Emacs is a GNU command-line text editor; it's powerful, extensible, and customisable. You can install it with APT: sudo apt install emacs You can use keyboard combination commands, such as Ctrl + X Ctrl + S to save and Ctrl + X Ctrl + C to close.
This page summarises the most common Unix commands for text editing. Unix and Linux Text Editors. There's three big groups of text editors you can find: text-mode editors – both the text and the interface for editing it are shown as text and available for comfortable work in your typical terminal or remote SSH session. If you're editing a. This page summarises the most common Unix commands for text editing. Unix and Linux Text Editors. There's three big groups of text editors you can find: text-mode editors – both the text and the interface for editing it are shown as text and available for comfortable work in your typical terminal or remote SSH session. If you're editing a. 11 Best Text Editors For Linux 2019 Edition 1. In our own poll at Fossbytes Facebook page, Sublime Text, followed by Atom and Vim, turned out to be the favorite code editor.This.
What is the VI editor?
The VI editor is the most popular and classic text editor in the Linux family. Below, are some reasons which make it a widely used editor –
1) It is available in almost all Linux Distributions
2) It works the same across different platforms and Distributions
3) It is user-friendly. Hence, millions of Linux users love it and use it for their editing needs
Nowadays, there are advanced versions of the vi editor available, and the most popular one is VIM which is Vi Improved. Some of the other ones are Elvis, Nvi, Nano, and Vile. It is wise to learn vi because it is feature-rich and offers endless possibilities to edit a file.
To work on VI editor, you need to understand its operation modes. They can be divided into two main parts.
In this tutorial, you will learn more about-
Click here if the video is not accessible
vi Command mode:
- The vi editor opens in this mode, and it only understands commands
- In this mode, you can, move the cursor and cut, copy, paste the text
- This mode also saves the changes you have made to the file
- Commands are case sensitive. You should use the right letter case.
vi Editor Insert mode:
This mode is for inserting text in the file.
You can switch to the Insert mode from the command mode by pressing 'i' on the keyboard
Once you are in Insert mode, any key would be taken as an input for the file on which you are currently working.
To return to the command mode and save the changes you have made you need to press the Esc key
How to use vi editor
To launch the VI Editor -Open the Terminal (CLI) and type
And if you specify an existing file, then the editor would open it for you to edit. Else, you can create a new file.
VI Editing commands
- i - Insert at cursor (goes into insert mode)
- a - Write after cursor (goes into insert mode)
- A - Write at the end of line (goes into insert mode)
- ESC - Terminate insert mode
- u - Undo last change
- U - Undo all changes to the entire line
- o - Open a new line (goes into insert mode)
- dd - Delete line
- 3dd - Delete 3 lines.
- D - Delete contents of line after the cursor
- C - Delete contents of a line after the cursor and insert new text. Press ESC key to end insertion.
- dw - Delete word
- 4dw - Delete 4 words
- cw - Change word
- x - Delete character at the cursor
- r - Replace character
- R - Overwrite characters from cursor onward
- s - Substitute one character under cursor continue to insert
- S - Substitute entire line and begin to insert at the beginning of the line
- ~ - Change case of individual character
Note: You should be in the 'command mode' to execute these commands. VI editor is case-sensitive so make sure you type the commands in the right letter-case.
Make sure you press the right command otherwise you will end up making undesirable changes to the file. You can also enter the insert mode by pressing a, A, o, as required.
Moving within a file
- k - Move cursor up
- j - Move cursor down
- h - Move cursor left
- l - Move cursor right
You need to be in the command mode to move within a file. The default keys for navigation are mentioned below else; You can also use the arrow keys on the keyboard.
Saving and Closing the file
- Shift+zz - Save the file and quit
- :w - Save the file but keep it open
- :q - Quit without saving
- :wq - Save the file and quit
You should be in the command mode to exit the editor and save changes to the file. Bluestacks review 2017.
Summary:
- The vi editor is the most popular and commonly used Unix text editor
- It is usually available in all Linux Distributions.
- It works in two modes, Command and Insert
- Command mode takes the user commands, and the Insert mode is for editing text
- You should know the commands to work on your file easily
- Learning to use this editor can benefit you in creating scripts and editing files.
Unix Text Editors
There's quite a few ways for you to edit your texts in Unix. This page summarises the most common Unix commands for text editing.
Unix and Linux Text Editors
There's three big groups of text editors you can find:
- text-mode editors – both the text and the interface for editing it are shown as text and available for comfortable work in your typical terminal or remote SSH session. If you're editing a web page or a code of program, you probably need external software for rendering result of your work. Great choice for editing config files though!
- editors with graphics interface – still mostly focused around text editing area that traditionally has fixed width font for easier coding, but aided by graphical interface – so menus are more accessible, dialogue windows more meaningful and flexible, etc
- WYSIWYG editors – these are document editors, not plan text editors. The purpose of such editors is to help you design a document for later printing or sharing online, and you get to see your resulting text as you type – no need for external software to see how it will look.These editors work in your text-only Unix session and are most quick and lightweight ways to make some changes to a text file.
nano text editor
Some say, nano editor it's the easiest to use.
ed
vi editor
vi – this editor can be found on any Unix or Linux distro since late 1990s. Xcode build to iphone.
vim editor
vim – my go-to editor for remote (SSH) sessions! 🙂 it's a Vi IMproved editor – lots of customisations and expansions on top of vi editor.
Basically, most of recent distros have vim implementation instead of the original vi software.
How To Edit System Files with vim
Here's my part 1 video about editing files with vim:
picoemacs
Unix text editors with GUIs
These editors are more advanced tools with support for graphics users interface (GUI), which essentially allows for representing available editing options in more user-frinendly way and support mouse for typical editing operations.
Sublime Text
I have discovered Sublime Text 3 in 2019, it's a great editor available for macOS, Windows and Linux. It has one of the largest ecosystems of extensions and is used by many developers.
Sublime Text 3 is my favourite text editor as of 2020. I use it for maintaining my blogs, writing Python and BASH scripts, editing configs and automating infrastructure using Ansible.
vim or gvim (and neovim)
Atom
Perhaps the best looking and most modern of them all, because it's a fairly recent project
VScode
emacs
gedit
kate
Unix WYSIWYG text editors
Unix and Linux Text Editors
There's three big groups of text editors you can find:
- text-mode editors – both the text and the interface for editing it are shown as text and available for comfortable work in your typical terminal or remote SSH session. If you're editing a web page or a code of program, you probably need external software for rendering result of your work. Great choice for editing config files though!
- editors with graphics interface – still mostly focused around text editing area that traditionally has fixed width font for easier coding, but aided by graphical interface – so menus are more accessible, dialogue windows more meaningful and flexible, etc
- WYSIWYG editors – these are document editors, not plan text editors. The purpose of such editors is to help you design a document for later printing or sharing online, and you get to see your resulting text as you type – no need for external software to see how it will look.These editors work in your text-only Unix session and are most quick and lightweight ways to make some changes to a text file.
nano text editor
Some say, nano editor it's the easiest to use.
ed
vi editor
vi – this editor can be found on any Unix or Linux distro since late 1990s. Xcode build to iphone.
vim editor
vim – my go-to editor for remote (SSH) sessions! 🙂 it's a Vi IMproved editor – lots of customisations and expansions on top of vi editor.
Basically, most of recent distros have vim implementation instead of the original vi software.
How To Edit System Files with vim
Here's my part 1 video about editing files with vim:
picoemacs
Unix text editors with GUIs
These editors are more advanced tools with support for graphics users interface (GUI), which essentially allows for representing available editing options in more user-frinendly way and support mouse for typical editing operations.
Sublime Text
I have discovered Sublime Text 3 in 2019, it's a great editor available for macOS, Windows and Linux. It has one of the largest ecosystems of extensions and is used by many developers.
Sublime Text 3 is my favourite text editor as of 2020. I use it for maintaining my blogs, writing Python and BASH scripts, editing configs and automating infrastructure using Ansible.
vim or gvim (and neovim)
Atom
Perhaps the best looking and most modern of them all, because it's a fairly recent project
VScode
emacs
gedit
kate
Unix WYSIWYG text editors
These are the editors which support the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) concept – meaning that their graphics interface will show you exactly the appearance of your document as it will have when printed. All font families and sizes, page margins and formatting elements will be shown to make creating of your document the easiest and most natural act.
AbiWord
LibreOffice Writer (previously OpenOffice Writer)
Best Text Editors For Linux Command Line - It's FOSS
See Also
How To Edit Config Files In Ubuntu
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