<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Mozilla/4.73 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.16 i586) [Netscape]"> </head> <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" link="#0000EF" vlink="#51188E" alink="#FF0000"> <h1> <font color="#CC0000">The nano FAQ</font></h1> <h2> <font color="#330000">Table of Contents</font></h2> <h2> <font color="#330000"><a href="#1">1. General</a></font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000"><a href="#1.1">1.1 About this FAQ.</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#1.2">1.2. How do I contribute to it?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#1.3">1.3. What is nano?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#1.4">1.4. What is the history behind nano?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#1.5">1.5. Why the name change from TIP?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#1.6">1.6 What is the current version of nano?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#1.7">1.7. I want to read the man page without having to download the program!</a></font></blockquote> <h2> <font color="#330000"><a href="#2">2. Where to get nano</a></font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000"><a href="#2.1">2.1. FTP and WWW sites that carry nano.</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#2.2">2.2. Redhat and derivatives (.rpm) packages.</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#2.3">2.3. Debian (.deb) packages.</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#2.4">2.4. By CVS (for the brave).</a></font></blockquote> <h2> <font color="#330000"><a href="#3">3. Installation and Configuration</a></font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000"><a href="#3.1">3.1. How do install the RPM or DEB package?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#3.2">3.2. Compiling from source: WHAT THE HECK DO I DO NOW?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#3.2">3.3. Why does everything go into /usr/local?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#3.4">3.4. I get errors about 'bindtextdomain', 'gettext' and/or 'gettextdomain'. What can I do about it?</a></font></blockquote> <h2> <font color="#330000"><a href="#4">4. Running</a></font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000"><a href="#4.1">4.1. Ack! My backspace/delete/enter/double bucky/meta key doesn't seem to work! What can I do?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#4.2">4.2. Nano crashes when I type <insert keystroke here>!</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#4.3">4.3. Nano crashes when I resize my window. How can I fix that?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#4.4">4.4. Why does nano show ^\ and ^_ in the shortcut list instead of ^G and ^J?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#4.5">4.5. When I type in a search string, the string I last searched for is already in front of my cursor! !What happened?!</a></font> <br><a href="#4.6">4.6 How do I make nano my default editor (in Pine, mutt, etc.)?</a></blockquote> <h2> <font color="#330000"><a href="#5">5. Internationalization</a></font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000"><a href="#5.1">5.1. There's no translation for my language!</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#5.2">5.2. I don't like the translation for <x> in my language. How can I fix it?</a></font></blockquote> <h2> <font color="#330000"><a href="#6">6. Advocacy and Licensing</a></font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000"><a href="#6.1">6.1. Why should I use nano instead of Pico?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#6.2">6.2. Why should I use Pico instead of nano?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#6.3">6.3. What is so bad about the PINE license?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#6.4">6.4. Okay, well what mail program should I use then?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#6.5">6.5. Why doesn't UW simply change their license?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#6.6">6.6. What if tomorrow UW changes the license to be truly Free Software?</a></font></blockquote> <h2> <font color="#330000"><a href="#7">7. Miscellaneous</a></font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000"><a href="#7.1">7.1. Nano related mailing lists.</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#7.2">7.2. I want to send the development team a big load of cash (or just a thank you).</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#7.3">7.3. How do I submit a patch?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#7.4">7.4. How do I join the development team?</a></font> <br><font color="#330000"><a href="#7.5">7.5. Can I have CVS write access?</a></font></blockquote> <h2> <a href="#8">8. ChangeLog</a></h2> <hr WIDTH="100%"> <br> <h1> <a NAME="1"></a><font color="#330000">1. General</font></h1> <h2> <a NAME="1.1"></a><font color="#330000">1.1 About this FAQ.</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">This FAQ was written and is maintained by Chris Allegretta <<a href="mailto:chrisa@asty.org">chrisa@asty.org</a>>, who also happens to be the creator of nano. Maybe someone else will volunteer to maintain this FAQ someday, who knows...</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="1.2"></a><font color="#330000">1.2. How do I contribute to it?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">Your best bet is to send it to the nano email address, <a href="mailto:nano@nano-editor.org">nano@nano-editor.org</a> and if it is useful enough it will be included in future versions.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="1.3"></a><font color="#330000">1.3. What is nano?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">Nano is designed to be a free replacement for the Pico text editor, part of the PINE email suite from <a href="http://www.washington.edu/pine">The University of Washington</a>. It aims to "emulate Pico as closely as possible and perhaps include extra functionality WITHOUT breaking compatibility with Pico.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="1.4"></a><font color="#330000">1.4. What is the history behind nano?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">Funny you should ask!</font> <p><b><font color="#330000">In the beginning...</font></b> <p><font color="#330000">For years Pine was THE program used to read email on a Unix system. The Pico text editor is the portion of the program one would use to compose his or her mail messages. Many beginners to Unix flocked to Pico and Pine because of their well organized, easy to use interfaces. With the proliferation of Linux in the mid to late 90's, many University students became intimately familiar with the strengths (and weaknesses) of Pine and Pico.</font> <p><b><font color="#330000">Then came debian...</font></b> <p><font color="#330000">The <a href="http://www.debian.org">debian GNU/Linux</a> distribution, known for its strict standards in distributing truly "free" software (i.e. had no restrictions on redistribution), would not include a binary package for Pine or Pico. Many people had a serious dilemma: they loved these programs, but they were not truly free software in the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">GNU</a> sense of the word.</font> <p><b><font color="#330000">The event...</font></b> <p><font color="#330000">It was in late 1999 when Chris Allegretta (our hero) was yet again complaining to himself about the less-than-perfect license Pico was distributed under, the 10000 makefiles that came with it and how just a few small improvements could make it the Best Editor in the World (TM). Having been a convert from Slackware to debian, he missed having a simple binary package that included Pine and Pico, and had grown tired of downloading them himself.</font> <p><font color="#330000">Finally something snapped inside and Chris coded and hacked like a madman for many hours straight one weekend to make a (barely usable) Pico clone, at the time called TIP (Tip Isn't Pico). The program could not be invoked without a filename, could not save files, had no help menu, spell checker, and so forth. But over time it improved, and with the help of a few great coders it matured to the almost stable state it is today.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="1.5"></a><font color="#330000">1.5. Why the name change from TIP?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">On January 10, 2000, TIP was officially renamed to nano because of a namespace conflict with another program called 'tip'. The original 'tip' program "establishes a full duplex terminal connection to a remote host", and was included with many older Unix systems (and newer ones like Solaris). The conflict was not noticed at first because there is no 'tip' utility included with most Linux distributions (where nano was developed).</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="1.6"></a><font color="#330000">1.6 What is the current version of nano?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">The current version of nano *should* be 0.9.21. Of course you should always check the nano hompage to see what the latest and greatest version is.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="1.7"></a><font color="#330000">1.7. I want to read the man page without having to download the program!</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">Jeez, demanding, aren't we? Okay, look <a href="http://www.nano-editor.org/dist/nano.1.html">here</a>.</font></blockquote> <hr WIDTH="100%"> <h1> <a NAME="2"></a><font color="#330000">2. Where to get nano</font></h1> <h2> <a NAME="2.1"></a><font color="#330000">2.1. FTP and WWW sites that carry nano.</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">The nano distribution can be downloaded at the following fine web and ftp sites:</font> <ul> <li> <font color="#330000"><a href="http://www.nano-editor.org/dist">http://www.nano-editor.org/dist</a></font></li> <li> <font color="#330000"><a href="http://www.ewtoo.org/~astyanax/nano/dist">http://www.ewtoo.org/~astyanax/nano/dist</a></font></li> <li> <font color="#330000"><a href="ftp://ftp.nano-editor.org/pub/nano">ftp://ftp.nano-editor.org/pub/nano</a></font></li> <li> <font color="#330000"><a href="ftp://nano.sourceforge.net/pub/nano/">ftp://nano.sourceforge.net/pub/nano</a></font></li> </ul> </blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="2.2"></a><font color="#330000">2.2. Redhat and derivatives (.rpm) packages.</font></h2> <blockquote> <ul> <li> <font color="#330000"><a href="http://www.nano-editor.org/dist/RPMS">http://www.nano-editor.org/dist/RPMS</a></font></li> <li> <font color="#330000"><a href="http://www.ewtoo.org/~astyanax/nano/dist/RPMS">http://www.ewtoo.org/~astyanax/nano/dist/RPMS</a></font></li> <li> <font color="#330000"><a href="ftp://ftp.nano-editor.org/pub/nano/RPMS">ftp://ftp.nano-editor.org/pub/nano/RPMS</a></font></li> <li> <font color="#330000"><a href="ftp://nano.sourceforge.net/pub/nano/RPMS">ftp://nano.sourceforge.net/pub/nano/RPMS</a></font></li> </ul> <font color="#330000">Additionally, check out the Redhat contribs section at:</font> <ul> <li> <font color="#330000"><a href="http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/redhat/contrib/libc6/i386">http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/redhat/contrib/libc6/i386</a></font></li> <li> <font color="#330000"><a href="ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/redhat/contrib/libc6/i386">ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/redhat/contrib/libc6/i386</a></font></li> </ul> </blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="2.3"></a><font color="#330000">2.3. Debian (.deb) packages.</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">For debian users, you can check out the current nano packages for:</font> <ul> <li> <font color="#330000"><a href="http://www.debian.org/Packages/stable/editors/nano.html">stable</a></font></li> <li> <font color="#330000"><a href="http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/editors/nano.html">unstable</a></font></li> </ul> <font color="#330000">Note that versions < 0.9.10 are probably not for those wanting to get serious work done, so until the stable distribution has an updated version of nano, you are best off using the one in unstable for now.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="2.4"></a><font color="#330000">2.4. By CVS (for the brave).</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">For the 'bleeding edge' current version of nano, you can use CVS to download the current source code. <b>Note:</b> believe it or not, by downloading code that has not yet stabilized into an official release, there could quite possibly be bugs, in fact the code may not even compile! Anyway, see <a href="https://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=1304">the nano CVS page</a> for info on anonymous CVS access to the nano source.</font></blockquote> <hr WIDTH="100%"> <h1> <a NAME="3"></a><font color="#330000">3. Installation and Configuration</font></h1> <h2> <a NAME="3.1"></a><font color="#330000">3.1. How do install the RPM or DEB package?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">It's simple really! As root, type <b>rpm -Uvh nano-x.y.z-1.i386.rpm</b> if you have a Redhat-ish system or <b>dpkg -i nano_x.y.z-1.deb</b> if you have a Debian-ish system, where <b>x.y.z</b> is the release of nano. There are other programs to install programs, and if you wish to use those, knock yourself out.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="3.2"></a><font color="#330000">3.2. Compiling from source: WHAT THE HECK DO I DO NOW?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">Okay, take a deep breath, this really isn't hard. Unpack the nano source with a command like:</font> <p><b><font color="#330000">tar -zxvf nano-x.y.z.tar.gz</font></b> <p><font color="#330000">If you get error messages about the -z option, try this:</font> <p><b><font color="#330000">gzip -dc nano-x.y.z.tar.gz | tar xvf -</font></b> <p><font color="#330000">(again, where x.y.z is the version number in question). Then you need to run configure with any options you might want (if any).</font> <p><font color="#330000">The average case is this:</font> <p><b><font color="#330000">./configure</font></b> <br><b><font color="#330000">make</font></b> <br><font color="#330000"><b>make install </b>(as root, of course)</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="3.3"></a><font color="#330000">3.3. Why does everything go into /usr/local?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">Well, that's what the <b>configure</b> script defaults to. If you wish to change this, simply do this:</font> <p><b><font color="#330000">./configure --prefix=/usr</font></b> <p><font color="#330000">to put nano into /usr/bin when you run <b>make install</b>.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="3.4"></a><font color="#330000">3.4. I get errors about 'bindtextdomain', 'gettext' and/or 'gettextdomain'. What can I do about it?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">Try doing a <b>./configure --with-included-gettext</b> and see if that solves your problem. You make need to do a <b>make clean ; make</b> to get it to work fully.</font></blockquote> <hr WIDTH="100%"> <h1> <a NAME="4"></a><font color="#330000">4. Running</font></h1> <h2> <a NAME="4.1"></a><font color="#330000">4.1. Ack! My backspace/delete/enter/double bucky/meta key doesn't seem to work! What can I do?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">Try setting your $TERM variable to 'vt100'. Nano doesn't yet support every term entry under the sun.</font> <p><font color="#330000">Bourne shell users (like bash): <b>export TERM=vt100</b></font> <br><font color="#330000">C Shell users (tcsh and csh): <b>setenv TERM vt100</b></font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="4.2"></a><font color="#330000">4.2. Nano crashes when I type <insert keystroke here>!</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">If you aren't trying some bizarre keystroke combination with some bizarre $TERM entry, chances are you have found a bug. You are welcome to submit it to the nano-devel list or to <a href="mailto:nano@nano-editor.org">nano@nano-editor.org</a>.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="4.3"></a><font color="#330000">4.3. Nano crashes when I resize my window. How can I fix that?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">Older versions of nano had this problem, please upgrade to a newer version (at least 0.9.9 would be great, 0.9. 12 is recommended).</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="4.4"></a><font color="#330000">4.4. Why does nano show ^\ and ^_ in the shortcut list instead of ^G and ^J?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">The help (^G) and justify (^J) functions were among the last to be written. To show the improvements that nano had over Pico (goto line # and replace), ^_ and ^\ were put on the shortcut list. If you use the <b>-p</b> option to nano you will get the same shortcuts at the bottom as Pico.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a name="4.5"><font color="#330000">4.5. When I type in a search string, the string I last searched for is already in front of my cursor! !What happened?!</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">In nano version 0.9.21, the default is to have a completely consistent user interface across all user input functions. This means that regardless of whether you're being asked for a filename to insert or write, or a string to search for, the previous value is already inserted before the cursor. If you prefer the old behavior, use the pico emulation mode (-p or --pico) or just hit Meta-P while in nano (see the ^G help text for more details).</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="4.6"></a>4.6. How do I make nano my default editor (in Pine, mutt, etc)?</h2> <blockquote>You need to make nano your $EDITOR. If you want this to be saved, you should put a line like this in your <b>.bashrc</b> if you use bash: <p><b>export EDITOR=/usr/local/bin/nano</b> <p>or if you use tcsh put this in your <b>.cshrc</b> file: <p><b>setenv EDITOR /usr/local/bin/nano</b> <p>Change /usr/local/bin/nano to wherever nano is installed in your system. Type which nano to find out. This will not take effect until the next time you login. So log out and back in again. <p>Then on top that if you use Pine you must go into setup (type <b>S</b> at the main menu), then configure (type <b>C</b>). Hit enter on the lines that say: <p><b>[ ] enable-alternate-editor-cmd</b> <br><b>[ ] enable-alternate-editor-implicitly</b> <p>Then exit (<b>E</b>) and select Yes (<b>Y</b>). <p>Mutt users should see an effect immediately the next time you log in, no further configuration is needed. However, if you want to let people know you use nano to compose your email messages, you can put a line like this in your <b>.muttrc</b>: <p><b>my_hdr X-Composer: nano x.y.z</b> <p>Again, replace x.y.z with the version of nano you use. <br> </blockquote> <hr WIDTH="100%"> <h1> <a NAME="5"></a><font color="#330000">5. Internationalization</font></h1> <h2> <a NAME="5.1"></a><font color="#330000">5.1. There's no translation for my language!</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">So, uh, get someone who speaks your native language to write one =-). Just grab the <b>nano.pot</b> file from the latest and greatest nano distribution (it's in the <b>po/</b> directory) and translate each line into your native language on the <b>msgstr</b> line. Then send it to the nano devel list or <a href="mailto:nano@nano-editor.org">nano@nano-editor.org</a>.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="5.2"></a><font color="#330000">5.2. I don't like the translation for <x> in my language. How can I fix it?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">The best way would probably be to e-mail the person listed in the <b><your_language>.po</b> file with your suggested corrections and they can in turn forward it to the nano email address, or the devel list.</font></blockquote> <hr WIDTH="100%"> <h1> <a NAME="6"></a><font color="#330000">6. Advocacy and Licensing</font></h1> <h2> <a NAME="6.1"></a><font color="#330000">6.1. Why should I use nano instead of Pico?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">There are many reasons to use nano instead of Pico, a more complete list can be found at the <a href="http://www.nano-edior.org">nano homepage</a>.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="6.2"></a><font color="#330000">6.2. Why should I use Pico instead of nano?</font></h2> <blockquote>Again, check out the <a href="http://www.nano-editor.org">nano homepage</a> for a good summary of reasons. It really is a matter of personal preference as to which editor you should use. If you're the type of person who likes using the original version of a program, then Pico is the editor for you. If you're looking for a few more features and a 'better' license as far as adding your own changes (sacrificing mailer integration and a little stability), nano is the way to go.</blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="6.3"></a><font color="#330000">6.3. What is so bad about the PINE license?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">Technically there is nothing "wrong" with the U of W license for Pine and Pico. However, it is not considered truly "free" according to the <a href="http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines">Debian Free Software Guidelines</a>. The only real problem as far as I'm aware as that there are limitations on the redistribution of programs based on the Pine and Pico source. So at a real nitty gritty level, these programs are not considered Free Software. This is why Pico isn't distributed in binary form in debian, and hence one of the main reasons nano was started.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="6.4"></a><font color="#330000">6.4. Okay, well what mail program should I use then?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">Well, there is nothing stopping you from using Pine with nano (or Pine with Pico for that matter). But if you want to use programs that are considered Free Software, you may want to look into <a href="http://www.mutt.org">mutt</a>. It is a full-screen, console based mail program that actually has a lot more flexibility than Pine, but has a keymap included in the distribution that allows you to use the same keystrokes as Pine would to send and receive mail. It's also licensed under the GPL.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="6.5"></a><font color="#330000">6.5. Why doesn't UW simply change their license?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">You're really not asking the right person here. I (Chris) waited a long time to see if UW would change their license because of the amount of high quality software being released and developed under the GPL without being taken advantage of by malicious corporate entities or other baddies, but no such luck so far.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="6.6"></a><font color="#330000">6.6. What if tomorrow UW changes the license to be truly Free Software?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">Honestly nothing would make me happier than to see that happen. Nano would continue to be developed independently until such time as Pico had all the features nano did or the projects merged. That just does not seem very likely given that there has been no sign of any changes in the past few years in a positive direction.</font></blockquote> <hr WIDTH="100%"> <h1> <a NAME="7"></a><font color="#330000">7. Miscellaneous</font></h1> <h2> <a NAME="7.1"></a><font color="#330000">7.1. Nano related mailing lists.</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">There are two mailing lists for nano hosted at <a href="http://www.sourceforge.net">SourceForge</a>, nano-announce and nano-devel. Nano-announce is a very low traffic list where new versions of nano are announced (surprise!) Nano-devel is a sometimes low, sometimes very high traffic list for dicussing the present and future development of nano. Here are links to where you can sign up for a given list:</font><font color="#330000"></font> <p><font color="#330000">nano-announce - <a href="http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/nano-announce">http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/nano-announce</a></font> <br><font color="#330000">nano-devel - <a href="http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/nano-devel">http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/nano-devel</a></font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="7.2"></a><font color="#330000">7.2. I want to send the development team a big load of cash (or just a thank you).</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">That's fine. Send it <a href="mailto:nano-devel@lists.sourceforge.net">our way</a>! Better yet, fix a <a href="http://www.nano-editor.org/dist/BUGS">bug</a> in the program or implement a <a href="http://www.nano-editor.org/dist/TODO">cool feature</a> and send us that instead (though cash is fine too).</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="7.3"></a><font color="#330000">7.3. How do I submit a patch?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">See Section <a href="#7.2">7.2</a>.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="7.4"></a><font color="#330000">7.4. How do I join the development team?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">The easiest way is to consistently send in good patches that add some needed functionality, fix a bug or two and/or make the program more optimized/efficient. Then ask nicely and you will probably be added to the SourceForge development list and be given CVS write after awhile. There is a lot of responsibility that goes along with being a team member, so don't think it's just something to add to your resume.</font></blockquote> <h2> <a NAME="7.5"></a><font color="#330000">7.5. Can I have CVS write access?</font></h2> <blockquote><font color="#330000">Re-read Section </font><a href="#7.4">7.4</a><font color="#330000"> and you should know the answer.</font></blockquote> <h1> <a NAME="8"></a>8. ChangeLog</h1> <blockquote>06/31/2000 - Initial framework.</blockquote> <P> $Id$ </body> </html>