Re: [Nano-devel] Thoughts

[markweston]

On 2018-04-27 17:54, David Ramsey wrote:
> I can answer at least some of these,
>
> markweston wrote:
> > 1. In soft-wrap mode nano inserts physical newlines when typing in the
> > soft (wrapped) part of line.
>
> This is because you have both softwrap and hardwrap turned on at the
> same time.  If you turn hardwrap off via Meta-L or "set nowrap", this
> won't happen.

Thanks, this solved the issue.

> > 2. Smart home does not seem to work. When on a word, pressing home
> > moves cursor to the start of the line, not to the start of the word.
>
> Smart home only works on indented lines, not words.  Every editor I've
> seen that uses smart home does what nano does now.

Understood.

> > 3. File browser does not work. You can't invoke it, so I don't even
> > know what it is.
>
> Press Ctrl-R to get to the "Insert File" prompt, then Ctrl-T ("To
> Files").

That explains it. I thought file browser can be invoked from anywhere.

> > 18. Not all keys are rebindable. All keys should be rebindable.
>
> Not all keys generate unique values on the console (see below), which 
> is
> why they can't all be rebindable.

I meant that one should be able to rebind command to any key that is 
shown in terminfo (5).

> > 19. When you select with mouse, selection also includes the line
> > numbers. It should not.
> >
> > 20. Cutting/copying/pasting maybe should utilize the X clipboard if
> > xclip/xsel is installed.
> >
> > 21. When pasting from X clipboard autoindent should be disabled while
> > pasting and restored to initial paste after the operation.
>
> Mouse selection and interaction with the X clipboard are X features, 
> and
> nano is a console program that doesn't know about X.  If you don't want
> to mouse-select line numbers, you could toggle them off just before
> doing that, and then toggle them back on afterwards.

AFAIK terminfo contains mouse event/query codes, and I believe ncurses 
has mouse API as well. I'm not sure about s-lang thought. So as far as I 
understand you don't need to know anything about the display server, 
only the mouse escape sequences.
Now you are right about the clipboard, and that nano can't interact with 
it directly without linking to X, but nano could detect if xclip/xsel is 
installed at startup and use them if they are.

> > 36. There could be a way to execute a shell command.
>
> Press Ctrl-R to get to the "Insert File" prompt, then Ctrl-X ("Execute
> Command").

Thanks, did not know that.