Using a Text Editor

Motivation

In order to be able to do everything on the command line you also need to learn a text editor. Most programs have their configuration in text files and you need to learn to use a text editor. If you have not done so you should learn vi. vi (or the improved version: vim) is a good text editor that is installed per default on all unix systems. It is a bit more complicated then other editors because it has 3 modes of input.

Here is a list of text editors and their relative advantages and disadvantages

editor	advantages/disadvantages
vi or vim	available on every system, powerful but harder to learn
emacs	powerful but also complicated, same keyboard shortcuts as bash
joe	joes own edito - simple, syntax coloring, wordstar like keyboard shortcuts
pico, nano, jpico	extremely simple editors for casual editing
gedit	gnome text editor - disadvantage: only works in GUI

Quick intro to vim

When you start vim

$ vim testfile.txt

you can edit the testfile.txt vi has 3 modes:

1. moving cursor around. Type e.g. i for insert to go to editing mode. or type : to go to mode 3
2. editing. Type your text. Leave with ESC. This puts you back into mode 1.
3. entering commands. Type your commands and then press enter to go back to mode 1.

So in order to edit something:

• move with cursor key or press j,k,l,h instead to move to the place where you want to edit
• press i for insert and enter your text
• press ESC to go back to the initial mode.
• press :wq ENTER (which enters the commands write (save) and q (quit).
• in case you want to leave without saving: :q!

Here is a list of VI Cheat-Sheets:

• https://devhints.io/vim
• https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~15131/f17/topics/vim/vim-cheatsheet.pdf
• https://vimsheet.com/
• https://github.com/hackjutsu/vim-cheatsheet

A nice interactive online tutorial: https://www.openvim.com/

Exercises

• Try to make a simple edit using vi or vim.
• Pick an editor of choice and try to learn it so that you feel comfortable using it.