22 ms·

micro – A Modern Alternative to nano

383 points by theycallhermax 3y ago

angg 3y ago
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Semaphor 3y ago
Out of 14 other submissions, 2020 [0] had 103 comments and 2021 [1] 162 comments. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23334190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23334190 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29128702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29128702
petabytes 3y ago
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.
- tipiirai 3y ago
  Why did you leave Sublime?
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    Sublime has syntax highlighting, but no analysis or refactoring features
    - Ennea 3y ago
      It has support for LSP, with plugins that integrate the various language servers out there.
      - LoganDark 3y ago
        Since when? I can't get Sublime to do anything useful. Have a link?
        celdon25 3y ago
        https://lsp.sublimetext.io/language_servers/ https://lsp.sublimetext.io/language_servers/
  - dr_kiszonka 3y ago
    I use Sublime daily exclusively for quick notes and as a scratch pad/clipboard. What I have started noticing recently and what worries me is that with only the most basic Markdown plugins it now uses 1 GB of RAM and is somewhat less snappy than it used to. I really hope it goes away soon but with other editors getting more resource-heavy, I am worried.
    - manuelmagic 3y ago
      I have tens of files open in ST right now and it's using 16 MB of RAM. I'd suggest some tests without the plugins you are describing.
      - itsoktocry 3y ago
        >I'd suggest some tests without the plugins you are describing. How is this useful if you want to use those plugins?
  - petabytes 3y ago
    "Please purchase a sublime text license" popup every 15 saves. Been about 5 years since I last used it.
- akho 3y ago
  It's an alternative to nano, not to vsc.
- xp84 3y ago
  I must be weird because I see a major divide in editors. CLI editors are for light text editing and don’t need plugins. Updating a line in a config file, etc. I’ve never even wished for a plug-in for them. IDEs need plugins. They’re for coding. (I know some people use vim or emacs for coding, with 1000 amazing plugins, but I think deep down they’re masochists in the first place, especially vim.)
  - legends2k 3y ago
    I think people who reach for an IDE are deep down spoiled brats who need everything on a platter.
  - petabytes 3y ago
    I tried to use vscode, but I hated the high CPU usage. My laptop literally gets warm when scrolling through code. And fan go brrrrr
muxator 3y ago
The top intuitive to use TUI editors in my heart will always be: - MS Dos Edit - Turbo Pascal 6 Edit felt like a windows application: select with shift+arrows, move fast with ctrl+home/end. 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. I never found any TUI editors like those two.
- acumenical 3y ago
  I've never used micro, but if you look at the default keybindings[0], you'll see they're very Windows-y and might be to your liking. As for myself, I don't see cut-to-character or select-to-character like in vim, and yanking and pasting seems more intuitive in vim. And with visual block I don't miss Sublime style cursors at all. 0: https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/blob/master/runtime/help/keybindings.md#default-keybinding-configuration https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/blob/master/runtime/help/k...
  - boxed 3y ago
    The selection model is unfortunately a bit broken. For example shift+control+arrows and shift+down doesn't work. I believe the problem is that selection with shift isn't written to compose with other navigation.
    - neteresy 3y ago
      This is killing me man.
    - bharathyes 3y ago
      you need to check your terminal emulator. just checked the ctrl+thift+arrow keybind, works on alacritty but doesnt on kitty.
      - bharathyes 3y ago
andridk 3y ago
I thought Nano was the modern alternative to Pico ^_^
- mjhagen 3y ago
  I'm holding out for Macro.
  - xvedejas 3y ago
    according to SI, the opposite of micro (10^-6) is mega (10^6)
    - mgaunard 3y ago
      if you look at the progression pico, nano, micro, then you can see its 3 times bigger everytime, not the inverse. So the next one should be milli.
      - evujumenuk 3y ago
        Followed by… what? Unity? We could also have an unpronounceable empty string, and refer to it as TEFKAM, The Editor Formerly Known As `milli`.
        Ekaros 3y ago
        At that point for a few generations we do only 10x centi, deci, deca and hecto.
        evujumenuk 3y ago
        The taglines basically write themselves. 'A 10x editor for 10x engineers.'
        velosol 3y ago
        https://10xeditor.com/ https://10xeditor.com/ might prefer you use a different number ;)
pepa65 3y ago
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.
- xp84 3y ago
  Too many awkward keyboard commands though. To save and quit: ^o, Return, ^x Vs Micro ^s ^q Honestly that, and ^k (kill to end of line) are the only commands I use in any CLI editor. Ironically my muscle memory actually learned the obnoxious 3-step nano way so I usually forget to use micro. But every time I work with a developer under 40 and see them fiddling with vim trying to wrestle with vim to do simple text entry with a git commit message, I help them set $VISUAL and -$EDITOR to micro, although I have to remember the config to turn on the help/status bar that shows the commands, since they inexplicably turned it off by default a few years ago.
  - freeopinion 3y ago
    Whenever I see a developer under 40 struggling to figure out what all the carets on the bottom of the screen mean...
  - Jiocus 3y ago
    Are you sure about those nano commands? Since a few years I've always found nano system defaults to be: ^s: Save ^o: Save as (type out filename, save and return to editing) In other words, to save and quit: ^s,^x
    - xp84 3y ago
      If that’s true, I’ve been literally wasting a really annoying keystroke every time. Why on Earth don’t they include SAVE in the list of commands they advertise in the footer?
      - Jiocus 3y ago
        Let's see what nano says in ^G (help): ^S Save file without prompting
molticrystal 3y ago
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. [0] https://github.com/xyproto/orbiton https://github.com/xyproto/orbiton
littlestymaar 3y ago
How can it be modern if it's not even written in Rust /s
- oneshtein 3y ago
  > Rust https://github.com/ahmednooor/lino https://github.com/ahmednooor/lino https://github.com/curlpipe/ox https://github.com/curlpipe/ox https://github.com/zee-editor/zee https://github.com/zee-editor/zee https://github.com/ilai-deutel/kibi https://github.com/ilai-deutel/kibi https://github.com/gchp/iota https://github.com/gchp/iota
satvikpendem 3y ago
Shall we just use ed instead?
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  No because I want to leave on time
globular-toast 3y ago
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.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Not everyone is interested in a humongous editor with a steep learning curve. Some people just want to quickly edit a file. You can use this with the knowledge you have already of windows notepad or mac simpletext and it will work on a busted or server machine with only a unix console.
  - KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
    It also works where you don't have ssh to tunnel files, which is true for many servers in many professional environments.
  - tasogare 3y ago
    > Not everyone is interested in a humongous editor with a steep learning Then why using a TUI editor at all? Each time nano was opened because of some default settings, I saw this whole bottom bar with shortcuts. It sure doesn't seems to be easy to learn either.
    - nicoburns 3y ago
      I use micro as git commit/rebase editor. It's handy to be able to do multiline commit messages and interactive rebases without leaving the terminal.
    - Terretta 3y ago
mixmastamyk 3y ago
micro is a great compliment to other CUA editors. One set of keybindings to rule them all!
feldrim 3y ago
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. I hope they solved it but I left at that point. If it is solved, I can give it a try again.
- Yasuraka 3y ago
  You could disable it (Ctrl+E, 'set autoindent off') https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/blob/master/runtime/help/options.md#settingsjson-file https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/blob/master/runtime/help/o... But even when enabled (like I have) it should indently correctly when pasting entire blocks. If you'd like to share your setup/env/config I'd take a look at working out a patch
  - feldrim 3y ago
    It's been a while, I will try and create an issue. Bir I was using the default setup IIRC.
    - Yasuraka 3y ago
      It is enabled by default so that wouldn't be unlikely, but I was thinking more of the circumstances such as SSH tunnels, xclip or wl-clipboard and similar (or perhaps the most important one, version of micro itself)
      - feldrim 3y ago
        I only used it locally, so there wasn't any other application in between. I used it on Windows but I don't have the version -though I always keep it up to date, so latest or minus one- or configuration now, yet I'll update you with details when I get back from vacation. Thanks!
- mminer237 3y ago
pletnes 3y ago
Is it super fast on large files? (Large is 1 GB+) I’ve used vim or notepad++ for those in the past but would be happy to find something faster.
- bdhcuidbebe 3y ago
  I use textwrangler for those massive files. Check it out!
  - pletnes 3y ago
    Looks like mac only? I’m often stuck on windows. But thanks!
    - pbnjeh 3y ago
      Ages ago, there was TextPad -- a commercial product. Back when I was munging textified order histories for a multinational (lots of orders, ergo huge text files), it was great up through version... 4.7.3, I seem to recall. Then, they started redesigning some things in ways I found enworsening (if I may be permitted to riff off of the current linguistic trend). But, IIRC, it remained fast with big files. This all was 20+ years ago. I wonder whether they're still around... https://www.textpad.com/home https://www.textpad.com/home
glebd 3y ago
JOE is pretty nice https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io/ https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io/ — 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.
- benhoyt 3y ago
  I used to love JOE! Maybe that's why, because it had echoes of WordStar. I just wrote an article about how I still use the "WordStar Diamond" keys in Linux today: https://benhoyt.com/writings/wordstar-diamond/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/wordstar-diamond/
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Great memories there, back in the 90s I used to use joe for everything that wasn't editing code. Mainly because it just isn't good at that, it's more of a "word processing" model, with word wrapping and lack of syntax highlighting, etc. But for writing text documents? Lovely little editor.
  - jhallenworld 3y ago
    You should try a more recent version of it: sudo apt-get install joe JOE has syntax highlighting, UTF-8, regex, shell windows, hex editing, incremental search, column/rectangular block, macros..
- diydsp 3y ago
  Yup! I often invoke it with "jmacs" to get the emacs keyboard shortcut set.
- NikkiA 3y ago
  native-mode joe is closer to zde/vde than wordstar, although jstar obviously slides that closer to wordstar.
- deepspace 3y ago
  Yes! The first word processor I used was Wordstar (under CP/M). My first programming environment was Borland Turbo Pascal. Later, I used "QEdit", which was configurable to use the wordstar keys. When I finally migrated from DOS to Unix, in the early 90s, I was delighted to discover JOE. It is the first program I install on any new Linux or *BSD box or VM. JOE has syntax highlighting and several other nice features these days. I have therefore never felt the need to get proficient with vi or emacs.
defanor 3y ago
It calls its terminal multiplexer functionality "terminal emulator", it seems. Unless it has a GUI, but then "terminal-based" is wrong. 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.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  sudo apt install micro Not awkward, it uses keybindings you already know if you've used a PC or Mac in the last 40 years. :-/
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    I think the vim keybinding are the one I have used in the last 35 years.
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      I first learned on a Commodore… run stop restore! But then DOS edit.
  - berkeleynerd 3y ago
    Definitely this. I'm super happy for anyone finding some new level of productivity with vim, emacs, kakoune, etc. but I don't want to join an editor cult, not even a CUA one. I just want to edit text from the command line using a familiar set of keystrokes and move on with my life and micro fits the bill.
- mgaunard 3y ago
  try looking at a "modern" text editor; the one which appears to have the highest popularity is visual studio code. It's an awful slow mess that cannot stop itself from triggering unsolicited popups, eating all your RAM and inserting characters you didn't type. The reality is that this is the reality of programmers today, they want something that does a shitty work for them rather than be in control.
Borborygymus 3y ago
Software project name DNA. MicroEmacs -> Pico -> Nano -> Micro
- einr 3y ago
  PICO is the PIne COmposer -- the editor that came with PINE, the e-mail client.
  - Borborygymus 3y ago
    Pico was based on MicroEmacs 3.6. Nano is an open source clone of Pico - there's definite DNA in that series. I'm assuming not in this new Micro, but it's faintly amusing that the name seems to be a play on something that was a play on a name which was a play on a historical namesake of the new thing. Circles.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Mildly amusing joke, but, as sibling pointed out, different lineage.
hobo_mark 3y ago
Is there any console editor that supports VS Code key bindings?
- moffkalast 3y ago
  Well VS code is electron, so you could just launch chromium in kiosk mode with xinit and have VS code render in the actual terminal I guess?
punnerud 3y ago
On Mac, add it to terminal with brew: brew install micro The command on the webpage will only add it to the location you run it.
- linuxdude314 3y ago
  Thats because wherever you downloaded it isn’t in PATH. If you don’t want to use brew and want it available everywhere just set PATH=$PATH:<location of script>
prmoustache 3y ago
Micro? really? a 11MB binary?
- kioshix 3y ago
  Seems like a really modern alternative to my 389K nano.
  - oytis 3y ago
    Micro should have been 389M then.
- benhoyt 3y ago
  Yeah, "micro" for an editor would be 11 kilo bytes. I bet it's possible to do a half-decent editor in C in 11KB. Antirez's "kilo" (~1000 lines of C) is 36KB when compiled with standard gcc (https://github.com/antirez/kilo https://github.com/antirez/kilo). That said, for many server-type use cases these days, 11MB isn't a huge deal. Still, I wonder if micro could be compiled on / ported to TinyGo and end up a few hundred KB? It looks like TinyGo can produce some pretty small binaries: https://tinygo.org/docs/guides/optimizing-binaries/ https://tinygo.org/docs/guides/optimizing-binaries/
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    >That said, for many server-type use cases these days, 11MB isn't a huge deal. Yes but that doesn't make it a good candidate for a default editor that would be ubiquitous, from small embedded development stuff to servers to desktop. I don't mind several MB when the tool offer more than the competition. But what are pico/nano lacking really when it comes to editing a few lines in a config file once in a while? It is not like micro is trying to replace visual studio code or emacs either. Or is it?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- KolenCh 3y ago
  11 Micro TB
xuejie 3y ago
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: https://github.com/xxuejie/micro-acme https://github.com/xxuejie/micro-acme So far it has been working perfectly for me.
- antics9 3y ago
  Same here. Went from Emacs to Acme, while using mg in the terminal. Now I’ve customised Micro to get that Acme feel.
- alberth 3y ago
  Knowing nothing about micro, is there a reason why development has slowed down over the last 1-2 years? https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/tags https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/tags
  - aslilac 3y ago
    because it's a text editor that's already fully capable of editing text. not every thing needs to constantly evolve and add features at a break-neck pace.
    - alberth 3y ago
      Emacs, which is ~40 years-old, still regularly has multiple updates per year. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/history.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/history.html
      - fermentation 3y ago
        You can order pizza and get a quote for a mortgage within emacs
        3y ago
aidog 3y ago
I love micro, I just wish it had a file selector like nerdtree and a shell.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  It has a command shell, Primary+E.
moffkalast 3y ago
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. 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.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  https://itsthedatastupid.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/nomodes.jpg https://itsthedatastupid.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/nomodes...
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  I guess my main complaint about nano has always been that it seems more suited for document editing rather than code -- defaults to word-wrap on, doesn't really have syntax highlighting by default, not a lot of support for code-oriented workflow. Fine for writing up an email or commit message, I guess, but then I have to have another editor to write code in anyways? After 30 years of using emacs (well, these days a lot of CLion, too, let's call me a backsliding emacs user) I'm ready for an alternative. But nobody has come along with something that really fits the same swiss army knife niche.
  - moffkalast 3y ago
    Well in my experience I very rarely if ever need to actually code in a terminal. Sftp or rsync are usually on hand so there's little reason to not just go for sublime or vscode if I need to make a substantial change. What nano comes in handy for is changing config files and adjusting system settings, when I'm jumping around and making very small edits.
    - linuxdude314 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
berkeleynerd 3y ago
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.
- notnmeyer 3y ago
  i’ve been daily driving helix for 6 months or so. the fact that’s it’s batteries included is so nice. great editor.
m0rissette 3y ago
Vim is all you need.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Narushia 3y ago
Been using this for years, really great for making quick edits in the terminal. Mouse support and standard editing shortcuts as the default (unlike many other terminal text editors) are the best features in my opinion.
- Geezus_42 3y ago
  What standard?
  - btbuildem 3y ago
    Guessing the mainstream ctrl-c/ctrl-v as opposed to "two quad key combos while squatting with one foot off the ground"
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - PhasmaFelis 3y ago
    I'm assuming they mean the standard shared by every GUI app in every OS for the last 25 years.
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      About 40 really. Mac OS and IBM CUA… early to mid 80s. Motif, late 80s.
      - PhasmaFelis 3y ago
        True, it's older than that, but I didn't recall exactly when it became universal across all significant contemporary OSes. I don't know what Amiga Workbench used, for example. Figured Win95-era was a conservative guess.
        mixmastamyk 3y ago
teddyh 3y ago
In those rare cases where Emacs is too large, I use Zile.
kasperset 3y ago
Reminds me of mg editor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mg_(text_editor) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mg_(text_editor) It is a very small subset of EMacs and barely any features compare to micro.
gabrielgio 3y ago
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? 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.
- johnklos 3y ago
  Hear, hear! It is completely irresponsible to encourage piping random Internet sources to sudo or to (ba)sh, and I'm quite tired of hearing the ridiculous justification that "everyone does it".
  - jamespo 3y ago
    do you read the script sections of all the packages you install?
    - gabrielgio 3y ago
      No, it is unfeasible (at least for me) to validate every single package. So at some point I have to trust someone/ some party and I chose to trust more the maintainers of my distro than a person asking me to run sudo from curl.
      - Joker_vD 3y ago
        And some people trust the software authors more than some random repo maintainers who don't have enough time to even make sure the packages they update are actually still compatible with each other.
      - codedokode 3y ago
        You do not need to trust anyone if the program is run inside a sandbox. This sandbox is supported in hardware since 80386, but Linux doesn't make proper use of it.
delfinom 3y ago
So it reinvented vim/emacs and friends and called it an alternative to nano without understanding what nano is. 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.
- NayamAmarshe 3y ago
  Its main idea is the simplicity. It supports regular GUI editor like syntax and code highlighting. It's not like nano or vim or emacs. It's for people who prefer OOTB simplicity.
johnklos 3y ago
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. A good alternative should be usable in a decent number of places where the original is usable :P
- malloc-0x90 3y ago
  Tilde is faster for bigger files, and it runs and compile everywhere; TextAdept even has code folding. - https://github.com/gphalkes/tilde https://github.com/gphalkes/tilde - https://orbitalquark.github.io/textadept/ https://orbitalquark.github.io/textadept/
MantisShrimp90 3y ago
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.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  What a strange comment, as if everyone wants or needs to use vi... Believe it or not, most people don't like or use modal editing and vi-style keybindings. Yes, Vim is extremely popular, but it's still a minority of people who are typing text into computers. The vast majority of people out there are working in editors with "traditional" direct, modeless, editing and some variation of "standard" (aka Windows/Mac) or Emacs-ish keybindings. (Hell, even bash/zsh/readline -- effectively a single line text editor -- ships with a sub-variation of emacs keybindings by default.) Personally, I use emacs -- when it's available. But something like this looks good for lower footprint systems. Anyways, what a strange comment. Nano/Pico, etc. have been around since the super early days, I remember using Pico on a 486 back in 1993. Used to be the default editor on most systems that had the 'pine' email client installed, too, which was very common all over the place.
  - xp84 3y ago
    Seriously, the fetish people have for vim and for pushing a modal editor on people who didn’t learn on such programs is downright weird. Vim is definitely an insane default editor for anyone who’s not already a skilled fan of it. Micro even has mouse support, making the incredibly common task of “put something at a certain place in this config file” trivial, versus vim where you only need to memorize 12 random key bindings to become more efficient at keyboard cursor control than what a 7-year-old can do with a mouse. I classify vim usage more as a religion than anything else. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect how effective that 0.5% of developers can be with it, but nearly no one I’ve met is as efficient in it as they’d be in VSCode, and about 95% are so unskilled in Vim that they get tripped up by just the basic mode switch and remembering :wq. They should not even be bothering with it. But sadly it seems 80% of people think it’s mandatory to use it to edit random files on servers, and as the editor for things like git.
swozey 3y ago
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. 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.
- dormento 3y ago
  20MB is bigger than some whole GNU/Linux systems I installed in the past. Might explain why the greybeard council disapproves of it.
  - swozey 3y ago
    You made me curious. I started w/ openBSD 1.2 in '95. I can't find it anywhere though to see what size it was.
    - rascul 3y ago
      There were some Linux distros in decades past designed to run off of a couple floppies. I struggle to recall any names at the moment.
      - cesarb 3y ago
        The classic one was "tomsrtbt" (http://www.toms.net/rb/ http://www.toms.net/rb/).
        swozey 3y ago
        His homepage just brought me SO much nostalgia. Just needs spinning skulls and construction gifs. http://www.toms.net/ http://www.toms.net/ And dang he owns toms.net, nice. His resume on here hasn't been updated since 2002. Looks like he started his career in 1987. This is an interesting looking resume. Tons of skills at the top, goals, Other. I suppose it's cover-lettery. edit: Oh, nevermind, he has a career page updated in 2019 - http://www.toms.net/career/ http://www.toms.net/career/ - so I guess he's been with Fannie Mae from 2002 - now. Good, I was a bit worried he'd left us.
sramsay 3y ago
I suggest nano to my students in classes where everyone is a beginner and we're learning programming on the command line. 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.
- vdfs 3y ago
  by this trend, pico should show the whole man page in the bottom of the screen
- rob74 3y ago
  The difference between micro and nano is that nano's keyboard shortcuts are pretty opinionated, while micro's are the ones used by most (GUI) applications nowadays: Ctrl+S for saving, Ctrl+F for find, Ctrl+Z for undo, Ctrl+Q to exit etc. etc. There is also a helpful hint at the bottom of the screen that you can press Alt+G to see the shortcuts, or Ctrl+G for some help.
  - mdaniel 3y ago
    > Ctrl-S for saving ... Ctrl+Q to exit Using a flow control sequences for editor commands; what can go wrong?
    - rollcat 3y ago
      It conveniently translates to "save and exit"! Hopefully a cautionary tale against careless in-band signalling.
    - mardifoufs 3y ago
      Wait I don't understand the issue. What are you referring to?
      - kip_ 3y ago
        Some of us graybeards use to use teletypes to talk to our computers. In one of the earlier races between differing I/O, the printer couldn't print as fast as the teletype was receiving data, so the teletype would send XOFF (Ctrl-S) to tell the remote end "Stop sending data and let me catch up" and would then send XON (Ctrl-Q) to say "I'm caught up, go back to sending data. Many of us carried that to our VT100 terminals and used it when lines of code or output would flood the screen faster than we could read. Eventually paginators like 'more' and 'less' were invented and flow control via the keyboard codes for XON/XOFF fell out of favor, but some of us have very strong muscle memory. :)
NayamAmarshe 3y ago
I love micro! Super simple to use and very intuitive.
Aloha 3y ago
While this is very nice, the lack of Control-A/Control-E support to jump around a line is annoying.
- mypetocean 3y ago
  On the other hand, Micro supports the Ctrl-based text nav/manip hotkeys (such as Ctrl-arrow, Ctrl-Backspace, CTRL-Home/End, also optionally combined with Shift for selection). More of a DOS-origin set of hotkeys than GNU. So more familiar to some and less familiar to others. It supports mouse interaction out-of-the-box, which is a big plus for some folks who haven't spent much time in keyboard navigation. The escape hatch is a nice option for some tasks, even for keyboard navigation pros.
- neutrono 3y ago
  One can always use Home and End in that case.
  - Aloha 3y ago
    Only my Model M has a full keyboard
Roark66 3y ago
I'm not sure why do we need one. Nano works fine everywhere.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  It has unique keybindings. I used to change them, but don’t need to with micro.
kevinlinxc 3y ago
One nit: can't enlarge the carousel of images on mobile
mpsprd 3y ago
I wonder, who is this for? I feel this kind of editor is for the sophisticated minimalist, used alongside a 60% fancy keyboard with ceramic key caps. 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.
- linuxdude314 3y ago
  Nano is not a powerful text editor and is generally only used by non sophisticated users.
  - neutrono 3y ago
    What is nano lacking in power?
    - gilcot 3y ago
      Last time I try it, I wasn't able to figure out an equivalence of « d)Gp »
      - tpoacher 3y ago
        Nano doesn't have a default keystroke for "match an end-of-sentence" character, though creating such a binding in .nanorc is trivial. However, since what this typically means in practice is you'd either cut until the next period, or until the end of the line, in the absence of an "end of sentence" keybinding, my approach to this would simply be to either cut until the next period, or until the end of the line as required, which I believe is a wholly reasonable alternative. The former would be: {mark} {search} . {enter} {cut} {endoffile} {paste} (7 keystrokes) The latter would be {cuttoend} {endoffile} {paste} (3 keystrokes) The 7 keystrokes become very vim-competitive when you realise that d)Gp actually fucks up in the typical scenario, since usually what you want is NOT to paste after the first character of the last line, but actually in a new line below the last one. Which means you don't actually just do `p`, but something like `o ESC p` instead.
- 3y ago
codedokode 3y ago
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.
- dietr1ch 3y ago
  Good luck using C-z for undoing
  - codedokode 3y ago
    Why not? Those control combinations can be disabled if I remember correctly. Also, as they conflict with modern hotkeys, they should be changed everywhere.
    - just_mc 3y ago
      Micro supports both Ctrl-C for 'copy' and Ctrl-Z for 'undo'. For someone who started using computers in the mid/late nineties or later, it is super intuitive and I much prefer it over anything else.
- TheHippo 3y ago
  That is what makes micro so easy to use. It uses widespread hotkeys.
- cryptecks 3y ago
  You may be in luck, because the default keybinding for Save in micro is indeed Ctrl-S. I installed it and aliased it over Nano for a bit on one of the servers I SSH into constantly, just to test it out.
chromoblob 3y ago
> it's just a static binary with no dependencies Okay, how does it decide which color escape sequence to output? Does it have an inbuilt terminal database?
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Couldn’t it use the system one?
pie_flavor 3y ago
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.
hungryforcodes 3y ago
I understand there are alot of command line junkies here which might be against it -- but what's wrong with Tilde? (1) 1. https://github.com/gphalkes/tilde https://github.com/gphalkes/tilde
- BitFlogger 3y ago
  Looks like it doesn't support MacOSX...
stracer 3y ago
Longer name, harder to type, probably won't catch on.
- seabrookmx 3y ago
  echo 'alias m="micro"' >> ~/.bashrc
  - effie 3y ago
    A person who knows and likes the program can do that, but the default name is a drawback for adoption. Nano is shorter name, using it is user-friendly and it already is on almost every modern Linux installation. So micro has a tough rival to beat, and it seems to be an "uphill battle".
- mdwalters 3y ago
  Longer name? micro is only five letters long, and nano is four. Yes, it's longer than nano, but it's only longer by one... Care to elaborate?
omgmajk 3y ago
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.
wener 3y ago
I add nano to every alpine base container, micro seems good, but apk add nano # Installed size 308 kB apk add micro # Installed size 12.17 MB
- mdwalters 3y ago
  nano is micro, compared to micro itself.
matteoraso 3y ago
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.
- tpoacher 3y ago
  hear hear
deleted 3y ago
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canvascritic 3y ago
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. Also lately I've been a bit spoiled by Visual Studio enterprise at work, thinking to buy a personal license 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. 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.
lproven 3y ago
Same as any other trendy editor, old or new: wake me up when it's CUA. 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.
eigenlicht 3y ago
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: https://github.com/craigbarnes/dte https://github.com/craigbarnes/dte
kgbcia 3y ago
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.
tpoacher 3y ago
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. 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. 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) 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. 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 two updates were gamechangers.

angg 3y ago

Out of 14 other submissions, 2020 [0] had 103 comments and 2021 [1] 162 comments. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23334190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23334190 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29128702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29128702

petabytes 3y ago

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.

tipiirai 3y ago
Why did you leave Sublime?
- LoganDark 3y ago
  Sublime has syntax highlighting, but no analysis or refactoring features
  - Ennea 3y ago
    It has support for LSP, with plugins that integrate the various language servers out there.
    - LoganDark 3y ago
      Since when? I can't get Sublime to do anything useful. Have a link?
      - celdon25 3y ago
        https://lsp.sublimetext.io/language_servers/ https://lsp.sublimetext.io/language_servers/
- dr_kiszonka 3y ago
  I use Sublime daily exclusively for quick notes and as a scratch pad/clipboard. What I have started noticing recently and what worries me is that with only the most basic Markdown plugins it now uses 1 GB of RAM and is somewhat less snappy than it used to. I really hope it goes away soon but with other editors getting more resource-heavy, I am worried.
  - manuelmagic 3y ago
    I have tens of files open in ST right now and it's using 16 MB of RAM. I'd suggest some tests without the plugins you are describing.
    - itsoktocry 3y ago
      >I'd suggest some tests without the plugins you are describing. How is this useful if you want to use those plugins?
- petabytes 3y ago
  "Please purchase a sublime text license" popup every 15 saves. Been about 5 years since I last used it.
akho 3y ago
It's an alternative to nano, not to vsc.
xp84 3y ago
I must be weird because I see a major divide in editors. CLI editors are for light text editing and don’t need plugins. Updating a line in a config file, etc. I’ve never even wished for a plug-in for them. IDEs need plugins. They’re for coding. (I know some people use vim or emacs for coding, with 1000 amazing plugins, but I think deep down they’re masochists in the first place, especially vim.)
- legends2k 3y ago
  I think people who reach for an IDE are deep down spoiled brats who need everything on a platter.
- petabytes 3y ago
  I tried to use vscode, but I hated the high CPU usage. My laptop literally gets warm when scrolling through code. And fan go brrrrr

muxator 3y ago

The top intuitive to use TUI editors in my heart will always be: - MS Dos Edit - Turbo Pascal 6 Edit felt like a windows application: select with shift+arrows, move fast with ctrl+home/end. 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. I never found any TUI editors like those two.

acumenical 3y ago
I've never used micro, but if you look at the default keybindings[0], you'll see they're very Windows-y and might be to your liking. As for myself, I don't see cut-to-character or select-to-character like in vim, and yanking and pasting seems more intuitive in vim. And with visual block I don't miss Sublime style cursors at all. 0: https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/blob/master/runtime/help/keybindings.md#default-keybinding-configuration https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/blob/master/runtime/help/k...
- boxed 3y ago
  The selection model is unfortunately a bit broken. For example shift+control+arrows and shift+down doesn't work. I believe the problem is that selection with shift isn't written to compose with other navigation.
  - neteresy 3y ago
    This is killing me man.
  - bharathyes 3y ago
    you need to check your terminal emulator. just checked the ctrl+thift+arrow keybind, works on alacritty but doesnt on kitty.
    - bharathyes 3y ago

andridk 3y ago

I thought Nano was the modern alternative to Pico ^_^

mjhagen 3y ago
I'm holding out for Macro.
- xvedejas 3y ago
  according to SI, the opposite of micro (10^-6) is mega (10^6)
  - mgaunard 3y ago
    if you look at the progression pico, nano, micro, then you can see its 3 times bigger everytime, not the inverse. So the next one should be milli.
    - evujumenuk 3y ago
      Followed by… what? Unity? We could also have an unpronounceable empty string, and refer to it as TEFKAM, The Editor Formerly Known As `milli`.
      - Ekaros 3y ago
        At that point for a few generations we do only 10x centi, deci, deca and hecto.
        evujumenuk 3y ago
        The taglines basically write themselves. 'A 10x editor for 10x engineers.'
        velosol 3y ago
        https://10xeditor.com/ https://10xeditor.com/ might prefer you use a different number ;)

pepa65 3y ago

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.

xp84 3y ago
Too many awkward keyboard commands though. To save and quit: ^o, Return, ^x Vs Micro ^s ^q Honestly that, and ^k (kill to end of line) are the only commands I use in any CLI editor. Ironically my muscle memory actually learned the obnoxious 3-step nano way so I usually forget to use micro. But every time I work with a developer under 40 and see them fiddling with vim trying to wrestle with vim to do simple text entry with a git commit message, I help them set $VISUAL and -$EDITOR to micro, although I have to remember the config to turn on the help/status bar that shows the commands, since they inexplicably turned it off by default a few years ago.
- freeopinion 3y ago
  Whenever I see a developer under 40 struggling to figure out what all the carets on the bottom of the screen mean...
- Jiocus 3y ago
  Are you sure about those nano commands? Since a few years I've always found nano system defaults to be: ^s: Save ^o: Save as (type out filename, save and return to editing) In other words, to save and quit: ^s,^x
  - xp84 3y ago
    If that’s true, I’ve been literally wasting a really annoying keystroke every time. Why on Earth don’t they include SAVE in the list of commands they advertise in the footer?
    - Jiocus 3y ago
      Let's see what nano says in ^G (help): ^S Save file without prompting

molticrystal 3y ago

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. [0] https://github.com/xyproto/orbiton https://github.com/xyproto/orbiton

littlestymaar 3y ago

How can it be modern if it's not even written in Rust /s

oneshtein 3y ago
> Rust https://github.com/ahmednooor/lino https://github.com/ahmednooor/lino https://github.com/curlpipe/ox https://github.com/curlpipe/ox https://github.com/zee-editor/zee https://github.com/zee-editor/zee https://github.com/ilai-deutel/kibi https://github.com/ilai-deutel/kibi https://github.com/gchp/iota https://github.com/gchp/iota

satvikpendem 3y ago

Shall we just use ed instead?

quickthrower2 3y ago
No because I want to leave on time

globular-toast 3y ago

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.

mixmastamyk 3y ago
Not everyone is interested in a humongous editor with a steep learning curve. Some people just want to quickly edit a file. You can use this with the knowledge you have already of windows notepad or mac simpletext and it will work on a busted or server machine with only a unix console.
- KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
  It also works where you don't have ssh to tunnel files, which is true for many servers in many professional environments.
- tasogare 3y ago
  > Not everyone is interested in a humongous editor with a steep learning Then why using a TUI editor at all? Each time nano was opened because of some default settings, I saw this whole bottom bar with shortcuts. It sure doesn't seems to be easy to learn either.
  - nicoburns 3y ago
    I use micro as git commit/rebase editor. It's handy to be able to do multiline commit messages and interactive rebases without leaving the terminal.
  - Terretta 3y ago

mixmastamyk 3y ago

micro is a great compliment to other CUA editors. One set of keybindings to rule them all!

feldrim 3y ago

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. I hope they solved it but I left at that point. If it is solved, I can give it a try again.

Yasuraka 3y ago
You could disable it (Ctrl+E, 'set autoindent off') https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/blob/master/runtime/help/options.md#settingsjson-file https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/blob/master/runtime/help/o... But even when enabled (like I have) it should indently correctly when pasting entire blocks. If you'd like to share your setup/env/config I'd take a look at working out a patch
- feldrim 3y ago
  It's been a while, I will try and create an issue. Bir I was using the default setup IIRC.
  - Yasuraka 3y ago
    It is enabled by default so that wouldn't be unlikely, but I was thinking more of the circumstances such as SSH tunnels, xclip or wl-clipboard and similar (or perhaps the most important one, version of micro itself)
    - feldrim 3y ago
      I only used it locally, so there wasn't any other application in between. I used it on Windows but I don't have the version -though I always keep it up to date, so latest or minus one- or configuration now, yet I'll update you with details when I get back from vacation. Thanks!
mminer237 3y ago

pletnes 3y ago

Is it super fast on large files? (Large is 1 GB+) I’ve used vim or notepad++ for those in the past but would be happy to find something faster.

bdhcuidbebe 3y ago
I use textwrangler for those massive files. Check it out!
- pletnes 3y ago
  Looks like mac only? I’m often stuck on windows. But thanks!
  - pbnjeh 3y ago
    Ages ago, there was TextPad -- a commercial product. Back when I was munging textified order histories for a multinational (lots of orders, ergo huge text files), it was great up through version... 4.7.3, I seem to recall. Then, they started redesigning some things in ways I found enworsening (if I may be permitted to riff off of the current linguistic trend). But, IIRC, it remained fast with big files. This all was 20+ years ago. I wonder whether they're still around... https://www.textpad.com/home https://www.textpad.com/home

glebd 3y ago

JOE is pretty nice https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io/ https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io/ — 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.

benhoyt 3y ago
I used to love JOE! Maybe that's why, because it had echoes of WordStar. I just wrote an article about how I still use the "WordStar Diamond" keys in Linux today: https://benhoyt.com/writings/wordstar-diamond/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/wordstar-diamond/
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
Great memories there, back in the 90s I used to use joe for everything that wasn't editing code. Mainly because it just isn't good at that, it's more of a "word processing" model, with word wrapping and lack of syntax highlighting, etc. But for writing text documents? Lovely little editor.
- jhallenworld 3y ago
  You should try a more recent version of it: sudo apt-get install joe JOE has syntax highlighting, UTF-8, regex, shell windows, hex editing, incremental search, column/rectangular block, macros..
diydsp 3y ago
Yup! I often invoke it with "jmacs" to get the emacs keyboard shortcut set.
NikkiA 3y ago
native-mode joe is closer to zde/vde than wordstar, although jstar obviously slides that closer to wordstar.
deepspace 3y ago
Yes! The first word processor I used was Wordstar (under CP/M). My first programming environment was Borland Turbo Pascal. Later, I used "QEdit", which was configurable to use the wordstar keys. When I finally migrated from DOS to Unix, in the early 90s, I was delighted to discover JOE. It is the first program I install on any new Linux or *BSD box or VM. JOE has syntax highlighting and several other nice features these days. I have therefore never felt the need to get proficient with vi or emacs.

defanor 3y ago

It calls its terminal multiplexer functionality "terminal emulator", it seems. Unless it has a GUI, but then "terminal-based" is wrong. 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.

mixmastamyk 3y ago
sudo apt install micro Not awkward, it uses keybindings you already know if you've used a PC or Mac in the last 40 years. :-/
- prmoustache 3y ago
  I think the vim keybinding are the one I have used in the last 35 years.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    I first learned on a Commodore… run stop restore! But then DOS edit.
- berkeleynerd 3y ago
  Definitely this. I'm super happy for anyone finding some new level of productivity with vim, emacs, kakoune, etc. but I don't want to join an editor cult, not even a CUA one. I just want to edit text from the command line using a familiar set of keystrokes and move on with my life and micro fits the bill.
mgaunard 3y ago
try looking at a "modern" text editor; the one which appears to have the highest popularity is visual studio code. It's an awful slow mess that cannot stop itself from triggering unsolicited popups, eating all your RAM and inserting characters you didn't type. The reality is that this is the reality of programmers today, they want something that does a shitty work for them rather than be in control.

Borborygymus 3y ago

Software project name DNA. MicroEmacs -> Pico -> Nano -> Micro

einr 3y ago
PICO is the PIne COmposer -- the editor that came with PINE, the e-mail client.
- Borborygymus 3y ago
  Pico was based on MicroEmacs 3.6. Nano is an open source clone of Pico - there's definite DNA in that series. I'm assuming not in this new Micro, but it's faintly amusing that the name seems to be a play on something that was a play on a name which was a play on a historical namesake of the new thing. Circles.
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
Mildly amusing joke, but, as sibling pointed out, different lineage.

hobo_mark 3y ago

Is there any console editor that supports VS Code key bindings?

moffkalast 3y ago
Well VS code is electron, so you could just launch chromium in kiosk mode with xinit and have VS code render in the actual terminal I guess?

punnerud 3y ago

On Mac, add it to terminal with brew: brew install micro The command on the webpage will only add it to the location you run it.

linuxdude314 3y ago
Thats because wherever you downloaded it isn’t in PATH. If you don’t want to use brew and want it available everywhere just set PATH=$PATH:<location of script>

prmoustache 3y ago

Micro? really? a 11MB binary?

kioshix 3y ago
Seems like a really modern alternative to my 389K nano.
- oytis 3y ago
  Micro should have been 389M then.
benhoyt 3y ago
Yeah, "micro" for an editor would be 11 kilo bytes. I bet it's possible to do a half-decent editor in C in 11KB. Antirez's "kilo" (~1000 lines of C) is 36KB when compiled with standard gcc (https://github.com/antirez/kilo https://github.com/antirez/kilo). That said, for many server-type use cases these days, 11MB isn't a huge deal. Still, I wonder if micro could be compiled on / ported to TinyGo and end up a few hundred KB? It looks like TinyGo can produce some pretty small binaries: https://tinygo.org/docs/guides/optimizing-binaries/ https://tinygo.org/docs/guides/optimizing-binaries/
- prmoustache 3y ago
  >That said, for many server-type use cases these days, 11MB isn't a huge deal. Yes but that doesn't make it a good candidate for a default editor that would be ubiquitous, from small embedded development stuff to servers to desktop. I don't mind several MB when the tool offer more than the competition. But what are pico/nano lacking really when it comes to editing a few lines in a config file once in a while? It is not like micro is trying to replace visual studio code or emacs either. Or is it?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
KolenCh 3y ago
11 Micro TB

xuejie 3y ago

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: https://github.com/xxuejie/micro-acme https://github.com/xxuejie/micro-acme So far it has been working perfectly for me.

antics9 3y ago
Same here. Went from Emacs to Acme, while using mg in the terminal. Now I’ve customised Micro to get that Acme feel.
alberth 3y ago
Knowing nothing about micro, is there a reason why development has slowed down over the last 1-2 years? https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/tags https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/tags
- aslilac 3y ago
  because it's a text editor that's already fully capable of editing text. not every thing needs to constantly evolve and add features at a break-neck pace.
  - alberth 3y ago
    Emacs, which is ~40 years-old, still regularly has multiple updates per year. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/history.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/history.html
    - fermentation 3y ago
      You can order pizza and get a quote for a mortgage within emacs
      - 3y ago

aidog 3y ago

I love micro, I just wish it had a file selector like nerdtree and a shell.

mixmastamyk 3y ago
It has a command shell, Primary+E.

moffkalast 3y ago

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. 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.

quickthrower2 3y ago
https://itsthedatastupid.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/nomodes.jpg https://itsthedatastupid.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/nomodes...
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
I guess my main complaint about nano has always been that it seems more suited for document editing rather than code -- defaults to word-wrap on, doesn't really have syntax highlighting by default, not a lot of support for code-oriented workflow. Fine for writing up an email or commit message, I guess, but then I have to have another editor to write code in anyways? After 30 years of using emacs (well, these days a lot of CLion, too, let's call me a backsliding emacs user) I'm ready for an alternative. But nobody has come along with something that really fits the same swiss army knife niche.
- moffkalast 3y ago
  Well in my experience I very rarely if ever need to actually code in a terminal. Sftp or rsync are usually on hand so there's little reason to not just go for sublime or vscode if I need to make a substantial change. What nano comes in handy for is changing config files and adjusting system settings, when I'm jumping around and making very small edits.
  - linuxdude314 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

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berkeleynerd 3y ago

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.

notnmeyer 3y ago
i’ve been daily driving helix for 6 months or so. the fact that’s it’s batteries included is so nice. great editor.

m0rissette 3y ago

Vim is all you need.

deleted 3y ago
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Narushia 3y ago

Been using this for years, really great for making quick edits in the terminal. Mouse support and standard editing shortcuts as the default (unlike many other terminal text editors) are the best features in my opinion.

Geezus_42 3y ago
What standard?
- btbuildem 3y ago
  Guessing the mainstream ctrl-c/ctrl-v as opposed to "two quad key combos while squatting with one foot off the ground"
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- PhasmaFelis 3y ago
  I'm assuming they mean the standard shared by every GUI app in every OS for the last 25 years.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    About 40 really. Mac OS and IBM CUA… early to mid 80s. Motif, late 80s.
    - PhasmaFelis 3y ago
      True, it's older than that, but I didn't recall exactly when it became universal across all significant contemporary OSes. I don't know what Amiga Workbench used, for example. Figured Win95-era was a conservative guess.
      - mixmastamyk 3y ago

teddyh 3y ago

In those rare cases where Emacs is too large, I use Zile.

kasperset 3y ago

Reminds me of mg editor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mg_(text_editor) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mg_(text_editor) It is a very small subset of EMacs and barely any features compare to micro.

gabrielgio 3y ago

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? 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.

johnklos 3y ago
Hear, hear! It is completely irresponsible to encourage piping random Internet sources to sudo or to (ba)sh, and I'm quite tired of hearing the ridiculous justification that "everyone does it".
- jamespo 3y ago
  do you read the script sections of all the packages you install?
  - gabrielgio 3y ago
    No, it is unfeasible (at least for me) to validate every single package. So at some point I have to trust someone/ some party and I chose to trust more the maintainers of my distro than a person asking me to run sudo from curl.
    - Joker_vD 3y ago
      And some people trust the software authors more than some random repo maintainers who don't have enough time to even make sure the packages they update are actually still compatible with each other.
    - codedokode 3y ago
      You do not need to trust anyone if the program is run inside a sandbox. This sandbox is supported in hardware since 80386, but Linux doesn't make proper use of it.

delfinom 3y ago

So it reinvented vim/emacs and friends and called it an alternative to nano without understanding what nano is. 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.

NayamAmarshe 3y ago
Its main idea is the simplicity. It supports regular GUI editor like syntax and code highlighting. It's not like nano or vim or emacs. It's for people who prefer OOTB simplicity.

johnklos 3y ago

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. A good alternative should be usable in a decent number of places where the original is usable :P

malloc-0x90 3y ago
Tilde is faster for bigger files, and it runs and compile everywhere; TextAdept even has code folding. - https://github.com/gphalkes/tilde https://github.com/gphalkes/tilde - https://orbitalquark.github.io/textadept/ https://orbitalquark.github.io/textadept/

MantisShrimp90 3y ago

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.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago
What a strange comment, as if everyone wants or needs to use vi... Believe it or not, most people don't like or use modal editing and vi-style keybindings. Yes, Vim is extremely popular, but it's still a minority of people who are typing text into computers. The vast majority of people out there are working in editors with "traditional" direct, modeless, editing and some variation of "standard" (aka Windows/Mac) or Emacs-ish keybindings. (Hell, even bash/zsh/readline -- effectively a single line text editor -- ships with a sub-variation of emacs keybindings by default.) Personally, I use emacs -- when it's available. But something like this looks good for lower footprint systems. Anyways, what a strange comment. Nano/Pico, etc. have been around since the super early days, I remember using Pico on a 486 back in 1993. Used to be the default editor on most systems that had the 'pine' email client installed, too, which was very common all over the place.
- xp84 3y ago
  Seriously, the fetish people have for vim and for pushing a modal editor on people who didn’t learn on such programs is downright weird. Vim is definitely an insane default editor for anyone who’s not already a skilled fan of it. Micro even has mouse support, making the incredibly common task of “put something at a certain place in this config file” trivial, versus vim where you only need to memorize 12 random key bindings to become more efficient at keyboard cursor control than what a 7-year-old can do with a mouse. I classify vim usage more as a religion than anything else. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect how effective that 0.5% of developers can be with it, but nearly no one I’ve met is as efficient in it as they’d be in VSCode, and about 95% are so unskilled in Vim that they get tripped up by just the basic mode switch and remembering :wq. They should not even be bothering with it. But sadly it seems 80% of people think it’s mandatory to use it to edit random files on servers, and as the editor for things like git.

swozey 3y ago

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. 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.

dormento 3y ago
20MB is bigger than some whole GNU/Linux systems I installed in the past. Might explain why the greybeard council disapproves of it.
- swozey 3y ago
  You made me curious. I started w/ openBSD 1.2 in '95. I can't find it anywhere though to see what size it was.
  - rascul 3y ago
    There were some Linux distros in decades past designed to run off of a couple floppies. I struggle to recall any names at the moment.
    - cesarb 3y ago
      The classic one was "tomsrtbt" (http://www.toms.net/rb/ http://www.toms.net/rb/).
      - swozey 3y ago
        His homepage just brought me SO much nostalgia. Just needs spinning skulls and construction gifs. http://www.toms.net/ http://www.toms.net/ And dang he owns toms.net, nice. His resume on here hasn't been updated since 2002. Looks like he started his career in 1987. This is an interesting looking resume. Tons of skills at the top, goals, Other. I suppose it's cover-lettery. edit: Oh, nevermind, he has a career page updated in 2019 - http://www.toms.net/career/ http://www.toms.net/career/ - so I guess he's been with Fannie Mae from 2002 - now. Good, I was a bit worried he'd left us.

sramsay 3y ago

I suggest nano to my students in classes where everyone is a beginner and we're learning programming on the command line. 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.

vdfs 3y ago
by this trend, pico should show the whole man page in the bottom of the screen
rob74 3y ago
The difference between micro and nano is that nano's keyboard shortcuts are pretty opinionated, while micro's are the ones used by most (GUI) applications nowadays: Ctrl+S for saving, Ctrl+F for find, Ctrl+Z for undo, Ctrl+Q to exit etc. etc. There is also a helpful hint at the bottom of the screen that you can press Alt+G to see the shortcuts, or Ctrl+G for some help.
- mdaniel 3y ago
  > Ctrl-S for saving ... Ctrl+Q to exit Using a flow control sequences for editor commands; what can go wrong?
  - rollcat 3y ago
    It conveniently translates to "save and exit"! Hopefully a cautionary tale against careless in-band signalling.
  - mardifoufs 3y ago
    Wait I don't understand the issue. What are you referring to?
    - kip_ 3y ago
      Some of us graybeards use to use teletypes to talk to our computers. In one of the earlier races between differing I/O, the printer couldn't print as fast as the teletype was receiving data, so the teletype would send XOFF (Ctrl-S) to tell the remote end "Stop sending data and let me catch up" and would then send XON (Ctrl-Q) to say "I'm caught up, go back to sending data. Many of us carried that to our VT100 terminals and used it when lines of code or output would flood the screen faster than we could read. Eventually paginators like 'more' and 'less' were invented and flow control via the keyboard codes for XON/XOFF fell out of favor, but some of us have very strong muscle memory. :)

NayamAmarshe 3y ago

I love micro! Super simple to use and very intuitive.

Aloha 3y ago

While this is very nice, the lack of Control-A/Control-E support to jump around a line is annoying.

mypetocean 3y ago
On the other hand, Micro supports the Ctrl-based text nav/manip hotkeys (such as Ctrl-arrow, Ctrl-Backspace, CTRL-Home/End, also optionally combined with Shift for selection). More of a DOS-origin set of hotkeys than GNU. So more familiar to some and less familiar to others. It supports mouse interaction out-of-the-box, which is a big plus for some folks who haven't spent much time in keyboard navigation. The escape hatch is a nice option for some tasks, even for keyboard navigation pros.
neutrono 3y ago
One can always use Home and End in that case.
- Aloha 3y ago
  Only my Model M has a full keyboard

Roark66 3y ago

I'm not sure why do we need one. Nano works fine everywhere.

mixmastamyk 3y ago
It has unique keybindings. I used to change them, but don’t need to with micro.

kevinlinxc 3y ago

One nit: can't enlarge the carousel of images on mobile

mpsprd 3y ago

I wonder, who is this for? I feel this kind of editor is for the sophisticated minimalist, used alongside a 60% fancy keyboard with ceramic key caps. 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.

linuxdude314 3y ago
Nano is not a powerful text editor and is generally only used by non sophisticated users.
- neutrono 3y ago
  What is nano lacking in power?
  - gilcot 3y ago
    Last time I try it, I wasn't able to figure out an equivalence of « d)Gp »
    - tpoacher 3y ago
      Nano doesn't have a default keystroke for "match an end-of-sentence" character, though creating such a binding in .nanorc is trivial. However, since what this typically means in practice is you'd either cut until the next period, or until the end of the line, in the absence of an "end of sentence" keybinding, my approach to this would simply be to either cut until the next period, or until the end of the line as required, which I believe is a wholly reasonable alternative. The former would be: {mark} {search} . {enter} {cut} {endoffile} {paste} (7 keystrokes) The latter would be {cuttoend} {endoffile} {paste} (3 keystrokes) The 7 keystrokes become very vim-competitive when you realise that d)Gp actually fucks up in the typical scenario, since usually what you want is NOT to paste after the first character of the last line, but actually in a new line below the last one. Which means you don't actually just do `p`, but something like `o ESC p` instead.
3y ago

codedokode 3y ago

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.

dietr1ch 3y ago
Good luck using C-z for undoing
- codedokode 3y ago
  Why not? Those control combinations can be disabled if I remember correctly. Also, as they conflict with modern hotkeys, they should be changed everywhere.
  - just_mc 3y ago
    Micro supports both Ctrl-C for 'copy' and Ctrl-Z for 'undo'. For someone who started using computers in the mid/late nineties or later, it is super intuitive and I much prefer it over anything else.
TheHippo 3y ago
That is what makes micro so easy to use. It uses widespread hotkeys.
cryptecks 3y ago
You may be in luck, because the default keybinding for Save in micro is indeed Ctrl-S. I installed it and aliased it over Nano for a bit on one of the servers I SSH into constantly, just to test it out.

chromoblob 3y ago

> it's just a static binary with no dependencies Okay, how does it decide which color escape sequence to output? Does it have an inbuilt terminal database?

mixmastamyk 3y ago
Couldn’t it use the system one?

pie_flavor 3y ago

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.

hungryforcodes 3y ago

I understand there are alot of command line junkies here which might be against it -- but what's wrong with Tilde? (1) 1. https://github.com/gphalkes/tilde https://github.com/gphalkes/tilde

BitFlogger 3y ago
Looks like it doesn't support MacOSX...

stracer 3y ago

Longer name, harder to type, probably won't catch on.

seabrookmx 3y ago
echo 'alias m="micro"' >> ~/.bashrc
- effie 3y ago
  A person who knows and likes the program can do that, but the default name is a drawback for adoption. Nano is shorter name, using it is user-friendly and it already is on almost every modern Linux installation. So micro has a tough rival to beat, and it seems to be an "uphill battle".
mdwalters 3y ago
Longer name? micro is only five letters long, and nano is four. Yes, it's longer than nano, but it's only longer by one... Care to elaborate?

omgmajk 3y ago

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.

wener 3y ago

I add nano to every alpine base container, micro seems good, but apk add nano # Installed size 308 kB apk add micro # Installed size 12.17 MB

mdwalters 3y ago
nano is micro, compared to micro itself.

matteoraso 3y ago

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.

tpoacher 3y ago
hear hear

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

canvascritic 3y ago

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. Also lately I've been a bit spoiled by Visual Studio enterprise at work, thinking to buy a personal license 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. 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.

lproven 3y ago

Same as any other trendy editor, old or new: wake me up when it's CUA. 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.

eigenlicht 3y ago

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: https://github.com/craigbarnes/dte https://github.com/craigbarnes/dte

kgbcia 3y ago

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.

tpoacher 3y ago

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. 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. 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) 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. 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 two updates were gamechangers.