nano: Pico Compatibility
1
1 9 Pico Compatibility
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1
1 ‘nano’ attempts to emulate Pico as closely as possible, but there are
1 some differences between the editors:
1
1 ‘Interactive Replace’
1 Instead of allowing you to replace either just one occurrence of a
1 search string or all of them, ‘nano’’s replace function is
1 interactive: it will pause at each found search string and query
1 whether to replace this instance. You can then choose Yes, or No
1 (skip this one), or All (don’t ask any more), or Cancel (stop with
1 replacing).
1
1 ‘Search and Replace History’
1 When the option ‘-H’ or ‘--historylog’ is given (or set in the a
1 nanorc file), text entered as search or replace strings is stored.
1 These strings can be accessed with the up/down arrow keys, or you
1 can type the first few characters and then use ‘Tab’ to cycle
1 through the matching strings. A retrieved string can subsequently
1 be edited.
1
1 ‘Position History’
1 When the option ‘-P’ or ‘--positionlog’ is given (or set in a
1 nanorc file), ‘nano’ will store the position of the cursor when you
1 close a file, and will place the cursor in that position again when
1 you later reopen the file.
1
1 ‘Current Cursor Position’
1 The output of the "Display Cursor Position" command (‘^C’) displays
1 not only the current line and character position of the cursor, but
1 also (between the two) the current column position.
1
1 ‘Hard-Wrapping’
1 By default, ‘nano’ hard-wraps lines at screen width minus eight
1 columns, whereas Pico does it at screen width minus six columns.
1 You can make ‘nano’ do the same as Pico by using ‘--fill=-6’.
1
1 ‘Spell Checking’
1 In the internal spell checker misspelled words are sorted
1 alphabetically and trimmed for uniqueness, such that the words
1 ’apple’ and ’Apple’ will be prompted for correction separately.
1
1 ‘Writing Selected Text to Files’
1 When using the Write-Out key (‘^O’), text that has been selected
1 using the marking key (‘^^’) can not just be written out to a new
1 (or existing) file, it can also be appended or prepended to an
1 existing file.
1
1 ‘Reading Text from a Command’
1 When using the Read-File key (‘^R’), ‘nano’ can not just read a
1 file, it can also read the output of a command to be run (‘^X’).
1
1 ‘Reading from Working Directory’
1 By default, Pico will read files from the user’s home directory
1 (when using ‘^R’), but it will write files to the current working
1 directory (when using ‘^O’). ‘nano’ makes this symmetrical: always
1 reading from and writing to the current working directory — the
1 directory that ‘nano’ was started in.
1
1 ‘File Browser’
1 In the file browser, ‘nano’ does not implement the Add, Copy,
1 Rename, and Delete commands that Pico provides. In ‘nano’ the
1 browser is just a file browser, not a file manager.
1
1 ‘Toggles’
1 Many options which alter the functionality of the program can be
1 "toggled" on or off using Meta key sequences, meaning the program
1 does not have to be restarted to turn a particular feature on or
1 off. ⇒Feature Toggles for a list of options that can be
1 toggled. Or see the list at the end of the main internal help text
1 (‘^G’) instead.
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