[xubuntu-users] Vim and other alternatives

[Brian Masinick]

If you want to continue to look at other alternatives for text editing, if you are writing prose, but you are still using plain text, you may want to take a look at NEdit.  There really have not been many changes made to it recently, but it's really handy.  Some people nickname it "Nirvana", so that says something right there.  If Leafpad was adequate before, then your needs are fairly simple; use either Leafpad or Mousepad (which is very similar to Leafpad).

Should you want to go the opposite way and have the most complex, powerful imaginable text editor, which is really a writing and development system; you can even develop applications in its built-in Elisp interpreter, and that, of course, is GNU Emacs.  You can make it use the same key sequences that you use in Vi, if that's something you want; you can emulate just about anything you want; the appropriate question is whether that is useful to you or gross overkill?

Based on what you originally mentioned about Leafpad and gedit, why not simply install and use Leafpad for a simple graphical editor, and nano for a simple console editor?  Learn Vi if you want to learn a transferable skill; learn Emacs if you want to be in the school of life long learning, but otherwise, stick with the simple tools.  Developers in Linux really ought to learn Vi at a minimum, and there is much to say about learning Emacs as well, but for the knowledge worker, it depends on how involved the editing will be.  If there is a lot of "power typing", then touch keypad artists will appreciate Vi, once they learn it.  Someone who likes to tweak and customize everything under the sun will appreciate Emacs.  But those who can't be bothered spending hours, or years, learning tools probably can't be bothered with either one.

 
--
Brian Masinick
masinick at yahoo dot com
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