Console editor: something between VIM and nano?

Question

I used vim for a long time, but switched to Sublime Text last year for most of my programming work.

Now, every time I have to make use of a console editor (mostly over ssh), I feel extremely uncomfortable with vim. The shortcuts and commands have slowly left my memory, my once carefully curated vimrc is gathering dust, and I just can't use the editor effectively without re-learning everything.

On the other hand, nano is just dumb. Great for opening a file, adding a flag and closing it, but way too primitive for anything else.

Is there something in between I can use? I can settle for not-as-easy-as-nano-nor-as-powerful-as-vim.

Answer 1

You can use mcedit. It is much more user friendly than other editors - it even supports mouse over ssh (even in Putty console from Windows).

Simply install package Midnight Commander as follows:

• Ubuntu/Debian:

  sudo apt-get install mc
  

• Fedora/Redhat:

  sudo yum install mc
  

• MacOS:

  brew install mc
  

and it will make mcedit available.

In local console it even supports Shift+Del, Shift+Ins, Ctrl+Ins shortcuts that we use in Windows.

It also has nice ability to copy blocks into arbitrary files, effectively giving you unlimited number of clipboards.

Answer 2

You could try these, but you'll have to install them on the machines you SSH into:

• joe
• ne
• diakonos

But my opinion is that you should drop the seriously underpowered Sublime and go back to Vim.

$ vimtutor is your friend.