The editor
e – simple like nano, and if vi is in your blood, press Esc. Instead of vi, vim, nano, ed and Notepad.
e notizen.txt edit (created on save if new)
e +120 main.c straight to line 120
e -m main.c start in vi mode (that's also how e starts as vi/vim)
Typing writes
No command mode at the start: you type, it's there. Everything else goes through Ctrl, the last line
shows the most important keys.
| ^S | save | ^Q | quit (twice: discard changes) |
| ^F | search (again: next) | ^G | go to line |
| ^Z / ^Y | undo / redo (unlimited) | ^K / ^U | cut / paste line |
| ^A / ^E | start / end of line | Esc | vi mode |
vi mode
h j k l (also 5j), w b 0 $, gg G, x dd dw yy p,
i a o back to writing, u, /text n N, :w :q :wq :q!, ZZ.
The Ctrl keys work here too. No ., no macros, no :s – sr can do replacing.
What it can do
- Colors for C, shell, Python and Markdown. Line numbers, status line with
* on changes.
- UTF-8 done right: umlauts, emoji and wide characters land in the right column.
- Huge files: The file is never loaded completely (piece table, 4 KB blocks). Measured: a 42 MB file
needs 1.7 MB of memory.
- Safe saving: first into
DATEI.e~, then rename – a crash while writing breaks nothing.
Symlinks and permissions stay.
- No backup files, no config file.
What's (still) missing
Marking/selection, search and replace, a second window. Backward search is slow in very large files.