[Nano-devel] [RFC] a few things

[Benno Schulenberg]

Hi all,

I'd like to hear your opinion on the following few points.

1)  Currently, when the user makes a mistake on the command line,
nano blurts out 48 lines of usage text, scrolling the actual error
message right off the screen.  (I then don't even bother to scroll
back, but just do <Up> and look closely at what I typed.)  Would
it not be better if nano just printed the error message plus one
line saying "Type 'nano --help' for a list of options."?

2)  The tiny version of nano does not provide the ability to search
case-sensitively nor backwards, but does provide the ability to search
for regular expressions.  The first ability costs almost no code, and
the second just a few tiny fragments -- shouldn't they be included?
Also, a tiny nano includes the ability to Search-and-replace (M-R)
but not the ability to Search-for-next (M-W).  The latter costs just
a bit of code -- shouldn't it be included in tiny?  Or should tiny
exclude even more?  Regular expressions and even Replace?

3)  Some years ago Dan Mahoney suggested [1] the addition of the
feature of making not only tabs and spaces but also end-of-lines
visible -- useful when in softwrap mode, where it can be difficult
to see whether a line wraps or ends.  Would anyone else be interested
in this feature?

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2010-06/msg00000.html

4)  Currently nano does nothing special when it is invoked with the
name of 'pico'.  Should it?  Should it in that case try to resemble pico
as closely as possible, in every menu?  It would allow nano itself to
diverge a bit from this look (just the arragement of help lines) in an
attempt to be more helpful (show ^\ Replace by default, for example).

5)  The section "Editor Basics" in the texinfo documentation explains
several things about nano -- like how to enter commands, how to use the
mouse, and what the Title bar and Status bar are -- but it doesn't explain
how the cutbuffer works (for example that consecutive ^Ks will add to the
buffer, but that a ^K after any other key will overwrite it), and what the
mark is and how it behaves (that a ^K will cut the whole marked section
and unset the mark without saying so).  Would the addition of two sections,
"The Cutbuffer" and "The Mark" be useful?  And should maybe even the man
page contain a short section about the basic editing behaviour of nano?

Benno

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