![]() ![]() These could be configuration files, programming files, or word documents.Ĭommand mode is how operations are performed in Vi. We use the term 'text document' loosely here. Insert mode is used to edit and create text documents. It needed to handle an awful lot of tasks. This is the reason why Vi is so feature-rich. So, computer operators needed a tool that could handle every aspect of text editing from editing configuration files, to writing text documents, and a full computer programming environment. Interactions with computer systems were performed through a terminal command-line environment. At that time, graphical interfaces were computationally very expensive and not common practice. How Do You Use Vi?Īs we mentioned above, Vi was created as a full-featured text editor for the Unix operating system in the late 70s. Now that you have a basic idea of where each text editor developed from, let's explain how both Vi and Nano work at a higher level. ![]() Nano was developed strictly as a more feature-rich version of Pico. In February of 2001, Nano became part of the GNU project and is now commonly known as GNU Nano. TIP was renamed to Nano in 2000 to avoid naming conflicts with another existing Unix utility with the same name. Its goal was to emulate the Pico text editor (part of the Pine email client) but with additional features. Nano was originally developed in 1999 (long after Vi) under the name TIP (Tip Isn't Pico). Different Linux distributions will contain different versions of Vi though they all largely look and operate the same way. Likewise, Vi comes in both proprietary, licensed versions as well as open-source versions. Some versions still contain some of the original source code dating back to 1976 while others are complete re-writes that include compatible layers to the original code. Though people commonly refer to Vi as a singular application, it is in fact many different applications. At that time, many people had considered Vi to be a resource-intensive application for computer hardware, but Vi has persisted to become one of the most popular command-line text editors in Linux. It wasn't until 1978 with the release of version 2.0 that Ex was renamed to Vi. Ex was originally developed as a simpler solution to the Ed command-line editor. ![]() It was originally developed as an application called Ex in 1976 for the Unix operating system. Before you can fully understand why you should use one text editor over the other, you should understand why each application was developed and where its roots lay. A Brief Background Of Vi and Nanoīoth Vi and Nano are wildly different applications with different philosophies. Likewise, Vi and Vim are essentially the same application, so for simplicity, we are going to be referring to Vi. That's because they both share the same philosophy of being very customizable and powerful text editors. So, let us take a look at Vi vs Nano and discuss which one is better.įor this post, we are only going to look at Vi instead of both Emacs and Vi. While it's fun to have light-hearted debates about which command-line text editor is the best text editor to use, at the end of the day they are truly nothing more than different tools. It is a fiercely debated topic.Įmacs and Vi/Vim are complex and powerful text editors while Nano is a lightweight, simplified editor. Depending on who you ask, Linux aficionados might tell you to use Emacs, Vi/Vim, or Nano. That includes programming and editing configuration files in the command line. Have you ever wondered which text editor is the best one to use in Linux? One of the best things about the world of Linux is the plethora of ways to get jobs done.
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