Glad to find this discussion since it deals directly with something that has been vexing me for a while.
I'm fairly new to unix and was disappointed when unix friends told me "just use vi" when I asked for the best way to edit and view files on our solaris boxes.
I have come to the conclusion that I need 2 editors in the unix world
Editor #1 - for use when I am writing code, scripts, etc. In other words editing that is going to take me more than a minute. For this I use Jedit
Editor #2 - Used for quickly editing, searching and viewing files. I frequently need to edit a single line in a file, or need to view the file or search its contents (I know about grep, but I like to see the results of my search in the context of the rest of the file). For Editor #2 I'm not sure what to use. I have almost come to the conclusion that I need to make peace with vi and just accept it, but I find it so frustrating that it takes me longer to check my cheat sheet to find the right commands than it does to actually do the editing. My requirements for Editor #2 are:
-Easily edit, view, and search text files.
-Reasonable amount of certainty that the editor is available. My job requires that I connect to different boxes and often su to a different userid. It is frustrating to learn to use a tool and then it is not available.
-Using the editor is easy to remember. I only need editor #2, two or three times a month. I feel like I am constantly relearning vi, and feel like I'm flying blind when I get lost between command mode and edit mode.
-Needs to run in the console, i.e. doesn't run in X, which for me takes too long to load. I think our network is slow and our boxes are distributed.
-I only need basic functionality, in other words I would trade ease of use in exchange for the advanced features in vi.
Can anyone make a recomendation for Editor #2 or do I need to make my peace with vi
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I started using pico and liked it a lot but a co-worker told me not to trust it as it truncates lines over 80 characters. Too bad since I really liked it. Anyone know if there is a fix or work around for this.
Basically I'm looking for something like pico or like "edit" from the dos prompt.