[HN Gopher] Customize Nano Text Editor
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Customize Nano Text Editor
Author : shafiemoji
Score : 127 points
Date : 2025-10-25 08:52 UTC (10 days ago)
(HTM) web link (shafi.ddns.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (shafi.ddns.net)
| qsort wrote:
| https://www.nano-editor.org/dist/latest/nanorc.5.html
| blakesterz wrote:
| They also have a nice cheat sheet there: https://nano-
| editor.org/cheatsheet.html
| sanex wrote:
| Nano is my go-to whenever doing something quick in the terminal.
| It's quick, I don't need to learn how to use it, and now it's
| going to be slightly more convenient. I had no idea it had these
| options. Thank you!
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Nano is by far the best terminal editor imo. The only situation
| where I'm using a terminal editor is when I'm ssh'ed into a
| server, and I need to quick edit a file (for serious code
| writing a GUI editor is far more capable). Nano is ideal for
| that use case: you get in, it tells you what all the relevant
| keybinds are right on the screen, and you get out without any
| fuss.
| its_notjack wrote:
| I must have used nano for years at this point, and I'm shocked to
| find out how customisable nano actually is! I tend to use
| micro[0] on most of my systems now just because it comes with
| really lovely defaults and keybindings that are a bit more
| familiar, but this might make me take a second look at nano in
| future.
|
| [0] https://micro-editor.github.io/
| flkiwi wrote:
| Same same. Never even occurred to me to look. That's the risk
| of a (successful) low-friction product though: you use it in
| quick bursts where the tool is necessary but largely invisible,
| and you never invest in learning more about it because it works
| so well with the defaults. There's probably a profound
| strategic insight buried in there somewhere.
| tpoacher wrote:
| It's not just customisable, it's also insanely scriptable. Any
| action that you can do in nano itself corresponds to a command,
| and you can create "string macros" that you can bind to key
| combinations. Additionally it can execute external commands on
| any nano buffer and return the result. Combining the two is
| very powerful.
|
| E.g. I have a configuration which allows me to use nano while
| editing pdf side-by-side, and be able to click on the pdf and
| land in the correct line in nano, and vice-versa. (and
| obviously compiling the latex document itself happens via a
| custom keystroke).
| digisign wrote:
| Before I used micro & ne I used nano, and configured the
| keybindings to work in the CUA style. I still have the dot
| files, didn't delete them, but they rarely get used anymore.
|
| I think they recently added Ctrl+S to save by default, even if
| unconfigured, woohoo.
| smartmic wrote:
| For CUA aficionados, I recommend dte[0]. It has replaced my
| nano usage quite a lot.
|
| [0]: https://craigbarnes.gitlab.io/dte/index.html
| noisem4ker wrote:
| I personally like msedit.
|
| https://github.com/microsoft/edit
| genpfault wrote:
| > Ctrl+S to save
|
| XOFF ignored, mumble mumble
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| If you're on Mac and can't get .nanorc to work, check out
| https://stackoverflow.com/a/73373788/3876196
|
| It's also possible that you simply do NOT have nano installed at
| all, and just have the simlink from nano to pico by default. That
| was my case. In this situation, install nano and it should work.
| jasperry wrote:
| The line numbers and position bar are some real quality-of-life
| enhancements!
|
| I don't regularly use nano anymore, but I have often thought that
| more programs should imitate the way it shows the command
| shortcuts on-screen as a kind of instant tutorial. I remember my
| physics major friends in college thinking it was pure snobbery
| for vi not to do that by default. Back then we were dialing in to
| an HP-UX server and using pico, which nano is an open-source
| clone of. For those who aren't aware, pico was originally the
| editor component of the Pine email client.
| mystifyingpoi wrote:
| > physics major friends in college thinking it was pure
| snobbery for vi
|
| I don't think it is snobbery, that approach would clutter the
| entire screen. Basically every single small/capital letter and
| symbol has a function in vim.
| jasperry wrote:
| To its credit, vim does show a help text with :q on it if you
| start it with no file. Back then, it was just vi opening to a
| blank screen.
| qsort wrote:
| set shortmess+=I
| ziotom78 wrote:
| Absolutely, the shortcut help is so useful!
|
| I believe that Nano and Pico copied it from Wordstar.
| chawyehsu wrote:
| It seems few people are aware of how customizable nano actually
| is. Usually, they use nano with the default preset for quick
| bootstrapping tasks and then switch to vim without hesitation.
| While vim/neovim are certainly very powerful, nano remains my go-
| to editor for many quick terminal operations. I've customized it
| quite a bit[1], especially the key bindings, though the defaults
| are already excellent.
|
| [1]:
| https://github.com/chawyehsu/dotfiles/blob/main/.config/nano...
| davidcollantes wrote:
| I would dearly love it if you could comment a little bit more
| that nanorc. I am going to "steal" some of it, for sure. Thank
| you much for sharing it!
| Ekaros wrote:
| Did you know Nano supports mouse? Alt+M... Not that I use that
| much, but it is fun fact.
| p4bl0 wrote:
| This is the very first item in the linked blog post.
| threatofrain wrote:
| What about LSP?
| jdorfman wrote:
| I've been using nano as my default bash profile editor for over
| 15 years. It's also great for quick updates for other config
| files.
|
| Definitely going to enable mouse support. Didn't know that was
| possible.
| positron26 wrote:
| Right after the nano maintainer got bullied out by the FSF, I
| noticed two bindings got their defaults changed. They never
| change. I almost feel like it was graffiti, a flex against the
| old maintainer, a retribution for not doing whatever the FSF
| wanted.
|
| Since forever, GNU readline programs and nano had identical
| bindings. I'm fast moving around the CLI because I'm fast at
| nano. Emacs has the same defaults. What sane organization only
| abandons their own defaults and prioritizes that work after
| pushing the existing maintainer out (or irritating them enough to
| accomplish this)?
| kstrauser wrote:
| Which bindings changed?
| akatsutki wrote:
| better than vim
| qsort wrote:
| no
| bilekas wrote:
| Don't quite agree, it's simply a different tool, that's like
| saying notepad is better than vscode. They're both different
| purpose builds.
| SilentM68 wrote:
| I would say that every tool has its good and bad.
|
| A tool is only as good as its ease of use and clarity of its
| documentation, imho.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Wouldn't that make vi(m) just about the worst tool to exist?
| There's a reason that the "how do I exit vim" jokes exist,
| it's because the UI is _awful_ unless you already know how to
| use it.
| suprjami wrote:
| God forbid having to learn how to use something useful.
| Don't ever take up programming.
| p4bl0 wrote:
| I tried a long time ago [1,2] to initiate this discussion on Nano
| here. I'm glad it's happening :).
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41289141
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41289773
| tracker1 wrote:
| Also worth a look, if you want more TUI..
|
| https://github.com/microsoft/edit
| thejbo wrote:
| I actually prefer 'constantshow' instead of 'linenumbers'. That
| way if you want to select/copy some text from the terminal it
| doesn't include those line numbers.
| SilentM68 wrote:
| Thank you, looking for way to set tab to 2 spaces for eons
| without success! Very helpful :)
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| My struggle is that I work on lots of systems, sometimes
| ephemeral/temporary systems. There is no easy way to "sync"
| customizations, so I adapt to defaults.
|
| Even basic things like how shell history is managed is very
| annoying to configure every single time. if only it was as simple
| as cloning your private github repo to ~/.config.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| I use a very customized emacs/evil setup, and before that a
| very customized vim/neovim setup, but I've never had trouble
| jumping onto systems where only plain Jane vi is available. I
| think it's because of the color scheme, or lack thereof, that I
| don't have any problem automatically switching. If I don't see
| my color scheme, by fingers just automatically use vi
| compatible bindings and I don't find myself expecting my other
| customizations to be present.
|
| Maybe not everybody can switch so easily, but I think it's
| worth trying out. (One change that absolutely does trip me up
| is capslock->control. If I try using somebody else's computer,
| I constantly enable capslock by accident.)
| wahlis wrote:
| Check out Chezmoi (https://chezmoi.io). They even offer a nice
| comparison table for alternatives.
| tom_ wrote:
| Cloning a github repo to ~/.emacs.d is how you can cart around
| your Emacs config. I've been doing this for years, and it works
| nicely. For things configured by files that live in the home
| folder directly (e.g., shell - and looks like Nano would be
| similar?), I've got another repo with a couple of install
| scripts that create symlinks to the version-controlled files. I
| don't love the extra steps, but I've found this works pretty
| well too.
|
| Most of the time, I can manage without, but every now and again
| I've needed to do some thing or other, and I've been grateful
| to have my own preferred setup rather than somebody else's.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Note that for the last few versions of macOS, "nano" is symlinked
| to pico.
| Narishma wrote:
| Is it possible to apply some of the settings like autoindent or
| line numbers only when editing source code? In other words, does
| it have different modes like emacs?
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Nano is quite a venerable piece of software with the initial
| implementation shipping as _pico_ , the text editor for the
| _pine_ mail client, back in 1992. Tens of thousands of students
| at a few universities will have been introduced to it as their
| very first email client.
|
| The pine authors fell foul of the Debian free software guidelines
| and, as well as _nano_ , a clone for the mail client itself lives
| on to this day as _alpine_. I use it every so often for a spot of
| nostalgia.
| dv35z wrote:
| What would it take to have "vim-wiki" for nano (see also: FOAM,
| Obsidian)? I have always admired nano for how simple and easy to
| use it is, and would love to use it for wiki/obsidian-style note
| taking & linking...
| gh02t wrote:
| Nano doesn't really support any sort of scripting or plugins
| beyond macro sequences AFAIK. So, not really in the same sense
| as something like vim-wiki etc. You might be able to cobble
| together something with shell scripts and text files, but it
| won't be well integrated.
| spidermonkey23 wrote:
| I just did this for some of my setups recently, using the minibar
| and constantshow settings.easy to cut and paste without line
| numbers enabled too
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(page generated 2025-11-04 23:00 UTC)