README

	nano - a GPLed, enhanced clone of the Pico text editor.
                                      
Overview

     The nano project was started because of a few "problems" with the
     wonderfully easy-to-use and friendly Pico text editor.

     First and foremost is its license: the Pine suite does not use the
     GPL or a GPL-friendly license, and has unclear restrictions on 
     redistribution.  Because of this, Pine and Pico are not included with
     many GNU/Linux distributions.  Also, other features (like goto line
     number or search and replace) were unavailable until recently or
     require a command-line flag.  Yuck.

     nano aims to solve these problems by emulating the functionality of
     Pico as closely as possible while adressing the problems above and
     perhaps providing other extra functionality.
     
How to compile and install nano

     Download the nano source code, then:
     tar zxvf nano-x.y.z.tar.gz
     cd nano-x.y.z
     ./configure
     make
     make install
     
     It's that simple. Use --prefix to override the default installation
     directory of /usr/local.
     
Web Page

	http://www.nano-editor.org
     
Mailing List and Bug Reports

	SourceForge hosts all the nano-related mailing-lists.
	+ nano-announce@lists.sourceforge.net is a very low traffic list
	  used to announce new Nano versions or other important information
	  about the project.
	+ nano-devel@lists.sourceforge.net is the list used by the people
	  that make Nano and a general development discussion list, with
	  moderate traffic.
	To subscribe, send email to nano-<name>-request@lists.sourceforge.net
	with a subject of "subscribe", where <name> is the list you want to
	subscribe to.
	For general bug reports, send a description of the problem to
	nano@nano-editor.org or directly to the development list.

Current Status

     nano is currently at version 0.9.x, and it will probably remain there
     for awhile. This reflects the adage that the last 10% of a project
     takes 90% of the time. Version 1.0 will be released when there are
     no unresolved bugs, and not before. I am also currently looking for
     patches for all things listed in the TODO file. If you have a
     comment or suggestion, please let me know, all help is appreciated.

     Warning:  This program can and possibly will corrupt your data in
     its current form!  It is beta software, so treat it as such!  
     Thank you.
     
     Note that the primary aim of nano is to emulate Pico while adding a
     few key "missing" features. I do NOT want just a GPL'ed Pico clone,
     nor do I want something that strays too far from the Pico design
     (simple and straightforward). If you don't like this, feel free to
     fork my code at any time, but please call your editor something
     else, believe it or not I struggled awhile before coming up with
     the name nano (and before that TIP), and it would be much easier for
     everyone if there weren't five versions of the same program. As you
     can guess, I'm not much of an emacs fan ;)
     
   Chris Allegretta (chrisa@asty.org)

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