Re: OT: mutt/nano spell checking
On Tue, Oct 06, 2009 at 04:27:56PM -0400, Chris Jones wrote: 'p' for 'paste' does strike me as rather more intuitive than Ctrl-V. That all depends on your background. I use vi every day (I am a UNIX systems administrator); most of the time my vi is actually vim; but I wouldn't for a second recommend it to anyone who was not already familiar with the original vi (or any other modal editor: I can't name any others). Just about anyone who isn't an old-hand UNIX user will have some familiarity with a modeless editor and will have used an environment where CTRL+V is the key binding for 'paste', as it's been the default for over 10 years in GNOME, KDE, Mac OS, and Windows, to name but four. Nano is a perfectly fine, minimal-featured modeless editor. It was written as a F/OSS clone of 'pico', which is not DFSG free. It is considerably more intuitive and user friendly to the vast majority of people who are new to Debian or Linux (and thus are not already affiliated with any particular church or cult of $EDITOR). See http://www.nano-editor.org/dist/v2.1/faq.html#1.4 for more information. -- Jon Dowland signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: OT: mutt/nano spell checking
Original Message From: jon+debian-u...@alcopop.org To: debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: OT: mutt/nano spell checking Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2009 15:44:56 +0100 On Tue, Oct 06, 2009 at 04:27:56PM -0400, Chris Jones wrote: 'p' for 'paste' does strike me as rather more intuitive than Ctrl-V. That all depends on your background. I use vi every day (I am a UNIX systems administrator); most of the time my vi is actually vim; but I wouldn't for a second recommend it to anyone who was not already familiar with the original vi (or any other modal editor: I can't name any others). Just about anyone who isn't an old-hand UNIX user will have some familiarity with a modeless editor and will have used an environment where CTRL+V is the key binding for 'paste', as it's been the default for over 10 years in GNOME, KDE, Mac OS, and Windows, to name but four. Nano is a perfectly fine, minimal-featured modeless editor. It was written as a F/OSS clone of 'pico', which is not DFSG free. It is considerably more intuitive and user friendly to the vast majority of people who are new to Debian or Linux (and thus are not already affiliated with any particular church or cult of $EDITOR). See http://www.nano-editor.org/dist/v2.1/faq.html#1.4 for more information. -- Jon Dowland +1. I teach C in a Debian environment and my students (most of whom have never used *nix) use nano. Larry -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: OT: mutt/nano spell checking
On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 10:44 AM, Jon Dowland jon+debian-u...@alcopop.org wrote: On Tue, Oct 06, 2009 at 04:27:56PM -0400, Chris Jones wrote: 'p' for 'paste' does strike me as rather more intuitive than Ctrl-V. That all depends on your background. I use vi every day (I am a UNIX systems administrator); most of the time my vi is actually vim; but I wouldn't for a second recommend it to anyone who was not already familiar with the original vi (or any other modal editor: I can't name any others). Just about anyone who isn't an old-hand UNIX user will have some familiarity with a modeless editor and will have used an environment where CTRL+V is the key binding for 'paste', as it's been the default for over 10 years in GNOME, KDE, Mac OS, and Windows, to name but four. Nano is a perfectly fine, minimal-featured modeless editor. It was written as a F/OSS clone of 'pico', which is not DFSG free. It is considerably more intuitive and user friendly to the vast majority of people who are new to Debian or Linux (and thus are not already affiliated with any particular church or cult of $EDITOR). See http://www.nano-editor.org/dist/v2.1/faq.html#1.4 for more information. ^Z, ^X, ^C, and ^V were not chose for mnemonic value. They were chosen for user convenience due to their physical placement on early keyboards with only one crtl key. The idea was to make high-frequency actions like undo, cut, copy, and paste very easy to type. That mapping pre-dates the Macintosh. I think it came from Xerox PARC where WIMP user interfaces were fist invented and implemented. -- Lee -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: OT: mutt/nano spell checking
Jon Dowland wrote: On Tue, Oct 06, 2009 at 04:27:56PM -0400, Chris Jones wrote: 'p' for 'paste' does strike me as rather more intuitive than Ctrl-V. That all depends on your background. I use vi every day (I am a UNIX systems administrator); most of the time my vi is actually vim; but I wouldn't for a second recommend it to anyone who was not already familiar with the original vi (or any other modal editor: I can't name any others). Just about anyone who isn't an old-hand UNIX user will have some familiarity with a modeless editor and will have used an environment where CTRL+V is the key binding for 'paste', as it's been the default for over 10 years in GNOME, KDE, Mac OS, and Windows, to name but four. Nano is a perfectly fine, minimal-featured modeless editor. It was written as a F/OSS clone of 'pico', which is not DFSG free. It is considerably more intuitive and user friendly to the vast majority of people who are new to Debian or Linux (and thus are not already affiliated with any particular church or cult of $EDITOR). See http://www.nano-editor.org/dist/v2.1/faq.html#1.4 for more information. I've been using gnu/linux only for 10 years in my office and home, and have been using nano for a few years for a variety of tasks, mostly quick-n-dirty config edits, quick scripts, etc. But, I confess, I use gui editors for most coding, etc., but, then, I wrote my own editor (http://freshmeat.net/projects/tickletext/). if it's any consolation to the Vi(m) guys, while that Psych/Therapist in Emacs is kind of amusing, I think emacs is a bloated mess, and that its keybindings are equally as confusing, if not more so...besides, emacs isn't an editor, it's an entire desktop gui...if it had its own kernel, it would be a whole OS. /tony -- http://www.baldwinlinguas.com Translation Interpreting Así también, la lengua es un miembro pequeño, y se gloría de grandes cosas. He aquí, un pequeño fuego ¡Cuán grande bosque enciende! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: OT: mutt/nano spell checking
On Wed, Oct 07, 2009 at 10:44:56AM EDT, Jon Dowland wrote: On Tue, Oct 06, 2009 at 04:27:56PM -0400, Chris Jones wrote: 'p' for 'paste' does strike me as rather more intuitive than Ctrl-V. That all depends on your background. Well, then that's no longer intuition. It's knowledge. I use vi every day (I am a UNIX systems administrator); most of the time my vi is actually vim; but I wouldn't for a second recommend it to anyone who was not already familiar with the original vi (or any other modal editor: I can't name any others). Why would you recommend it to anyone who is already familiar with it at least in its original version? And who would you recommend it to? Who's the rare animal who has never heard of Vim and would be familiar with the original vi. Just about anyone who isn't an old-hand UNIX user I certainly am not - just a computer hobbyist who developed an allergy to something that came with the laptop I bought, something called Windows '98 and likewise its OSS clones. will have some familiarity with a modeless editor and will have used an environment where CTRL+V is the key binding for 'paste', as it's been the default for over 10 years in GNOME, KDE, Mac OS, and Windows, to name but four. Give or take a few smidgens I'd say about 99% of the users of the above environments just take their hands off the keyboard, reach for their mouse, right-click, and select paste on the pop-up menu. I suggest you take a stroll out of your UNIX systems administrator's ivory tower once in a while and meet the real world. Nano is a perfectly fine, minimal-featured modeless editor. If you say so.. may I remind you the subject of this thread: the OP needs a feature that his 'perfectly fine' editor does not provide. Or, are you advocating strict adherence to the UNIX philosophy where the use of different tools - and therefore different $EDITOR's - is recommended depending on what you plan on doing? After all, that would only be taking editor modality to the limit. :-) It was written as a F/OSS clone of 'pico', which is not DFSG free. That is beside the point and in any case, common knowledge. It is considerably more intuitive and user friendly Let's see... ^G Get Help ^Y Previous Page ^V Next Page ^T To Spell Damned intuitive..! Mnemonic to boot. Now tell me something, since you believe in adopting the (M$) market standards, why does Ctrl-V (assuming that's what the intuitive ^V stands for) page down rather than paste? And why doesn't the rather invasive thingy at the bottom of the screen mention anything that says paste. Being the absolute Joe User coming to grips with this nano.. I'm a bit frustrated that the online idiot sheet does not even tell me the key that pastes. Wouldn't that be helpful for the 'GNOME, KDE, Mac OS, and Windows, to name but a few' users taking a walk on the wild terminal side...??? True, the nano on-screen help also has ^U UnCut Text Nothing in my 'background' remotely suggests what UnCutting might be. My feeling about nano is that if it is considerably easier to master than Vim, it's not because its interface is designed in a way that's more 'intuitive' or 'user friendly' but rather because it is so limited that anyone can memorize its peculiar quirks in about five minutes and muscle-memorize them in less than a week. May be well-suited to help-desk activity where editing generally boils down to changing a couple of IP addresses in a few configuration files, but it definitely does no provide the more advanced features of a real editor, as demonstrated by the OP's request for assistance. So, please don't spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Considerable talent, intelligence, and vast amounts of work are what make quality editors such as Vim play in a different league as compared with two week ends hacks like nano. to the vast majority of people who are new to debian or Linux Like the OP said, and I quote: Vim's key bindings are completely insane and non-intuitive. I've never once made sense of how to use the darned thing in a _decade_ of using GNU/Linux. The OP is _not_ new to Linux (or debian, I assume, though I don't know what debian's got to do with it) Please take note of (editor's highlighting) the word _decade_ .. (and thus are not already affiliated with any particular church or cult of $EDITOR). I am not a Vim advocate, just an intermediate user who's more and more thankful to Bram Moolenaar and countless contributors for having come up with one of the finest pieces of OSS available, one that literally grows on you when you can spare the time to explore its possibilities. Since the OP came up with a grievance that boils down to nano's missing out on one particular feature, I suggested among other options that he might want to take a look at Vim. In the 4-5 years I have used Vim, I have never run into circumstances where I was stuck (and frustrated) with my editor of choice not being able to do what I needed. Not
Re: OT: mutt/nano spell checking
On Wed, Oct 07, 2009 at 10:47:51AM EDT, ow...@netptc.net wrote: [..] +1. I teach C in a Debian environment and my students (most of whom have never used *nix) use nano. Probably a good choice, since you teach C, not editing. By the time you'd finished teaching them Vim, there would be not time left for anything else. :-) But even if you teach C for a living and are on a tight schedule, I hope you find the time to mention that once they finish the class there are other options. Even if once your own, we know that more often than not, a programmer's job means diving into vast amounts of pre-existing code, and that's where a capable editor that seamlessly supports tags, cscope, windowing a directory explorer, tabs, an integrated compile cycle, and navigating efficiently through tens of thousands of lines of code eventually means more to their lifetsyle than mastering the intricacies of sprintf(char *str, size_t size..) Not sure about the dividends that nano will pay in this respect. Yeah, I know, in the real world, your former students will have little choice but use the IDE that their boss's boss's boss happens to favor. And since she's not likely Bram's or RMS's girlfriend, I guess it doesn't really matter. -1 CJ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: OT: mutt/nano spell checking
Chris Jones wrote: Being the absolute Joe User CJ [apologies for the unethical massive snip, just couldn't resist bouncing on the Joe User ;-) ] For those who actually are Joe users : in joe (aptitude install joe) do ^T (calling options) V (Language) Set language and spell check whatever you want to with esc N (one word) or esc L (whole text), esc is a shortcut for ^[. And you get nano user friendly on-screen help (with ^K H) if you need, emulate pico behavior using jpico to launch joe, but you can get emacs-like behavior if you want too (jmacs). You can mess it all to make your own joe, look into /etc/joe/joerc (with comments) to insert macros, create shortcuts and such (or create a per-user file ~/.joerc). man joe Tom -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: OT: mutt/nano spell checking
On Wed, Oct 07, 2009 at 06:29:02PM EDT, thveillon.debian wrote: Chris Jones wrote: Being the absolute Joe User CJ [apologies for the unethical massive snip, just couldn't resist bouncing on the Joe User ;-) ] Yeah.. maybe I should pursue this on the OT list.. :-) For those who actually are Joe users : What do you mean.. Are you doubting my Joe User status? Swear that I am.. certainly where editors are concerned and I do not grant anyone permission to deride the Joe User work group. :-) in Joe (aptitude install joe) do ^T (calling options) V (Language) Set language and spell check whatever you want to with esc N (one word) or esc L (whole text), esc is a shortcut for ^[. And you get nano user friendly on-screen help (with ^K H) if you need, emulate pico behavior using jpico to launch joe, but you can get emacs-like behavior if you want too (jmacs). You can mess it all to make your own joe, look into /etc/joe/joerc (with comments) to insert macros, create shortcuts and such (or create a per-user file ~/.joerc). man joe Tom Quite convincing. Maybe I should learn Joe.. but my point was that with quality editors, you are never stuck, ever. Whatever functionality you dream of, someone a bit like you has already dreamt of it, and not only has it been implemented, it has also been documented. If all else fails, a knowledgeable user community will be happy to provide assistance. Little chance that the main developer will go AWOL and leave you with the perspective of having to take over the code or switch. But evenif that happened, someone or other would be bound to take over real quick. Naturally, unless they are not available due to the circumstances, you can even use those same editors for quick'n'dirty tasks and they will serve you just as well, if not better. From what I have seen, nano seems to have less capabilities than vim's command line editing mode, and less sophisticated ergonomics. ;-) Of course, life is short, and the wisdom of dedicating long hours to the acquisition of editing skills is debatable. So far, I can't complain.. Vim has paid me back in kind. CJ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: OT: mutt/nano spell checking
Chris Jones wrote: So far, I can't complain.. Vim has paid me back in kind. CJ +1 'vimtutor' can have most up and running proficiently in 30 minutes. Time well spent IMO. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: OT: mutt/nano spell checking
Original Message From: cjns1...@gmail.com To: debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: OT: mutt/nano spell checking Date: Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:26:22 -0400 On Wed, Oct 07, 2009 at 10:47:51AM EDT, ow...@netptc.net wrote: [..] +1. I teach C in a Debian environment and my students (most of whom have never used *nix) use nano. Probably a good choice, since you teach C, not editing. By the time you'd finished teaching them Vim, there would be not time left for anything else. :-) But even if you teach C for a living and are on a tight schedule, I hope you find the time to mention that once they finish the class there are other options. Even if once your own, we know that more often than not, a programmer's job means diving into vast amounts of pre-existing code, and that's where a capable editor that seamlessly supports tags, cscope, windowing a directory explorer, tabs, an integrated compile cycle, and navigating efficiently through tens of thousands of lines of code eventually means more to their lifetsyle than mastering the intricacies of sprintf(char *str, size_t size..) Not sure about the dividends that nano will pay in this respect. Yeah, I know, in the real world, your former students will have little choice but use the IDE that their boss's boss's boss happens to favor. And since she's not likely Bram's or RMS's girlfriend, I guess it doesn't really matter. -1 CJ Thanks for the observations Chris. You have correctly surmised that I don't have time to teach Linux, C AND a complex editor. I decided that the first two were the most important. I do mention the other editors and the fact that vi is probably the most universal editor, but they stick to something simple during the course. Larry -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.d ebian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: OT: mutt/nano spell checking
On Mon, Oct 05, 2009 at 06:19:46AM EDT, Tony Baldwin wrote: Vim's keybindings are completely insane and non-intuitive. I've never once made sense of how to use the darned thing in a decade of using gnu/linux. 'p' for 'paste' does strike me as rather more intuitive than Ctrl-V. But nothing stops you from remapping Vim's key bindings to suit your requirements - or to save yourself a giant headache, install something like this: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=300 Naturally, you could also consider giving true Vim a second chance. Never mind switching languages on the fly, the 2.0 version of nano that ships with debian lenny does not even let you change the default key bindings. ;-) To whet your appetite: http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/spell.html [..] I just want to be able to change languages on-the-fly, so to speak, when using nano to write mails. (icedove, for instance, allows altering the language with a click on a drop-down menu, and gmail's online interface does the same). I have it working with aspell in the default English. That was cake. My bad.. Actually, mutt _does_ let you invoke an external spell checker but only when you're about to send your message. So you could try adding something like this to your .muttrc: #--- set my_br='aspell -c -l pt-br' set my_de='aspell -c -l de' set my_en='aspell -c -l en' set my_es='aspell -c -l es' set my_fr='aspell -c -l fr' set my_it='aspell -c -l it' set my_pt='aspell -c -l pt-pt' macro generic f3 enter-commandset ispell='$my_br'enterispell macro generic f4 enter-commandset ispell='$my_de'enterispell macro generic f5 enter-commandset ispell='$my_en'enterispell macro generic f6 enter-commandset ispell='$my_es'enterispell macro generic f7 enter-commandset ispell='$my_fr'enterispell macro generic f8 enter-commandset ispell='$my_it'enterispell macro generic f9 enter-commandset ispell='$my_pt'enterispell #--- Not thoroughly tested, but appears to work on my system mutt version. Compose and save, and prior to hitting 'y' to send your message, hit one of the F3-F9 function keys to launch aspell with the language set to one of the above. Maybe you could come up with a macro that binds a single key to all the defined languages and lets you cycle through them, while displaying the current selection, but I'd rather leave it at that for now. ;-) A different approach would be to write macros that set the value of the mutt $editor variable like so: set my_br='SPELL=aspell -l pt-br -c nano' # Português (br) set my_fr='SPELL=aspell -l fr-c nano' # Français macro generic f3 enter-commandset editor='$my_br'enter macro generic f4 enter-commandset editor='$my_fr'enter .. This would cause nano to be launched with the language set to Brazilian Portuguese (F3) or French (F4).. for all ensuing message composition, letting you access all features of the spell checker _while_ composing your message. HTH CJ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
