ne
ne is a free text editor that runs on (hopefully almost) any UN*X machine. ne is easy to use for the beginner, but powerful and fully configurable for the wizard, and most sparing in its resource usage.
| Tags | Text Editors |
|---|---|
| Licenses | GPL v3 or later |
| Operating Systems | POSIX |
| Implementation | C |
Recent releases
- 18 Apr 2012 23:09
Release Notes: A new Shift command indents/outdents the line. A new AtomicUndo command can group undo actions. A very (20-years) old bug has been fixed.
- 09 Nov 2011 22:17
Release Notes: There are a few bugfixes. Now you can bind arbitrary keyboard sequences to key codes.
- 10 Mar 2011 02:02
Release Notes: A new automatchbracket feature that highlights matching brackets. Better bookmarks. A new command-line argument to position the cursor on a given row and column. Better syntax highlighting.
- 23 Apr 2010 11:29
Release Notes: Several improvements and bug fixes were made. Much more efficient incremental updates are done with syntax highlighting. The main new feature is automatic completion (using terms present in the currently loaded documents).
- 20 Feb 2009 14:42
Release Notes: ne was not updating the screen correctly when ported under Cygwin. This has been fixed.
Recent comments
Very capable and accessible
This is a very nice editor indeed. If you already know and love vi or emacs, this probably won'nt interest you much.
However, if you are looking for a more learnable text editor that excels at handling very large files (unlike most graphical editors), this will work nicely.
More New Users Should Use This
For the new user, I recommend this editor on any Linux install.
I use this editor all the time whenever I have to do things at command line, especially in cases where I need to 'su' as root from command line and now need to edit a file without waiting on Nautilus to open up so that I can right click the file and open with gedit. This editor is fantastic for me and I recommend all new users consider installing it.
I don't know why the rankings on this aren't high enough. I guess people new to Linux and Unix either don't know about freshmeat.net yet or perhaps they feel they have to "do as the Romans do" by sticking with vi or emacs or whatever editor they have in their GUI so that they can say, "Hey, I know vi". Sure, everyone is going to need to know the 5 minute tutorial basics of vi, such as its few modes and how to switch these, and how to save a file and get out of it. Perhaps they might even learn that CTRL+Y yanks a line out. But I have chosen not to learn anything beyond that.
Instead, I use this editor 'ne', which is very similar to Nedit but in pure console form. The reason I use it is because I have to sometimes be at command line, either through an ssh connection, or when I have to do a 'man' on a command, or when I have to 'su' as root. So, whenever I'm at command line and need to edit a file, I don't like to wait for nautilus or gedit to load so that I can mess with them, so I use 'ne'. I also don't like messing with vi or emacs because I'm just not that crowd.
nice console-based editor for novices
It's a fact of life that new users want an editor that works like Windows notepad. Finding a solution that can be used over a non-X11 connection from a Windows machine is not easy. This editor not only provides the basic feel of notepad, it delivers easy access to some very nice advanced functions (mark location, find regexp, macros, save preferences, ...) that are unusually easy to use.
I built the program on a fairly clean Solaris 7 box with no problems.
I'm sticking with vi and emacs but now everybody is happy.
Heartbeat
- Popularity Score
- 139.43
- Vitality Score
- 18.53
- Subscriptions
- 29
