Re: [Nano-devel] patch for navigation in view mode

[Jason DeVita]

On Thu, 16 Oct 2008, Nick Warne wrote:

> On Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:04:40 -0700 (PDT)
> Jason DeVita <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I've made a patch to allow vi/less style navigation while in
> > view-mode, and also to toggle between view and edit modes.
> > Basically, Mod-1 toggles view-mode.  And when in view-mode, you can
> > use h-j-k-l to move the cursor, 'b' and <space> to page up/down, '/'
> > to search, n/N to find next/previous match, g/G to goto start/end of
> > the document, and 'q' to quit.  I find it much faster to use these
> > when I'm mostly navigating, and not doing much editing.
> >
> > I'm not much of an applications programmer (I normally write
> > numerical/scientific stuff), so I don't know if what I did is wrong
> > or bad.  But it seems to work for me.  The patch is on the svn tip
> > (as of today).
>
> Being not a user of vi*, and being honed on Pine years ago, and then
> finding Nano, why try to change things into what they are not?  Surely
> there is enough bloody key options already...
>
> If you like vi* type style editors, then use vi*, surely?

I figured I might get a reaction like this.  Truth is I hate vi with a 
passion.  Don't get me started on all the things that I hate about vi -- 
you don't have time to sit through that rant.

My true motivation was the "less" pager.  I find navigating through a 
document with "less" to be very easy and efficient.  And while I love 
nano, and most of the time I happily use the nano ctrl sequences to 
navigate, at times I found myself wishing I could use less-style 
navigation.  So I added it, in such a way that the regular nano edit mode 
is unchanged.  This patch only affects view-mode (plus being able to 
toggle between the two).

If nobody likes it, that's fine.  I'll just keep using by myself like I've 
been for the past month or so.  I just thought others might find it as 
useful as I have, so I posted it.

Regards,
Jason