google - people used to add a pithy humorous sentence at the
| bottom called "tagline" - here is one: "How do you exit vi?
| Reboot the system."
|
| And Notepad was not the only option for Windows devs. We've had
| EDIT, DR-DOS EDITOR, Brief, WordPad, EditPad, Notepad++, and
| more.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Does the exclamation point work in vi, like vim? So the way to
| exit is to do:
|
| :!killall vi
|
| Of course.
|
| For a cli text editor, ed would qualify, right?
| diggan wrote:
| > For a cli text editor, ed would qualify, right?
|
| It'd still say ed is more of a TUI than CLI, albeit kind of
| old-school since it doesn't redraw the screen, just
| continuously show output and let you enter commands. Maybe
| "REPL" comes closer, because it's not interactive in the
| typical TUI way.
| WD-42 wrote:
| Not sure why you are downvoted this is entirely correct
| spauldo wrote:
| Probably because most of us don't think it's correct at
| all.
|
| TUI apps aren't common anymore, which adds to the
| confusion as a lot of people didn't grow up with them and
| don't grasp the difference. A TUI app takes control of
| the terminal and redraws different parts of the screen to
| present a consistent, non-scrolling experience. If you've
| ever used a system where your interface was an IBM 3270
| emulator (or better, an actual 3270 terminal), that's
| TUI. vi/vim and non-GUI Emacs are also TUI.
|
| A CLI app just prints its output at the cursor and the
| output scrolls off the top of the screen as you go. The
| Bourne, Korn, Bourne Again, and C shells are all CLI, as
| are most REPLs and the majority of interactive non-GUI
| UNIX programs (including ed) these days.
| layer8 wrote:
| I fail to see the difference between REPL and CLI here. Any
| line-based interactive interface where you type commands is
| a CLI, like for example the _ftp_ or _mysql_ clients in
| interactive mode. Or, indeed, _ed_.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| Personally I usually make the distinction based on
| whether the process has to switch the tty to raw mode and
| overwrites the full screen (typically using ncurses), but
| it sounds like the person you are replying to makes the
| distinction in whether the program needs user input while
| executing. I guess such programs are more likely to work
| in pipelines or shell scripts
| layer8 wrote:
| Unix shells "need user input while executing" in that
| sense. A program not being a Unix shell doesn't make it
| non-CLI. A shell constitutes a CLI due to its interactive
| line-based user interface. Any other program with such an
| interface counts as being a CLI program for the same
| reason.
| kristjansson wrote:
| Could you run it on an actual teletype without consuming
| an entire forest worth of paper? That's a CLI. Otherwise
| it's a TUI.
| layer8 wrote:
| I don't agree, it's consecutive line output vs. screen-
| based rendering and repositioning. Regardless, _ed_ was
| developed for and used on actual teletypes. It's entire
| interface is geared towards that usage.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I think ed also served the function of sed and patch. Ie
| you could record a bunch of edits into a file and it
| could read the script and perform all the edits to some
| input file. So it was more useful than an interactive
| line based editor sounds.
| layer8 wrote:
| This is the same distinction as between running commands
| with _bash -c_ (or just by executing a regular Bash
| script) and running them manually in an interactive Bash
| session. It's pretty much an inherent feature of command-
| line interfaces that you can script them.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Wasn't intended to be a distinction but an aside.
|
| But as to that, it's slightly different than merely being
| able to play back a recording of commands. It IS that,
| but that can be applied in a way that acts more like the
| examples I said like sed or patch, or expect, where the
| script can apply some funcion to different inputs, not
| just playing back a recording. I'm not denying the
| implimentation, how the job gets done, is technically
| still just a recording of commands.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| It's different. Grep was a function of ed ('g/re/p') that
| was later extracted into its own program to search files
| that could not fit in memory. Sed then came along and
| implemented the 's/re/substitution/' functionality from
| ed for the streaming use case.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| They are obviously "command line interfaces" in that the
| interface is that you enter lines of commands.
|
| They are equally obviously different from the non-
| interative interface where all input is provided in the
| command line arguments and other shell syntax (pipes,
| redirection).
|
| ls is a cli app. bash is an interative app that provides
| the cli environment in which you use ls.
|
| I fail to see what is gained by trying make the meaning
| of "cli app" unclear when it definitely has an understood
| meaning, just because you can technically assemble the
| same words to mean other things. Sure in certsin contexts
| where you are speaking more geneticslly and more
| abstractly like in some research paper you may refer to a
| wide range of things all as "command line interface". But
| so what? How does noting that help in this context? (It
| does not)
| layer8 wrote:
| I disagree that it is well-understood in the way you
| describe. I agree that there are two distinct concepts:
| 1. Programs that can be run as a CLI command, often
| without further user interaction (but consider cases like
| _rm -i_ , which are quite common), and 2. programs that
| expose their functionality by providing their own
| interactive CLI.
|
| In the case of 1, the program's argument syntax can be
| referred to as the program's "command-line interface".
| But the abbreviation "CLI" usually means the interactive
| interface as in 2.
|
| The latter is analogous to the notion of how TUI programs
| provide their own interactive interface. When making the
| distinction between CLI and TUI, it's the latter that is
| meant, i.e. is it a line-oriented or screen-oriented user
| interface.
|
| Saying "CLI editor" doesn't imply that the editor
| commands are necessarily invoked as non-interactive shell
| commands, as opposed to the editor providing a CLI of its
| own.
|
| Technically, every program can serve as a "CLI command",
| since you can invoke it with arguments. However, "command
| line" is generally understood to mean the user interface
| where the user types commands, as opposed to non-
| interactive program invocation. When invoking a program
| with arguments from another program with _exec_ or
| similar, you don't call that a CLI.
| hamburglar wrote:
| Is it actually important that we come up with a formal
| definition of these things, though? They are colloquial
| terms, there is some overlap, and people are always going
| to use one or the other "incorrectly" according to you.
| It's more important that we recognize that's a potential
| source of differing terminology and ignore that rather than
| fixating on it.
| Jenk wrote:
| Ed was designed in an age where the visual interface was a
| printer - so it is most assuredly a cli tool :)
| rbanffy wrote:
| MS-DOS had edlin, which was their own take on ed. They never
| made a firm commitment, however, to make edlin the standard
| editor.
| aforwardslash wrote:
| Edlin was the standard editor in dos 3.x. As far as I can
| remember, edit came later (dos 4.x-5?)
| rbanffy wrote:
| I don't remember any tools that output edlin commands
| that could be piped to it the same way it's done with ed.
| roryirvine wrote:
| for maximum excitement, try that killall method on a SysV
| unix...
| spauldo wrote:
| Ye gods, I had managed to bury that memory! Went from
| Slackware to Solaris, and then used killall while teaching
| a UNIX class. Everyone got a laugh and a smoke break, and I
| got knocked down a peg.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _In Usenet posts - about 15 years before Google - people used
| to add a pithy humorous sentence at the bottom called
| "tagline"_
|
| We always called them "signatures." They were even stored in a
| file named .sig.
| angled wrote:
| ^H^H^H^Hsignature
| felineflock wrote:
| The tagline was below or at the end of the signature.
|
| They were stored separately in a list and there was software
| that would pick one of them randomly to add to the signature
| when posting.
| invaliduser wrote:
| taglines where witty one-liners posted at the end of
| messages, after the signature, as a way to add a bit of humor
| or personality.
|
| I think we also used them in fidonet echomail, but I don't
| remember for sure.
| JdeBP wrote:
| The problem is that the nomenclature and conventions
| differed, and this many years later people tend to conflate
| them.
|
| BBS networks like ILink had tearlines, optional taglines,
| and mandatory origin lines. FidoNet had tearlines and
| origin lines because it shared roots and sometimes nodes
| with the BBS networks; so they were there for
| compatibility. Usenet mainly had signatures, with all of
| its equivalents to the other stuff in headers.
|
| * http://ftsc.org/docs/fts-0004.001
| int_19h wrote:
| In echomail they were known as "Origin" because the
| intended purpose of that line was to identify the
| originating node. It looked like this: *
| Origin: any random text (12:34/56.78)
|
| The text was _supposed_ to be the name or description of
| the node, but this wasn 't mandated by the rules, and the
| address at the end unambiguously identified the node anyway
| for anyone who cared, so people quickly repurposed it for
| taglines.
| pxc wrote:
| I came here to pick the first of those nits, too. A concrete
| example that sums it up: sed is a command-line text editor;
| nano is a TUI text editor.
| sjmulder wrote:
| Btw, CLI editors can be interactive too: consider ed ("the
| standard text editor") and DOS' edlin.
| snozolli wrote:
| _TUI (text user interface)_
|
| I find it interesting that everyone is using TUI when I've
| always seen CUI (Character User Interface). I come from a DOS
| and Windows background, and it seems like TUI comes from the
| *nix world.
|
| _And Notepad was not the only option for Windows devs._
|
| Dr Dobbs and other tech magazines used to have ads for a
| variety of editors. And linkers, which were the bane of 80s
| programmers' lives. There was a whole era of programmer-
| oriented software that seems to have been largely forgotten.
| layer8 wrote:
| My understanding is that CUI includes both TUI and CLI, and
| refers to the interface of a text-mode screen (as opposed to
| a graphical screen -- a GUI), where you can use both CLI
| commands and TUI programs.
|
| So, technically, if you're using a TUI in a graphical
| terminal window within a GUI, you're strictly speaking not in
| a CUI, but are emulating a CUI within a GUI. And the CLIs and
| TUIs are running within that CUI.
| card_zero wrote:
| Oui.
| snozolli wrote:
| I don't agree with that. I first heard CUI used to describe
| software like the Turbo Pascal IDE. I believe that "CUI"
| came about when GUI was coined to describe the modern
| graphical interface like Windows and Macintosh. That was in
| the latter 80s and early 90s. I've never heard TUI until
| literally today.
|
| Additionally, TUI is either Text or Terminal User
| Interface. Either way, it seems to be heavily associated
| with ncurses. As I understand it, ncurses essentially
| outputs a stream, which includes things like ANSI escape
| sequences for position and color. By contrast, CUIs like
| Turbo Pascal wrote directly to video memory.
| layer8 wrote:
| It's true that TUI is a newer term than GUI and CUI.
| However, it isn't exactly a new term either, its
| Wikipedia page was created in 2004. Look at the
| screenshots for illustration of what is considered a TUI:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-based_user_interface
|
| Or here some usage of the term in 2002 referring to a
| Turbo Vision or Norton Commander-like interface:
| https://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/c++/dos/75.html
|
| The technical means of how the contents of the TUI is
| established (character stream with special codes, or
| direct writes to text-mode video buffer) is largely
| irrelevant for the term. The essential characteristic is
| that the visual "state space" of the interface is a
| character matrix, and that the program treats it as such
| (instead of just unidirectional line-based output).
|
| Maybe you are right that CUI actually doesn't cover CLI.
| The Unix System V documentation uses "Character User
| Interface" for curses-based interfaces
| (https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=idAmAAAAMAAJ).
| Then CUI and TUI are roughly synonymous, though TUI is
| the widespread term nowadays.
| holowoodman wrote:
| you forgot EDLIN
| esafak wrote:
| 'coz it's better forgotten! Who could guess it was made in
| two weeks in 1980? Anyone who fired it up!
| marttt wrote:
| BTW, its FreeDOS version is still being updated fairly
| frequently :) -- https://sourceforge.net/projects/freedos-
| edlin/files/freedos...
| da_chicken wrote:
| That's the thing about open source. Some projects are
| just maintained for fun, not because they're broadly used
| or the best tools for a job.
| abhgh wrote:
| I noticed the conflation of terms too but it seems to arise out
| of the original Microsoft announcement!
|
| https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/edit-is-now-open-...
| onetom wrote:
| somethings never change...
|
| my biggest problem with azure was also the fact that they
| couldn't stick to industry-standard terminology, but they has
| to invent their own. it made azure docs tremendously
| confusing.
| JdeBP wrote:
| Interestingly enough, the weird re-boosting to get more views
| thing that Hacker News sometimes does is making it seem like I
| said all of that 5 hours ago.
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44310682
|
| Instead of 2 days ago when I actually wrote it. (-:
| marttt wrote:
| I've long quit using vim on a daily basis, but the "how to exit
| Vim?" jokes are still somehow funny. A recent encounter was an
| old tweet by @iamdeveloper: "I've been using Vim for about 2
| years now, mostly because I can't figure out how to exit it."
|
| :wq (sorry, I had to).
| Jenk wrote:
| `ZZ` to save and quit, `ZQ` to quit without saving. Sorry, I
| can't help myself.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I've always used :x or :x! and no longer remember why.
| Probably it's a bad idea like without actually looking
| right now I think it might mean to ignore permissions (if
| you're root enough) and just write even if perms would have
| blocked it. Hm, maybe x means wq and just the ! means
| force.
| mklein994 wrote:
| It's actually a bit more nuanced: `:x` is like `:wq`, but
| only writes if changes have been made. `:x!` has the same
| semantics as `:wq!`.
| humanperhaps wrote:
| I feel like the default behavior should be to not write
| unless changes have been made. I may be misunderstanding
| here, but what would be getting written if nothing's been
| changed?
| greiskul wrote:
| Metadata about the file like modification time.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| It would overwrite changes made by external programs.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| The fact that everyone says the meme is dead, but in this
| small thread there are 5 different people posting how to
| exit, and none of them are the same says there is still
| pretty good substance behind that meme.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I think we're all kind of implicitly acknowledging the
| truth of the meme. I mean that was definitely a conscious
| part of my own comment.
| pjio wrote:
| Quitting vim isn't about exiting the program, which can
| easily be done with :!kill -9 $PPID
| tylerchilds wrote:
| i quit vim like
|
| ctrl-z
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Quitting vim became easy once I got to know helix. I've
| been clean for several weeks.
| eddd-ddde wrote:
| You should check out kakoune! It's very similar to helix,
| motion first, multi selection, and stupid easy to script.
| marttt wrote:
| Easy-peasy!
| EFreethought wrote:
| I think sysadmins should install nano on servers for people
| to make quick edits. All the commands are along the bottom,
| so there is no learning curve.
| onetom wrote:
| or they should just make sure emacs can work with the
| machine thru ssh, then there is nothing to install ;)
|
| if no ssh, then nano is not a bad option, though i would go
| with joe (https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io/) which can
| also show the shortcuts, but much much more powerful, yet
| it's just a single ~700kbyte exe (or 1.5MB with some
| optional syntax highlighting grammars and docs)
| opan wrote:
| >or they should just make sure emacs can work with the
| machine thru ssh, then there is nothing to install ;)
|
| While (neo)vim doesn't have TRAMP and dired, it has
| netrw, which does the same stuff (on a basic level). You
| can do the following to edit a remote file:
|
| vim scp://user@hostname/path-to-file-here
|
| You can also replace user@hostname with an ssh alias
| you've configured, which makes it easier to work with
| multihop ssh and different keys and users. One useful
| usage of the remote editing is to combine it with opening
| multiple files to compare two files on different
| machines:
|
| vim -O ~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf
| scp://htpc/.config/mpv/mpv.conf
|
| To browse a directory instead of a specific file, just
| put the dir instead of a non-dir file and it will open a
| filebrowser view where you can then pick a file to open.
| In the above examples, leave off mpv.conf and you'll then
| be able to pick either your mpv.conf or input.conf or
| files related to your mpv scripts.
| Jenk wrote:
| Before vim was vi. Befote vi was ex. (Before ex was ed - the
| first editor for unix)
|
| Vim has ex built in - `Q` in normal mode to enter Ex mode, 3-5
| command lines will show at the bottom and you can Ex away. I
| don't know of practical uses, I've only done it for the
| novelty.
|
| Obligatory: To exit Ex mode use `:vi[sual]` - and that's
| probably where Vi got its name.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| ed is the standard editor
| lukasb wrote:
| For everyone downvoting this
| https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.en.html
| joshu wrote:
| i just want an editor! not a viitor! not an emacsitor!
| those aren't even words!
| hk1337 wrote:
| > This new editor is actually a reimplementation of the classic
| MS-DOS 5 EDIT program from 1991.
|
| I remember editing the AUTOEXEC.BAT in that thing as well as
| writing my own BAT files and QBASIC.
| skywhopper wrote:
| You're missing 'ed' (and its predecessor 'qed') which is
| actually a CLI text editor.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Don't forget MicroEmacs! I've been using it ever since it
| floated around usenet in 1985 or so.
| needlesslygrim wrote:
| I'm curious, why don't you use GNU Emacs?
| WalterBright wrote:
| Too heavy. MicroEmacs loads instantly.
|
| MicroEmacs is small and lightweight. I port it to whatever
| machine I'm using, and it works nicely in a remote tty
| window. It doesn't need a customization language, as I just
| change the source code.
|
| Recently, I added color syntax highlighting to it, and
| support for unicode characters.
|
| https://github.com/DigitalMars/med
| 00000000000test wrote:
| For how long have you been coding without syntax
| highlighting?
| WalterBright wrote:
| Since my hair left for the Klondike gold fields.
| onetom wrote:
| which variant? jasspa, openbsd/macos mg, torvalds/uemacs ?
|
| why not https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io/ starting via
| jmacs?
| WalterBright wrote:
| The original, with my own enhancements.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| I forgot how the punchline is phrased, so apologies for the
| atrocious delivery, but I like the one about "I do all my
| coding in VIM, because I don't know how to exit VIM"
| skissane wrote:
| > This new editor is actually a reimplementation of the classic
| MS-DOS 5 EDIT program from 1991
|
| MS-DOS 5 EDIT is actually just a stub which runs QBASIC in
| editor mode, in which all the BASIC-related features are
| disabled.
|
| Windows 95 EDIT was different, it actually had BASIC removed
| from the binary. I don't know if it was a rewrite or if they
| just deleted (or even #ifdef-ed) out the BASIC parts out of the
| source code.
|
| QBASIC was basically just a cut-down build of QuickBASIC with
| some features disabled. The TUI part was provided by the
| "Character Windows" (aka "Character-Oriented Windows", CW or
| COW) library, a TUI-mode analog to the Windows 3.x API for DOS
| TUI apps, it was also used by some other Microsoft products
| such as Word for DOS. It would be great were Microsoft to open
| source it (although from what I've heard, significant chunks of
| this stuff have already been included in various leaks of DOS
| and Windows source code, but it would be nice to have it
| publicly available in a completely kosher way)
| donatj wrote:
| > QBASIC was basically just a cut-down build of QuickBASIC
| with some features disabled
|
| Huh, I've wondered about the difference for the last 30+
| years.
| mattl wrote:
| QuickBASIC, Visual BASIC for DOS and PDS (Professional
| Development System) all had some variation on the same
| design. PDS has QuickBASIC Extended.
|
| I briefly worked with them.
| pico303 wrote:
| The target market for this editor seems infinitesimal. Who on
| Windows these days groks the terminal on Windows, wants a
| terminal editor instead of Notepad++ or VSCode, and finds
| Neovim overwhelming? And certainly no one on Ubuntu is
| looking for this.
|
| That said, give me QuickBasic back in the terminal on
| Windows, Mac, and Linux, and now you've got my attention...
| rozab wrote:
| The term CLI has just come to mean "in a terminal" for a
| certain subculture, e.g. https://github.com/agarrharr/awesome-
| cli-apps
|
| People do know the technical difference, it's just a shorthand
| da_chicken wrote:
| I understand the categorization you want to draw, but I don't
| think convention and usage are going to back you up well enough
| to solidify it.
|
| Sometimes people use CLI to mean something you're literally
| doing at the shell prompt, and sometimes people use CLI to mean
| anything that isn't a GUI. And the Venn diagram of those
| meanings has significant overlap when both of those meanings
| are contextually valid and the end result of the meaning is
| functionally identical.
|
| If I say, "instead of Firefox I'm using lynx, a CLI web
| browser," it's not really so ambiguous what I mean that you're
| confused. You can do backflips and dodge context to arrive at
| being confusing, but you really have to cross into disingenuous
| reading to get there.
|
| The fact that you CAN draw a difference does not actually mean
| that the author needs to in order to communicate effectively.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > For example, TUI (text user interface) and CLI (command-line
| interface) are quite different. "CLI Text Editor" sounds more
| like someone editing a file using ECHO commands.
|
| Sounds like ed, or edlin for the DOS oldies, to me.
| posix86 wrote:
| I wish they'd port the windows terminal to linux. It somehow
| allows to use ctrl + c for both cancelling processes and copying
| text. I'm still sometimes opening dev tools in chrome bcs of the
| annoying ctrl + shift + c.
| drdunce wrote:
| Although most terminals (stty)/UI wrappers/multiplexers etc.
| would allow this as a configuration, I believe ElementaryOS and
| others are deliberately setup out the box to offer a Windows-
| like experience, including preserving keyboard shorts, without
| further configuration if this is what you seek.
| tialaramex wrote:
| I wish any of the supplied terminals and shells for Windows
| were even halfway decent.
|
| At first I tried really hard to use these tools, since my work
| laptop runs Windows, but gradually I accepted that no, even the
| experienced users aren't doing any better, these tools are just
| worse than the ones I was used to, and so I use a Unix shell
| and terminals designed to run those shells instead.
|
| There were Windows/ Microsoft tools where I found things to
| like. C# is at least arguably a better Java for example. But a
| lot of the things I expected to find had benefits were just
| disappointing.
| zadjii wrote:
| What complaints do you have with the Windows Terminal
| specifically? I can get having issues with CMD or PowerShell
| - they're very non-unix-y. But WT itself is probably one of
| the most feature-complete terminal emulators out there these
| days. I'd love to know what you think it's missing
| tialaramex wrote:
| The thing that specifically makes me sigh every single day
| is that I start a power shell, the terminal opens and it
| displays most of the greeting, but only later, maybe in a
| few seconds, or when I click it, the rest displays.
| Arguably that might be a power shell bug but it's annoying
| and the same people made both. It's a bad smell, did
| anybody QA this?
|
| Some time during my day I'll forget that because
| Microsoft's engineers have apparently seen a real Unix but
| have little or no experience living with one they've
| decided PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD are the same thing. This is
| another one of those things like doing MAC and encryption
| in the wrong order, or not realising you need a new
| variable (with the same name) for each iteration of your
| loops, where it makes sense if it's 1975 and this isn't yet
| common knowledge, but this is 2025, fucking ask someone.
|
| There are more annoyances, but those are the biggest two.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Does windows have two clipboards? Don't think so,
| although could be implemented I suppose. Some won't like
| it as well.
| 3836293648 wrote:
| Just don't use the C-c clipboard anywhere?
|
| If you want consistency, just use the other one?
| jll29 wrote:
| Works like a breeze.
|
| Make sure to add alias edit=msedit
|
| to your ~/.profile for full "DOS compatibility".
| declan_roberts wrote:
| I love the UI. Its completely unlike vim or eMacs, and a the
| design makes me nostalgic for the windows 3.0/dos days.
| Y_Y wrote:
| It is certainly nothing like an eMac.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMac
| jmmv wrote:
| About a year ago, I wrote
| https://open.substack.com/pub/blogsystem5/p/a-cli-text-edito... ,
| which covered the history of editors in DOS and Windows. The
| article was sparked precisely by the GitHub issue in which
| Microsoft was proposing re-adding a text editor to Windows and
| the heated debate that followed.
| czarit wrote:
| Really interesting development approach here. On unix, this
| depends on _one_ crate: libc. That crate is just a bunch of
| wrappers for libc. Absolutely everything else is implemented in
| the project itself. This is kind of baffling - they have their
| own everything (from base64 library to a cross platform terminal
| handling system) instead of using well-proven crates like
| termios. Why? I don't know. But very unusual in the rust world
| easton wrote:
| Guessing it's because it needs to go everywhere Windows is and
| they didn't want to have a target on their back from pulling in
| a bunch of dependencies that they'd have to prove were safe.
| (Especially since Windows installs where this editor works may
| not get frequently updated, like embedded)
|
| It might have been faster to just write the code they needed vs
| consult a lawyer and local security person for every crate they
| wanted to pull in.
| JdeBP wrote:
| Go and read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44031529 . The
| developer xyrself is in the comments talking about the choices
| that were made and the alternatives that were considered.
| lelanthran wrote:
| The author answers it themselves:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44034961
|
| I agree with pretty much all of their reasoning.
| orsenthil wrote:
| Does anyone know who is the original author of this tool. I tried
| it on Linux and it is excellent! The usability, simplicity and
| intuitiveness. I remember I must have used this first, before I
| got into linux. But then the linux editors, like nano, ed, vim,
| emacs - with all the religious , political and passionate
| developers, didn't manage to pull up this intuitive interface.
| Even a simple copy of the design would have helped a new comer to
| linux, instead of presenting them with Nano as the default
| editor.
| userbinator wrote:
| I guess it's someone who worked at Microsoft in the late
| 80s/early 90s:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS_Editor
| augusto-moura wrote:
| I vividly remember using edit on an Windows XP (or was it a
| 98?) when I was a kid. It was one of those hidden commands
| that I learned while watching my uncles and father do
| trickery in CMD
|
| Edit: just read
| https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/edit-is-now-
| open-... and it seems that all 32bit windows versions had
| edit. I was probably using Windows XP 32 the last time I
| remember using edit
| augusto-moura wrote:
| I also remember that tried running edit on windows 8 and
| got surprised that it was removed
| suby wrote:
| I remember the author posting on a HN thread a month ago
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44034961
| jacooper wrote:
| Micro is much more intuitive than nano, but I think Edit is
| better. Just need it to start rolling out to production
| distros.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| I looked for similar for twenty years. Including compiling my
| own version from setedit, a clone of a turbo pascal ide. Ten
| years later someone mentioned "ne" which was acceptable and
| packaged.
|
| Several years ago the better micro was born then packaged, I've
| used since. It has more features than edit like highlighting,
| though missing a menu. That's good enough I think.
|
| In some situations like constrained environments (openwrt) I
| use nano with CUA keybindings because micro is too big.
| lbruder wrote:
| have you tried mcedit? It's the editor mc (Midnight
| Commander, a Norton Commander clone) brings along, looks and
| feels like the old DOS editor, but has more features
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| I don't think so, though remember Norton and this clone.
| Don't believe I knew it had an editor. As I once said to a
| relative... "information useful twenty+ years ago." ;-)
|
| Just checked, key bindings are similar but largely wrong...
| focused on the Function keys.
| spauldo wrote:
| It has the "feel" of a DOS program. I'm not saying that's a bad
| thing, just that it feels a bit alien on UNIX.
|
| The first UNIX system I learned on had pico, the editor nano
| was modeled after. I personally found it intuitive enough, but
| too simple in the long run. Editors like nano or DOS EDIT are
| great for light use, but you reach their limitations pretty
| fast if you do a lot of serious editing.
| quantadev wrote:
| Will be great to disabuse people from using VIM.
|
| I mean in VIM you can't even easily exit. I've always had to
| literally reboot my computer to get out of VIM. One time even
| that didn't work, so I had to pull the main circuit breaker in my
| house to get it to quit.
| rand17 wrote:
| I simply bought a new laptop.
| quantadev wrote:
| Ah, what we call the "Nuclear Option for Vim Exiting". Only
| if all else fails.
| ajaypradhan wrote:
| Ff
| k3vinw wrote:
| Is it only the keyboard shortcuts that they're borrowing from VS
| code? I hope they have plans for LSP and extensibility.
| lhecker wrote:
| The plan is indeed to make it extensible if time and popularity
| permits it. LSP would be an extension itself, however, instead
| of being built into the editor. We want to retain a lean core
| editor so people can ship it everywhere (e.g. even into small
| Docker images).
| k3vinw wrote:
| That's excellent. Thanks for sharing and best wishes to the
| team's success and popularity of the new editor!
| simonw wrote:
| This inspired me to have a try at running Edit on macOS via
| Docker - here's what I got working (should work for anyone else
| with Docker installed on Apple silicon too, I pushed the image to
| the GitHub Container Registry): docker run
| --platform linux/arm64 \ -it --rm \ -v
| $(pwd):/workspace \ ghcr.io/simonw/alpine-edit
|
| Run that in a directory to open Edit against the files in that
| directory.
|
| More notes here: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/21/edit-is-
| now-open-sourc... - and a new TIL on publishing to the GitHub
| Container Registry here:
| https://til.simonwillison.net/github/container-registry
|
| You can also compile directly from source on macOS - instructions
| here, I've not tried this yet:
| https://github.com/microsoft/edit/blob/main/README.md#build-...
| kinduff wrote:
| I built it for macOS natively and it works like a charm!
| rfl890 wrote:
| Just wondering, why did you make an entire container image
| instead of trying to compile it from source first?
| VikingCoder wrote:
| Because now I can use their Docker image trivially. They can
| also trivially use their Docker container on multiple
| computers, multiple VMs, multiple VPSs. They can Docker
| Compose it into other Docker images they're setting up, too.
|
| I'm definitely not a Docker expert, but I've become a huge
| fan.
| simonw wrote:
| Mainly because I wanted an excuse to figure out how to
| package tools like this using Docker.
|
| It also felt like a better way to distribute the tool for
| other people to use: I don't want to distribute a compiled
| binary (because in macOS you then need to sign it for other
| people to use it), but a Docker incantation skips that step.
| None4U wrote:
| For Apple's own `container`[1], just remove the `--platform
| linux/arm64` part, like this: container run -it
| --rm -v "$(pwd):/workspace" ghcr.io/simonw/alpine-edit
|
| I did have to resize my terminal for this to work, but that
| could be a terminal emulator issue.
|
| [1] https://github.com/apple/container
| commandersaki wrote:
| This was harder to quit than vim. ctrl-f didn't work and
| there's no alt on my keyboard; hard pass.
| da_chicken wrote:
| I don't understand. You don't have an option key, either?
|
| Or are you not on a Mac, PC, or Chromebook?
| commandersaki wrote:
| On a macbook pro, option key just gave me a f symbol,
| both in Terminal.app and Ghostty. Anyways, if that was
| meant to be alt and it requires setup to work, then it's
| not worth the effort.
| Aaron2222 wrote:
| Terminal.app has a setting "Use Option as Meta Key" that
| needs to be enabled. It's under the Edit menu as well as
| in Settings > Profiles > Keyboard (if you want, you can
| click use Command-A to select all the profiles to apply
| the change to all of them at once). Ghostty will have a
| similar option.
|
| Also surprised you haven't encountered this earlier,
| given it affects all usage of Alt in the terminal.
| culebron21 wrote:
| I'm surprised nobody in the comments mentioned Norton Commander,
| and its editor. It was mostly enough for file editing. And
| navigating folders in DOS with NC was very convenient, that at
| the time you didn't even understand why people needed windows.
|
| Today, it has successors: Midnight Commander (TUI on Linux), FAR
| Manager (TUI for Windows), Windows Commander (graphical UI,
| Windows).
|
| Although MC is good tool, I notice something rubs me the wrong
| way in it, and I rarely use it -- probably, it's the conflict of
| focuses between a panel and the shell. E.g. you typed something,
| then tried to move to another folder, hit enter -> MC decides you
| run the command, hides the panels, lets the system yell at you
| "no such executable".
| wonger_ wrote:
| I just opened mc and mcedit yesterday for the first time.
| Mcedit was sorta interesting but I'm already too vim-brained.
| How would you change mc to make it more intuitive?
| culebron21 wrote:
| I don't know, I relied on it to edit configs over SSH, and
| navigate servers file systems that way (it sort of gives a
| better feel what's where), but locally I used SublimeText.
| int_19h wrote:
| Far Manager isn't just for Windows anymore:
|
| https://github.com/elfmz/far2l
|
| Debian even has it in the official repos. It's also on
| Homebrew.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| A few months ago there was a front page article looking back at
| WordPerfect for DOS. I commented that modern text-based apps
| never seem to look as good as mid-80s DOS apps for some reason.
| So it's apropos that Microsoft of all companies launches an old-
| school app like this.
| int_19h wrote:
| I think a large part of it is that DOS made it really easy to
| make good TUI apps, what with direct access to the text
| framebuffer and keyboard. Unix console is a mess in comparison
| (albeit with its own advantages such as remoting). And the
| modern crop of TUI apps is almost entirely Unix-centric; this
| one is a very rare exception.
| waynecochran wrote:
| I remember using Brief in DOS back in 1990 or so. It rocked. I
| have been an emacs guy in the Linux world, but I would love to
| have Brief again.
| T3OU-736 wrote:
| Another text editor from the makers of Edlin. (Sorry, could not
| help myself!)
| ChicagoDave wrote:
| Or just use nano like most VIM haters.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I hate Microsoft's naming strategy here. "code", "edit", it's
| nearly as bad as "meta" and "X".
|
| We're on a slippery slope towards DFW's subsidized time. Year of
| the depend adult undergarment, here we come.
| VagabundoP wrote:
| I started computing in the early 80s and have always wondered why
| there wasn't a standard keyboard button with Cut,Copy,Paste.
|
| Thing of all the (wo)man-hours in computing lost due to the
| slight difference in people finding the modifier key+key
| (including the slight increase in error rates) and the just
| having a dedicated Cut/Copy/Paste keys.
| skissane wrote:
| Sun workstations had Cut/Copy/Paste buttons on their keyboards.
| Probably some other workstation vendors did too.
|
| It just never made it to the PC or Mac worlds
| int_19h wrote:
| I remember some keyboards in 90s to early 00s - back when tall
| keycaps were the norm - having secondary labels written on the
| side of the key facing the user, usually indicating the
| standard Windows shortcut for that key. The exact set would
| vary, but pretty much all of them labelled X/C/V as
| Cut/Copy/Paste. Here's a good example:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/keyboards/comments/w72hiw/ive_been_...
|
| It was certainly convenient for people learning the ropes. Too
| bad it died out when chiclet keyboards became the norm.
| nop17 wrote:
| It state support macos but in release section there is no macos
| package.
| AbuAssar wrote:
| there is also Midnight Commander Editor (mcedit), which has
| syntax highlighting, macros, code snippets and automatic
| indentation!
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