[cantona7]

hello all,

sorry if you have been asked this question before. couldn't find an easy answer from previous posts. maybe not looking for it right.

anyway, my question is "what is the easiest unix text editor?" i used pico today and found it a bit much to be honest. i remember using vi many years ago so don't even suggest that one for a laugh !!

also, was running though something earlier and the instructions stated that i amend a file in the /usr/bin folder. can someone tell me where this "bin" folder is located? couldn't find it by searching with the finder.

told you i was a newbie.

thanks all.

[OreoCookie]

vi (or rather nowadays vim) is easy.

I haven't seen an easy, powerful command line editor yet. If you want an easy editor, there's bbedit.

[si_lance]

I really like vi, but I'm not opposed to using emacs.

[Juggle5]

also, was running though something earlier and the instructions stated that i amend a file in the /usr/bin folder. can someone tell me where this "bin" folder is located? couldn't find it by searching with the finder.

You can get to the /usr/bin folder several ways: In the terminal, type "cd /usr/bin" and then type "ls" to see the files in that folder.
From the finder, you can press shift-command-G to go to any folder; entering /usr/bin there will work fine. If you are doing searches, add a search option to find invisible files as well as visible ones, and you should be able to find those unix files normally hidden to Mac users.

If you're uncomfortable with terminal-based text editors and you need to edit some file that is usually hidden, you can type "open -e theNameOfTheFileToOpen" and this will open the file in TextEdit. On the other hand, learning to use editors like vi has the advantages of being faster (when you are competent with the editor) and also available on any unix system.

[cantona7]

all,

thanks for the info. will give the terminal based text editors a go. will start with pico and take it from there.

[Johnny_B]

I use nano from Fink. That is a pico clone.

[johnMG]

anyway, my question is "what is the easiest unix text editor?" i used pico today and found it a bit much to be honest.

I think you're asking the wrong question -- maybe it should be, "which is the least difficult?". :)

Seriously, I made the attempt a while back to learn and use vim as my primary editor. I bought the book, practiced, and everything. Used it for a few weeks. Turns out that although you can learn the keystrokes after a few days (I made myself a "little" 3-page cheat-sheet) it takes a *long* time until you can actually use it productively -- without making errors that trash your doc.

It's very easy to forget the caps lock on, or to hit a wrong key that moves you to some other location in your doc, or various other little things.

Unless you regularly are forced to work in a CLI-only environment, my opinion is that it's not worth the time to *really* learn a CLI editor. Learn the basics of nano/pico or even vi, then move on. [shrug]

[si_lance]

I still think it's a good idea to really learn vi, and vim is much friendlier. On almost any unix flavor you will find vi so the sooner you get friendly with it, the better you will do on such systems. If you're only using this on OS X then you prolly don't need to do this, but I often touch many flavors and the ONLY common editor is vi (although some may argue emacs it's still not as standard). There is almost no command that will fubar your doc. As with any sort of editting saving at timely intervals (in vi, it's ":w") will allow you to just quit-without-save (in vi, it's ":q!"), and start again. (btw... make sure you're not in insert mode when using the commands above). Happy vi'ing.

[Scarpa]

If all you intend to use a CLI editor for is to edit config files, then go back and relearn vi.

All I really know how to do with vi is move around, insert and append stuff, insert a new line of text, delete chars and lines and save changes. Oh and I know how to substitute a word, which is pretty nice.

That's only 6 things to remember and takes maybe a half hour reading a good online HOWTO to figure out. I too used pico back in college and compared to vi it's rather cumbersome.

If I start doing anything that involves copy-paste then I go to TextEdit, which as noted above is pretty easy to do from the command line.

[danengel]

I recommend Emacs. It's easy to start with the tutorial (press Control-H, then T). You can use it as a simple editor, but it's very powerful as you learn more.

But the real easy one is BBEdit.

[riverfreak]

Originally posted by Scarpa:
If all you intend to use a CLI editor for is to edit config files, then go back and relearn vi.

Why? You can use any editor you wish. And if you set your EDITOR environment variable, you can use whatever you wish. IMO, pico is the simplest text editor across the board. I also freak on when I end up in vi doing something like chsh without having set my environment. Blech.

I agree with others on the thread that have suggested emacs. In fact, I tend to prefer XEmacs which launches in its own window in the X environment. Emacs is nice for remote conditions where you would rather not forward your xwindows.

Xemacs offers syntax highlighting, a bewlidering array of configurations, shells, cvs, etc, etc. The initial learning curve is quite easy, but it's potential is limitless. Although some of these are possible in vi, once you get used to xemacs, you will laugh at anyone still using vi.

[ApeInTheShell]

Is there any word processor on the CLI that can replace Appleworks?

i use pico or text edit for simple things

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by ApeInTheShell:
Is there any word processor on the CLI that can replace Appleworks?

i use pico or text edit for simple things

Take a look at the latest emacs

I have heard that there are enhancements to surf the web with it

I think the package weighs around 20 megs, a bit much for a text editor

[Earth Mk. II]

Originally posted by OreoCookie:
I think the package weighs around 20 megs, a bit much for a text editor

Yeah, but not that bad for an OS complete with games.

every text editor has their quirks: Vi has a steep learning curve, Emacs breaks your hand when trying to do command shortcuts, pico is.. well.. pico is like a ford pinto compared to vi or Emacs.

Personally, I'd say to learn and use vi (Vim). Pico is comparatively easy, but was designed for document editing (e-mail in pine) and isn't a line editor, like vi is, so it can screw up your line endings if you're not careful. (If you insist on using pico, use the -w switch to turn off word wrapping)

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by Earth Mk. II:
Yeah, but not that bad for an OS complete with games.

every text editor has their quirks: Vi has a steep learning curve, Emacs breaks your hand when trying to do command shortcuts, pico is.. well.. pico is like a ford pinto compared to vi or Emacs.

Personally, I'd say to learn and use vi (Vim). Pico is comparatively easy, but was designed for document editing (e-mail in pine) and isn't a line editor, like vi is, so it can screw up your line endings if you're not careful. (If you insist on using pico, use the -w switch to turn off word wrapping)

Ditto, I'm a vim guy, too. I haven't used all it's capabilities yet, not nearly.

The neatest thing is that every Unix machine I have worked with, even those barebone twm-only Solaris installations in the math department of Nagoya University, have vi. (Experience includes also AIX, among others). I don't like emacs. But I have seen my prof doing some nifty things with it. I guess, he could do that with vim, too.

[johnMG]

> Is there any word processor on the CLI that can replace Appleworks?

You can use a text editor like one of the ones mentioned in this thread, along with a program (er... set of programs) called LaTeX.

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by johnMG:
> Is there any word processor on the CLI that can replace Appleworks?

You can use a text editor like one of the ones mentioned in this thread, along with a program (er... set of programs) called LaTeX.

Ditto.
Use it my only word processor.

[johnMG]

Ditto.
Use it my only word processor.

I've got a love/hate relationship with TeX/LaTeX. On the one hand, it produces the best typeset documents I've ever seen -- no contest -- especially when there's mathematics in the doc. But on the other hand, it's a ginormously (over-) complex piece of software.

I'm talking about complex to build/install/configure. It's actually pretty easy to simply *use*.

I've bought a number of TeX/LaTeX books, read a good portion of them all, and read many of the FAQ's just trying to figure out how to make sense of the monster. I originally thought I'd like to try to bring teTeX to BeOS (well, that would be "OpenBeOS" nowadays), but after many hours of study, I found that I just couldn't figure out all the labyrinthine connections between the myriad pieces that make up the behemoth known as LaTeX.

[utidjian]

Originally posted by johnMG:
Ditto.
Use it my only word processor.

I've got a love/hate relationship with TeX/LaTeX. On the one hand, it produces the best typeset documents I've ever seen -- no contest -- especially when there's mathematics in the doc. But on the other hand, it's a ginormously (over-) complex piece of software.

I'm talking about complex to build/install/configure. It's actually pretty easy to simply *use*.

I've bought a number of TeX/LaTeX books, read a good portion of them all, and read many of the FAQ's just trying to figure out how to make sense of the monster. I originally thought I'd like to try to bring teTeX to BeOS (well, that would be "OpenBeOS" nowadays), but after many hours of study, I found that I just couldn't figure out all the labyrinthine connections between the myriad pieces that make up the behemoth known as LaTeX.

Well... as you probably know already http://www.tug.org and http://www.ctan.org are good places to find info on TeX/LaTeX.

Personally, and at work we have been using LyX more and more. (http://www.lyx.org) It is a WYMIWYG (yes that is correct) document processor/front end to TeX/LaTeX. Many TeX/LaTeX veterans like it because it is very powerful and yet simple to use and does not prevent them from using the full power of TeX/LaTeX. There is also a very good Mac OS X port of LyX at:
http://www.18james.com/lyx_on_aqua.html

[johnMG]

It is a WYMIWYG (yes that is correct) document processor/front end to TeX/LaTeX.

Ah. "What you mean is what you get."

Yep. I'm using TeXShop myself.

My roundabout after-the-fact point is this: configuring/installing LaTeX from source is a bit like learning to use a good CLI text editor well. It takes a whole lot of learning and effort, and even then after a lot of work, you may still not be doing it all that well.

Executive text editor summary: If you want to really learn to use vi well, prepare to dedicate a full lobe of your cortex to the task, then practice practice practice until your fingers know the keystrokes without conscious thought. That's what real hackers had to do back when there was no other option -- before GUI text editors.

Back to word/text processing, I'd really like to see a TeX renaissance where someone produces a simple, easy-to-understand, drag-n-drop installable, well documented (not just copiously documented) pdfLaTeX distro that doesn't take all night to download.

[utidjian]

Originally posted by johnMG:
It is a WYMIWYG (yes that is correct) document processor/front end to TeX/LaTeX.

Ah. "What you mean is what you get."

Yep. I'm using TeXShop myself.

Never used it myself... but I heard it was good.

Back to word/text processing, I'd really like to see a TeX renaissance where someone produces a simple, easy-to-understand, drag-n-drop installable, well documented (not just copiously documented) pdfLaTeX distro that doesn't take all night to download.

Well I just got in a new shipment of iMacs... and I am working on getting them up-to-date witht he stuff we use here. Seems that someone has made a nice fat package of teTeX for the Mac OS X. Trying it now...
OK seems to work fine. See:
http://www.rna.nl/tex.html
and
http://bloch.ling.yale.edu/volumes/tex/TeX-fat.dmg

Face it... and kind of TeX/LaTeX package is going to be fat. Get better bandwidth or borrow it.

[Paul McCann]

Gerben Wierda's "i-installer" makes installing the base TeX distribution pretty trivial (as long your pipes are reasonably fat!). Easy instructions are available at Richard Koch's TeXShop page:

http://www.uoregon.edu/~koch/texshop/texshop.html

The really good news about the latest version of TeXShop is that a rudimentary, but *very* promising form of synchronization has been implemented; it's also present in the latest iTeXMac if anyone is using that front-end. This means that you can simply command-click to move from source to (nearby) the corresponding point in the output. And vice versa. For anyone editing large latex documents this is fantastic, and approaches what the hideously expensive Textures offers via Classic. (Yep, they still haven't got a native product...)

Give it a whirl: just add "\usepackage{pdfsync}" to the preamble of your document and command-click away! Other nice --and relatively recent-- additions to TeXShop include drag and drop support (to include an image just drag that file into your open document window), macro support, better applescript support, keyboard shortcuts for user-defined insertions (OK, macros again...). Makes TeX work ridiculously easy: I remember when.... [[insert old fogey rambling about the days of *real* computing]].

Cheers,
Paul

[johnMG]

The really good news about the latest version of TeXShop is that a rudimentary, but *very* promising form of synchronization has been implemented; it's also present in the latest iTeXMac if anyone is using that front-end. This means that you can simply command-click to move from source to (nearby) the corresponding point in the output.

Give it a whirl: just add "\usepackage{pdfsync}" to the preamble of your document and command-click away!

Since this is still a thread about CLI text editors, one last comment: If you're using (and good at) an editor like vi, you could probably search to the relevant text in your .ltx file faster than the time it takes to reach for the mouse and command-click in your pdf viewer. And your hands would have never left the keyboard.

Such is the power and speed of editors like vi, for those with the determination and patience to cultivate the necessary skill.

[Paul McCann]

Originally posted by johnMG:

Since this is still a thread about CLI text editors, one last comment: If you're using (and good at) an editor like vi, you could probably search to the relevant text in your .ltx file faster than the time it takes to reach for the mouse and command-click in your pdf viewer. And your hands would have never left the keyboard.

Such is the power and speed of editors like vi, for those with the determination and patience to cultivate the necessary skill.

Sory johnMG: not even close. I'm no slouch with vim, and my regex skills are reasonably good, but if synchronization matures there's absolutely no contest. Think, for example, about the situation in which you're editing a long document with multiple invocations of the same piece of text. How do you jump to **that** one --there it is, staring at you in the previewer-- without providing a big lump of context to vi(m)? Err, you *can't*. The other direction isn't too bad: opening in, say, preview and using its search gets you places eventually, but it's still a considerable drag compared to a simple command-click.

Don't get me wrong: I'm a cli/keyboard fanboy, but there are times when the mouseketeers get it right. This is one such time.

Cheers,
Paul

[OreoCookie]

Well, haven't used LyX in a long (read: long time, I think it was SuSE 5.3 with kernel 2.0.36 or something on my parent's PC), but I'll take a look at it.

I really love some of the new features of TeXShop, and the feature of being able to jump directly into the right source doc makes my mouth watery (I usually write my scripts chapterwise, avoiding extremely long source files). Sometimes, TeX is a pain in the arse, one day, I will write a script that eases a bit of my pain when writing letters.

I also haven't found a .cls file for letters that supports report-like numbering.

[johnMG]

Paul wrote:
Sory johnMG: not even close. {snip} Think, for example, about the situation in which you're editing a long document with multiple invocations of the same piece of text.

Hmm... thanks Paul. You're right. I guess I was only thinking of smaller docs and more uncommon text. Either that, or someone's spiked my egg nog.

Note, I don't touch vi anymore these days -- I'm one of those mouseketeers you mention.