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<title>From Pico to Nano LG #50</title>
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<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
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<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">From Pico to Nano</font></H1>
or
<h3>The Slightly Bigger Editor</h3>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:guckes-nano@math.fu-berlin.de">Sven Guckes</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
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<p>
The program "Pine" has become a popular program for both Email and News.
It makes use of a small and simple editor named "pico".
<p>
Pico's command set only has a dozen commands and it shows the most useful
commands in the last two lines of the display:
<p>
<table>
<tr>
<td>
<pre> </pre>
<td bgcolor="#e0e0e0">
<FONT COLOR="#000000">
<pre>
UW PICO(tm) 3.5 New Buffer
[...]
<b>^G</b> Get Help <b>^O</b> WriteOut <b>^R</b> Read File <b>^Y</b> Prev Pg <b>^K</b> Cut Text <b>^C</b> Cur Pos
<b>^X</b> Exit <b>^J</b> Justify <b>^W</b> Where is <b>^V</b> Next Pg <b>^U</b> UnCut Text<b>^T</b> To Spell
</pre>
</FONT>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>
However, the source code for Pico is closely linked to the source code of Pine;
therefore you cannot download Pico on its own - you have to donwload
the source of the complete newsreader to install the little editor.
Worse: Although Pine is freely available you should know this:
<p>
<center>
Pine and Pico are <b>not</b> "OpenSource"
</center>
<p>
<hr>
<h1> Pico is dead - long live Nano </h1>
Yes, you cannot just download the source for Pico and install on its own.
However, many users would like to use this kind of editor
and simply copy it everywhere for personal use.
<p>
That's why there is now an OpenSource project for a "Pico clone" -
"<b>Nano</b>".
(Think of it as "'<b>n ano</b>ther editor", if you like.)
<p>
The goal of Nano is to make a small editor like Pico available under
the GNU General Public Licence and to add some important commands,
while keeping the design, ie "small and beautiful".
<p>
<hr>
<h1>The Editor's New Clothes</h1>
Here is a screenshot of nano:
<p>
<table>
<tr>
<td>
<pre> </pre>
<td bgcolor="#e0e0e0">
<FONT COLOR="#000000">
<pre>
<pre>
nano 0.8.1 New Buffer
.
^O Write Out ^_ Goto Line ^R Read File ^Y Prev Page ^K Cut Text ^C Cur Pos
^X Exit ^\ Replace ^W Where Is ^V Next Page ^U Uncut Txt ^T To Spell
</pre>
</FONT>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>
The difference to <tt>pico</tt> is subtle -
no more copyright by the University of Washington ["UW ... (tm)"]. :-)
<p>
Also, the <tt>WriteOut</tt> command now is above the <tt>Exit</tt> command,
so you can see both "exit commands" in one column.
<p>
The new commands are in the second column -
<tt>GotoLine</tt> and <tt>Replace</tt>.
<p>
The <tt>Help</tt> command is still available with <tt>Control-G</tt> -
but when you invoke it then you will see this message:
<p>
<pre>
[ Help function not yet implemented, nyah! ]
</pre>
But as with all program which develop fast -
the documentation is usually missing.
<p>
But do not despair - there's help on the command line:
<p>
<xmp>
$ nano -h
Usage: nano [GNU long option] [option] +LINE <file>
Option Long option Meaning
-V --version Print version information and exit
-c --const Constantly show cursor position
-h --help Show this message
-i --autoindent Automatically indent new lines
-s [prog] --speller=[prog] Enable alternate speller
-t --tempfile Auto save on exit, don't prompt
-v --view View (read only) mode
-w --nowrap Don't wrap long lines
-x --nohelp Don't show help window
-z --suspend Enable suspend
+LINE Start at line number LINE
</xmp>
All these switches are pretty nice, of course. Try them!
Maybe we will see these lines in some Unix programs from now on:
<pre>
set editor="nano -citxz"
</pre>
<hr>
<h1> What's your version? </h1>
One of the things I like about program is that they
identify themself by their version (and relase date):
<p>
<pre>
$ nano -V
nano version 0.8.0 by Chris Allegretta
</pre>
Soon this will hopefully show both important addresses -
that of the website and the email address:
<p>
<pre>
$ nano -V
nano 0.8.0 http://go.to/nano-editor nano-editor@go.to by Chris Allegretta
</pre>
<hr>
<h1> Smaller, Faster, Better </h1>
You may now that "nano" and "pico" are used in the
decimal system for fractions like "centi" and "milli";
"nano" stands for "a billionth" (ie 10^(-9)), and
"pico" stands for "one trillionth" (ie 10^(-12)).
<p>
So, although "nano" is bigger than "pico"
I hope that nano will both be smaller in source
as well as in binary size.
<p>
<hr>
<h1> A quick look at history </h1>
As of Jan 31th, 2000, the current version is nano-0.8.1
and the tape GNU-zipped archive has about 72 kilobytes.
<p>
<pre>
date size name-version
==== ==== ============
000110 56k nano-0.7.4
000113 56k nano-0.7.5
000116 58k nano-0.7.7
000119 60k nano-0.7.8
000123 67k nano-0.7.8
000124 68k nano-0.7.9
000125 70k nano-0.8.0
000129 72k nano-0.8.1
</pre>
On average each version adds 2K - so when nano-1.0.0
gets released it should be around 110k. ;-)
<p>
<hr>
<h1> Installation </h1>
The author distributes RPMs for Nano now.
However, there is no ftp site which carries Nano yet.
So if you would like to install your own nano binary
then you could use a browser to download Nano -
or simply the nice tool "wget":
<p>
<pre>
wget http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/astyanax/nano/dist/nano-0.8.1.tar.gz
</pre>
Unpack with GNU tar:
<pre>
gtar xvvzf nano-0.8.1.tar.gz
</pre>
.. and run the configure script and make the binary:
<pre>
cd nano-0.8.1
./configure
make
</pre>
The installation is pretty fast. :-)
<p>
Now strip the binary:
<p>
<pre>
guckes@linux> ls -l nano
-rwx--x--x 1 guckes users 120357 Jan 31 21:31 nano
guckes@linux> strip nano
guckes@linux> ls -l nano
-rwx--x--x 1 guckes users 38232 Jan 31 21:34 nano
</pre>
Only 38K!
<p>
<pre>
guckes@linux> ls -l =pico
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 159576 Aug 13 02:23 /usr/bin/pico
</pre>
Yes, Pico is bigger!
<p>
And if someone asks you why people delight in nanotechnology -
now you know. Enjoy Nano!
<p>
<hr>
<h1> Discussing Nano </h1>
As far as I know there is no mailing list for the development of Nano yet.
Therefore please use the newsgroup
<a href="news:comp.editors">comp.editors</a>
to discuss <tt>Nano</tt>.
<p>
However, I am pretty sure that the news about Nano
will hit the newsgroup comp.mail.pine pretty soon.
I expect many users of Pine to switch to using Nano instead of Pico.
Expect crossposts - so please direct followups from comp.mail.pine:
<pre>
Followup-To: comp.editors
</pre>
<p>
Thankyou.
<p>
<hr>
<h1> The Big Future </h1>
The author, Chris Allegretta, is currently working towards
"<b>Internationalization</b>" (I18N) of nano you should be able to edit
and see text of other languages which require the space
of two characters to make up one symbol in language.
<p>
Also, an interface to "<b>spell checking</b>" is in the works.
This needs lots of testing , of course.
So all you nerds with strange language -
please help checking and testing this code!
<p>
Personally, I hope that these commands will be added:
<p>
<ul>
<li> Visualization of the edit buffer's end.
<li> Visualization of trailing whitespace (noone ever sees it which is bad!).
<li> Visualization of _underlined_ and *ephasized* text. (very simple)
<li> Commands to jump to line before/after current paragraph.
<li> Command to "pipe" the current text to another (external) command.
<li> Substitution ("Subst", aka "search and replace") with these options:
substitution starts at line 1 or optionally on current line;
skip current match; perform substitution on all further matches.
</ul>
<hr>
<a name="links"></a>
<h1>Links and addresses</h1>
<pre>
Chris Allegretta allegrcr@plattsburgh.edu
Nano editor maintainer
<a href="http://go.to/nano-editor"
>http://go.to/nano-editor</a> or (currently)
<a href="http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/astyanax/nano/"
>http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/astyanax/nano/</a>
Nano editor HomePage (run by Chris Allegretta)
<a href="http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/astyanax/nano/dist/"
>http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/astyanax/nano/dist/</a>
Nano editor distribution location (only HTTP - no FTP or FTP mirrors yet)
<a href="http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/astyanax/nano/dist/RPMS/"
>http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/astyanax/nano/dist/RPMS/</a>
Nano editor RPMs
<a href="http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/pico/"
>http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/pico/</a>
Pico editor page (run by Sven Guckes)
Sven Guckes guckes-nano@math.fu-berlin.de
Author of this article and evangelist for text based programs
such as elm, irc, lynx, mutt, nn, screen, slrn, vim, zsh.
Email since 1989, Usenet since 1992. Webmaster of slrn.org, vim.org.
<a href="http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/"
>http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/</a>
</PRE>
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<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright © 2000, Sven Guckes<BR>
Published in Issue 50 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, February 2000</H5>
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