I suggest nano to my students in classes where everyone is a beginner and we're learning programming on the command line.<p>The greatest advantage of nano for these users is that all the commands are listed along the bottom of the screen. I was shocked to see that this is not true of micro.
I've been using micro as my main code editor(well I do use vscode for writing coq but that's the only exception) after 10+ years' time with emacs. I simply treat micro as the modern compromised version of acme. It almost has all the features to support the core idea of acme, I have written a plugin to exploit this direction: <a href="https://github.com/xxuejie/micro-acme">https://github.com/xxuejie/micro-acme</a> So far it has been working perfectly for me.
I had no idea people used nano as their main code editor. I use it on any nix server I'm working on and have probably used it tens of thousands of times.<p>I'd been a linux/bsd engineer forever and I worked at some places where they refused to install nano on servers. There are some greybeard linux admins who absolutely refuse to let someone use anything other than vi. I never got that. It's a 20MB package and not exactly much of an attack vector.
JOE is pretty nice <a href="https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io/</a> — a hybrid of WordStar and Emacs, and if you run it with `jstar` you get a pretty authentic WordStar experience which also feels like the earliest Borland Turbo IDEs.
I love micro and use it every day. Now that I've tried Helix, however, I want micro plus baked-in treesitter, LSP, and contextual help. Helix really nails it with that feature set but I'm just too happy with my "single-mode + commands" ctrl-c/ctrl-v muscle memory to switch.
Why is there still software asking user to run sudo on something downloaded from the internet? Why even bother doing that script if there is a easier, safer, with smaller footprint and built-in in all distro option available?<p>Just as comparison, micro alpine's package has 4MB (installed) while its staticly compiled binary version it downloads from github has 11MB. The repo's package would make it more micro.
Just curious, why are people interested in small editors like this? The only reason I ever use vi/vim is because it's everywhere. If I'm going to install an editor, I'll install Emacs. If it's a remote system I'll simply open the file over SSH with tramp (essentially transparently supports remote editing) and retain the full power and speed of my local Emacs. For TUI editing (like for sudoedit, git commit, C-x C-e etc.) I run Emacs as a daemon so new frames, including TUI frames load instantly, look very close to my Emacs GUI (with nerd fonts, colours and everything) and are literally Emacs. You really don't need to have multiple editors for different use cases.
The issue of micro for me was the formatted paste. When I paste a piece of code, micro tries to indent it line by line. Yet, it does not have the whole picture. So it indents the pasted text gradually to infinity. And line by line inferring the format slows the process down to zero. You paste and go grab a coffee instead of watching a Matrix-like paste scene.<p>I hope they solved it but I left at that point. If it is solved, I can give it a try again.
Out of 14 other submissions, 2020 [0] had 103 comments and 2021 [1] 162 comments.<p>[0]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23334190">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23334190</a><p>[1]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29128702">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29128702</a>
Been using this for years, really great for making quick edits in the terminal. Mouse support and standard editing shortcuts <i>as the default</i> (unlike many other terminal text editors) are the best features in my opinion.
I think nano is modern itself, still actively being developed, and for the past few years more or less feature complete. But if nano wasn't there, I would probably be using micro.
Another small TUI ide/editor to try is Orbiton [0] also written in go and has clang-lint, compiling, and has gdb debugging support, though I believe it lacks plugins. These features work also for Rust, C/C++, and I would imagine Zig, and Go development as well. I tested it on an old 2012 kindle fire and it works great.<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/xyproto/orbiton">https://github.com/xyproto/orbiton</a>
This is not a nano alternative, it follows the vim paradigm of having a command mode that nano does not have (for good reasons). It's more of a merge between vim and nano if anything, breaking the core intention behind nano.<p>If you ask me, nano has a niche of a super simple terminal editor that anyone can look at for the very first time and instantly figure out, with very few pitfalls or ways to mess up. The more features you add, the more modes and options, the easier it is for newcomers to press a key combo that puts them in a state only intended for power users that they won't be able to get out of without googling.
Saying a "modern alternative" implicitly suggests that nano is not modern, or that it is somehow outdated or unfit for "modern" use-cases. This couldn't be farther from the truth.<p>E.g. I'm currently using nano to edit a latex document, with full in-nano compiling and evince-synctex support (i.e. jump to/from pdf in nano). This required only a measly three lines of macros to be added to my .nanorc.<p>I am also a (reasonably knowledgeable) vim user, but I prefer nano for my coding, and now only tend to use vim when collaborating with a vim colleague. Everytime I hear vim rants about keystrokes and vim-magic, I chuckle because usually I can do the exact same thing with (my configuration of) nano at least as fast, if not faster. (no hate to vim, vim is also an excellent editor; I'm just pointing out that people tend not to realise or talk much about the power/potential of nano im the same way as they do for vim)<p>Incidentally, I did try micro last time it was posted on HN. I tried very hard to like it, but in the end it just couldn't hold a candle against the latest nano.<p>Note that often enough what people refer to as nano is some antiquated version that happened to have been bundled in their system. I saw a (reasonably modern) system recently whose nano version was 2.3! Meanwhile the latest nano is v7.2, and the added features just in the last <i>two</i> updates were gamechangers.
Reminds me of mg editor <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mg_(text_editor)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mg_(text_editor)</a>
It is a very small subset of EMacs and barely any features compare to micro.
I wonder, who is this for?<p>I feel this kind of editor is for the sophisticated minimalist, used alongside a 60% fancy keyboard with ceramic key caps.<p>I see comments about this being good for "beginners", and I wonder what definition they are using. Make them use a basic graphical editor like gedit.
From sailplane straight to (at least) a Cessna looks more like another level, supercharge and weight class all in one. I guess it's fair to locate 'micro' rather somewhere in the in-between, a middle ground and then there are in fact not that many contenders on the CLI, or else they're fossils. I would've thought this is what makes it attractive to some? Whereas others don't really have a use case. As for 'nano' on the other hand frankly there are about as many proper and more modern alternatives as there are Linux distributions and I'm sure anyone who's still a console regular has their favorite or two. I'm a vimmer but for quick snaps or in very strange places I *really* like dte. Am not associated with the project: <a href="https://github.com/craigbarnes/dte">https://github.com/craigbarnes/dte</a>
As an unironic GNU nano power user, I feel like this project is for people who want to like GNU nano but don't know how powerful the editor really is. Seriously, I highly recommend everybody to sit down with GNU nano and read the manual. There's a lot that you can do, almost as much as Vim in fact.
So it reinvented vim/emacs and friends and called it an alternative to nano without understanding what nano is.<p>That's like saying Visual Studio is an alternative to Notepad with a straight face. I mean sure, both could type text but it's fundamentally a different product.
I understand there are alot of command line junkies here which might be against it -- but what's wrong with Tilde? (1)<p>1. <a href="https://github.com/gphalkes/tilde">https://github.com/gphalkes/tilde</a>
What disappoints me most is that terminal editors often use weird hotkeys that are unique only to them instead of using widspread hotkeys. What I want, is, for example, to use Ctrl + S for saving and not some other combination.
Been using it as my main editor for the past 3 years now, coming from Sublime Text. It's been a great editor so far, but it's missing a lot of modern features, and the plugin support seems to be next to none.
Micro to me strikes a perfect balance of easy enough to get working out of the box and not so simple it's stifling. I wish it came with LSP support built-in though.
The main advantage of nano is the tui user interface where commands and menus are displayed graphically. Second advantage it's pre installed on most systems. I would use vi if I knew how to quit , copy and paste, and navigate around the screen.
having spent decades with nano, transitioning to emacs was a revelation. the extensibility, the vast array of packages - it was like stepping into a whole new world.
but then came vscode. it felt like the best of both worlds - simplicity when you need it, complexity when you want it. plus, the integrations and extensions are top-notch.<p>Also lately I've been a bit spoiled by Visual Studio enterprise at work, thinking to buy a personal license<p>I mean don't get me wrong, i have a soft spot for nano. there's something about its minimalism that's just...comforting. but functionality-wise, it doesn't hold a candle to emacs or vscode.<p>that said, i'm intrigued by micro. it promises modern features while staying true to nano's philosophy. if it delivers, maybe i'll find myself switching yet again.
Same as any other trendy editor, old or new: wake me up when it's CUA.<p>I learned dozens of editors in the bad old days. Then common sense has ruled since the late 1980s, and anything which does not comply with the universal PC UI can die in a fire.
I've been using Micro for quite some time, with some configuration and addons it becomes very comfy and it's enough for me most of the time. I miss some features though but they are probably more of addons than core features.
> it's just a static binary with no dependencies<p>Okay, how does it decide which color escape sequence to output? Does it have an inbuilt terminal database?
The top intuitive to use TUI editors in my heart will always be:
- MS Dos Edit
- Turbo Pascal 6<p>Edit felt like a windows application: select with shift+arrows, move fast with ctrl+home/end.<p>Turbo Pascal's keybindings were a bit influenced by WordStar's, I think, so a bit old style already at the time. But, my friend, the TUI Toolkit, TurboVision! What did they do there! Multiple windows that could be dragged and resized, blazingly fast. All of this on a 486 with megabytes of ram.<p>I never found any TUI editors like those two.
micro wants to be a small, lightweight, modern alternative to other things, but it's written in Go, which means it isn't going to be available for older systems and/or for classic architectures.<p>A good alternative should be usable in a decent number of places where the original is usable :P
I guess this is for people that don't use Neovim but never want to leave the terminal? Just kinda seems like the worst of both worlds to me. Less powerful than neovim while still using the same configuration language, yet less ubiquitous than even vscode at this point which does have many easy download options.
It calls its terminal multiplexer functionality "terminal emulator", it seems. Unless it has a GUI, but then "terminal-based" is wrong.<p>I am not a fan of nano, as it is not even qualified to attend the editor war, but this one adds JSON configuration, "curl | bash" installation, has a JS-dependent website, and generally looks even more awkward than nano. Apparently both nano and this editor have their target audience, as do all those other "modern" editors, but observing this triggers the feelings likely similar to those that lead to flamewars: it is painful to observe seemingly inefficient and otherwise awkward tools used by others, and tempting to suggest to look into better options.