Console editing in OpenBSD

Even though the 4,000+ packages and ports for OpenBSD include just about every text editor you could want, the out-of-the-box installation includes just one editor. I bet you can guess which one it is.

If you guessed vi, you win. If you didn't, what's wrong with you? I'm not saying you've got to love vi -- and it's perfectly all right if you hate it. But something as hard core as OpenBSD just says "you'll use vi -- and you'll like it."

Like I said, it's not as if you can't add just about any editor you want. I've already put Nano and Geany on my two OpenBSD boxes. But even though Nano -- the default console editor in Debian and Ubuntu -- seems easier to use for the occasional console user with its F3-to-save, none-of-this-two-modes-crap functionality.

And if all you're doing is hacking away at config files in /etc and /home, either editor will do just fine.

But if you're using the console to really write stuff, you'd think that Nano would be the better choice, since you don't have to program your fingers and mind to do things the vi way, switching between text mode and command mode.

For me, the problem with Nano is that it's set by default to justify text. And in doing that, linefeeds are entered into the copy. That mucks things up when I'm taking the text files and pasting them into this blog, for instance. But with justification turned off, the lines careen off the side of the screen, and I can't really see what I'm working on.

But in vi, unjustified text doesn't wrap pretty (although it can easily be set to do so, either in a user's configuration file or in command mode during any vi session). But it does wrap -- even if it breaks between words. And you can see your entire text file on the screen at all times.

And now that I figured out how to cut and past with the mouse in the console (by highlighting the text and clicking both mouse buttons at the same time), I'm way more productive in both vi and Nano than I've ever been. I know that using the mouse is tre wimpy, especially when you've got dozens of buffers at your disposal in most console editors. I'll get there, but for now, I'm using vi more than ever -- and I'm not hating it.

But in the interest of full disclosure, I'm a lot more productive using Geany in X. I just happen to like Geany, and I like having multiple windows open in the same application, the ability to save my Geany session by simply not closing any files, and the general ability of X editors to show type wrapped while not adding any linefeeds to the type itself.

And in a totally unrelated note, I don't really use Abiword much these days, but I really liked the way, when I installed it via Aptitude in Debian, Abiword automatically had the spell checker plugin configured. I can't seem to get spell checking working in Abiword in OpenBSD, and again, it's not something at which I'm an all-out expert in any case. But it's nice to have something to work on.