This manual documents GNU nano
, version 8.2.
GNU nano
is a small and friendly text editor. Besides
basic text editing, nano
offers features like undo/redo,
syntax coloring, interactive search-and-replace, auto-indentation,
line numbers, word completion, file locking, backup files, and
internationalization support.
The original goal for nano
was to be a complete bug-for-bug
emulation of Pico. But currently the goal is to be as compatible
as is reasonable while offering a superset of Pico’s functionality.
See Pico Compatibility for more details on how nano
and
Pico differ.
Since version 4.0, nano
no longer hard-wraps overlong
lines by default. It also by default uses linewise scrolling, and by
default includes the line below the title bar in the editing area.
In case you want the old, Pico behavior back, you can use the
following options: --breaklonglines,
--jumpyscrolling, and --emptyline
(or -bje).
Since version 8.0, ^F starts a forward search, ^B starts a backward search, M-F searches the next occurrence forward, and M-B searches the next occurrence backward. If you want those keystrokes to do what they did before version 8.0, see the rebindings in the sample nanorc file.
Please report bugs via https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=nano.
Questions about using nano you can ask at help-nano@gnu.org.
For background information see https://nano-editor.org/.
The usual way to invoke nano
is:
nano [FILE]
But it is also possible to specify one or more options (see Command-line Options), and to edit several files in a row.
The cursor can be put on a specific line of a file by adding the line number with a plus sign before the filename, and even in a specific column by adding it with a comma. Negative numbers count from the end of the file or line.
The cursor can be put on the first or last occurrence of a specific string
by specifying that string after +/
or +?
before the filename.
The string can be made case sensitive and/or caused to be interpreted as a
regular expression by inserting a c
and/or r
after the plus sign.
These search modes can be explicitly disabled by using the uppercase variant
of those letters: C
and/or R
. When the string contains spaces,
it needs to be enclosed in quotes.
A more complete command synopsis thus is:
nano [OPTION]… [[+LINE[,COLUMN]|+[crCR]{/|?}STRING] FILE]…
Normally, however, you set your preferred options in a nanorc
file (see Nanorc Files). And when using set positionlog
(making nano
remember the cursor position when you close a file),
you will rarely need to specify a line number.
As a special case: when instead of a filename a dash is given, nano
will read data from standard input. This means you can pipe the output of
a command straight into a buffer, and then edit it.
The default screen of nano
consists of four areas.
From top to bottom these are: the title bar, the edit window,
the status bar, and two help lines.
The title bar consists of
three sections: left, center and right. The section on the left
displays the version of nano
being used. The center section
displays the current filename, or "New Buffer" if the file has not yet
been named. The section on the right displays "Modified" if the
file has been modified since it was last saved or opened.
The status bar is the third line from the bottom of the screen. It shows important and informational messages. Any error messages that occur from using the editor appear on the status bar. Any questions that are asked of the user are asked on the status bar, and any user input (search strings, filenames, etc.) is input on the status bar.
The two help lines at the bottom of the screen show some of the most essential functions of the editor.
nano
is a "modeless" editor. This means that all keystrokes,
with the exception of Control and Meta sequences, enter text into the
file being edited.
Characters not present on the keyboard can be entered in two ways:
nano
behave as if you
typed the key with that value.
For example, typing Esc Esc 2 3 4 enters the character "ê" — useful when writing about a French party. Typing M-V 0 0 2 2 c 4 enters the symbol "⋄", a little diamond.
Typing M-V followed by anything other than a hexadecimal digit
enters this keystroke verbatim into the buffer, allowing the user
to insert literal control codes (except ^J
) or escape sequences.
Commands are given by using the Control key (Ctrl, shown as ^) or the Meta key (Alt or Cmd, shown as M-).
If for some reason on your system the combinations with Ctrl or Alt do not work, you can generate them by using the Esc key. A control-key sequence is generated by pressing the Esc key twice and then pressing the desired key, and a meta-key sequence by pressing the Esc key once and then pressing the desired key.
Text can be cut from a file a whole line at a time with ^K. The cut line is stored in the cutbuffer. Consecutive strokes of ^K add each cut line to this buffer, but a ^K after any other keystroke overwrites the entire cutbuffer.
The contents of the cutbuffer can be pasted at the current cursor position with ^U.
A line of text can be copied into the cutbuffer (without cutting it) with M-6.
Text can be selected by first ’setting the Mark’ with ^6 or M-A and then moving the cursor to the other end of the portion to be selected. The selected portion of text is highlighted. This selection can now be cut or copied in its entirety with a single ^K or M-6. Or the selection can be used to limit the scope of a search-and-replace (^\) or spell-checking session (^T^T).
On some terminals, text can be selected also by holding down Shift while using the cursor keys. Holding down the Ctrl or Alt key too increases the stride. Such a selection is cancelled upon any cursor movement where Shift isn’t held.
Cutting or copying selected text toggles off the mark automatically. If needed, it can be toggled off manually with another ^6 or M-A.
With the Search command (^F or ^W) one can search the current buffer for the occurrence of any string. The default search mode is forward, case-insensitive, and for literal strings. But one can search backwards by toggling M-B, search case sensitively with M-C, and interpret regular expressions in the search string with M-R.
With the Replacement command (M-R or ^\) one can replace
a given string (or regular expression) with another string.
When a regular expression contains fragments between parentheses,
the replacement string can refer back to these fragments via
\1
to \9
.
For each occurrence of the search string you are asked whether to replace it. You can choose Yes (replace it), or No (skip this one), or All (replace all remaining occurrences without asking any more), or Cancel (stop with replacing, but replacements that have already been made will not be undone).
If before a replacing session starts a region is marked, then only occurrences of the search string within the marked region will be replaced.
A regular expression always covers just one line — it cannot span multiple lines. And neither a search string nor a replacement string can contain a newline (LF).
When mouse support has been configured and enabled, a single mouse click places the cursor at the indicated position. Clicking a second time in the same position toggles the mark. Clicking in the two help lines executes the selected shortcut. To be able to select text with the left button, or paste text with the middle button, hold down the Shift key during those actions.
The mouse works in the X Window System, and on the console when gpm is running.
With M-Ins you can place an anchor (a kind of temporary bookmark) at the current line. With M-PgUp and M-PgDn you can jump to an anchor in the backward/forward direction. This jumping wraps around at the top and bottom.
When a line with an anchor is removed, the line where the cursor ends up inherits the anchor. After performing an operation on the entire buffer (like formatting it, piping it through a command, or doing an external spell check on it), any anchors that were present are gone. And when you close the buffer, all its anchors simply disappear; they are not saved.
Anchors are visualized in the margin when line numbers are activated.
The recording and playback of keyboard macros works correctly only on a terminal emulator, not on a Linux console (VT), because the latter does not by default distinguish modified from unmodified arrow keys.
The built-in help in nano
is available by pressing ^G.
It is fairly self-explanatory. It documents the various parts of the
editor and the available keystrokes. Navigation is via the ^Y (Page Up)
and ^V (Page Down) keys. ^X exits from the help viewer.
When in the Read-File (^R) or Write-Out menu (^O), pressing ^T invokes the file browser. Here, one can navigate directories in a graphical manner in order to find the desired file.
Basic movement in the file browser is accomplished with the arrow and other cursor-movement keys. More targeted movement is accomplished by searching, via ^W or w, or by changing directory, via ^_ or g. The behavior of the Enter key (or s) varies by what is currently selected. If the currently selected object is a directory, the file browser enters and displays the contents of the directory. If the object is a file, this filename and path are copied to the status bar, and the file browser exits.
nano
accepts the following options from the command line:
Make the Home key smarter. When Home is pressed anywhere but at the very beginning of non-whitespace characters on a line, the cursor jumps to that beginning (either forwards or backwards). If the cursor is already at that position, it jumps to the true beginning of the line.
When saving a file, back up the previous version of it, using the current
filename suffixed with a tilde (~
).
Make and keep not just one backup file, but make and keep a uniquely numbered one every time a file is saved — when backups are enabled. The uniquely numbered files are stored in the specified directory.
For the interface, use bold instead of reverse video.
This can be overridden for specific elements
by setting the options titlecolor
, statuscolor
,
promptcolor
, minicolor
, keycolor
,
numbercolor
, and/or selectedcolor
in your
nanorc file. See set keycolor
for details.
Convert each typed tab to spaces — to the number of spaces that a tab at that position would take up. (Note: pasted tabs are not converted.)
Read a file into a new buffer by default.
Enable vim-style file locking when editing files.
Save the last hundred search strings and replacement strings and executed commands, so they can be easily reused in later sessions.
Don’t look at the system’s nanorc file nor at the user’s nanorc.
Draw a vertical stripe at the given column, to help judge the width of the
text. (The color of the stripe can be changed with set stripecolor
in your nanorc file.)
Interpret escape sequences directly, instead of asking ncurses
to translate them. (If you need this option to get some keys to work
properly, it means that the terminfo terminal description that is used
does not fully match the actual behavior of your terminal. This can
happen when you ssh into a BSD machine, for example.)
Using this option disables nano
’s mouse support.
Don’t automatically add a newline when a text does not end with one. (This can cause you to save non-POSIX text files.)
Snip trailing whitespace from the wrapped line when automatic hard-wrapping occurs or when text is justified.
Disable automatic conversion of files from DOS/Mac format.
When justifying, treat any line that starts with whitespace as the beginning of a paragraph (unless auto-indenting is on).
For the 200 most recent files, log the last position of the cursor, and place it at that position again upon reopening such a file.
Set the regular expression for matching the quoting part of a line.
The default value is "^([ \t]*([!#%:;>|}]|//))+".
(Note that \t
stands for a literal Tab character.)
This makes it possible to rejustify blocks of quoted text when composing
email, and to rewrap blocks of line comments when writing source code.
Restricted mode: don’t read or write to any file not specified on the
command line. This means: don’t read or write history files; don’t allow
suspending; don’t allow spell checking; don’t
allow a file to be appended to, prepended to, or saved under a different
name if it already has one; and don’t make backup files.
Restricted mode can also be activated by invoking nano
with
any name beginning with r
(e.g. rnano
).
Display over multiple screen rows lines that exceed the screen’s width.
(You can make this soft-wrapping occur at whitespace instead of rudely at
the screen’s edge, by using also --atblanks
.)
Set the displayed tab length to number columns. The value of number must be greater than 0. The default value is 8.
Make status-bar messages disappear after 1 keystroke instead of after 20. Note that option -c (--constantshow) overrides this. When option --minibar or --zero is in effect, --quickblank makes a message disappear after 0.8 seconds instead of after the default 1.5 seconds.
Show the current version number and exit.
Detect word boundaries differently by treating punctuation characters as parts of words.
Specify which other characters (besides the normal alphanumeric ones) should be considered as parts of words. When using this option, you probably want to omit -W (--wordbounds).
Specify the syntax to be used for highlighting. See Syntax Highlighting for more info.
Let an unmodified Backspace or Delete erase the marked region (instead of a single character, and without affecting the cutbuffer).
When doing soft line wrapping, wrap lines at whitespace instead of always at the edge of the screen.
Automatically hard-wrap the current line when it becomes overlong. (This option is the opposite of -w (--nowrap) — the last one given takes effect.)
Constantly display the cursor position (line number, column number, and character number) on the status bar. Note that this overrides option -U (--quickblank).
Interpret the Delete and Backspace keys differently so that both work properly. You should only use this option when on your system either Backspace acts like Delete or Delete acts like Backspace.
Do not use the line below the title bar, leaving it entirely blank.
Read only this file for setting nano’s options, instead of reading both the system-wide and the user’s nanorc files.
Make the cursor visible in the file browser (putting it on the highlighted item) and in the help viewer. Useful for braille users and people with poor vision.
Show a summary of command-line options and exit.
Automatically indent a newly created line to the same number of tabs and/or spaces as the previous line (or as the next line if the previous line is the beginning of a paragraph).
Scroll the buffer contents per half-screen instead of per line.
Make the ’Cut Text’ command (normally ^K) cut from the current cursor position to the end of the line, instead of cutting the entire line.
Display line numbers to the left of the text area. (Any line with an anchor additionally gets a mark in the margin.)
Enable mouse support, if available for your system. When enabled, mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor, set the mark (with two clicks), and execute shortcuts. The mouse works in the X Window System, and on the console when gpm is running. Text can still be selected through dragging by holding down the Shift key.
Treat any name given on the command line as a new file. This allows
nano
to write to named pipes: it starts with a blank buffer,
and writes to the pipe when the user saves the "file". This way
nano
can be used as an editor in combination with for instance
gpg
without having to write sensitive data to disk first.
Set the operating directory. This makes nano
set up something
similar to a chroot.
Preserve the ^S (XOFF) and ^Q (XON) sequences so that data being sent to the terminal can be stopped and resumed. Note that option -/ (--modernbindings) overrides this.
Display a "scrollbar" on the righthand side of the edit window. It shows the position of the viewport in the buffer and how much of the buffer is covered by the viewport.
Set the target width for justifying and automatic hard-wrapping at this number of columns. If the value is 0 or less, wrapping occurs at the width of the screen minus number columns, allowing the wrap point to vary along with the width of the screen if the screen is resized. The default value is -8.
Use the given program to do spell checking and correcting. By default,
nano
uses the command specified in the SPELL
environment
variable. If SPELL
is not set, and --speller is
not specified either, then nano
uses its own interactive spell
corrector, which requires either hunspell
or GNU spell
to be installed.
Save a changed buffer without prompting (when exiting with ^X).
This can be handy when nano
is used as the composer of an
email program.
Save a file by default in Unix format. This overrides nano’s default behavior of saving a file in the format that it had. (This option has no effect when you also use --noconvert.)
Don’t allow the contents of the file to be altered: read-only mode. This mode allows the user to open also other files for viewing, unless --restricted is given too. (Note that this option should NOT be used in place of correct file permissions to implement a read-only file.)
Do not automatically hard-wrap the current line when it becomes overlong. This is the default. (This option is the opposite of -b (--breaklonglines) — the last one given takes effect.)
Expert mode: don’t show the two help lines at the bottom of the screen. This affects the location of the status bar as well, as in Expert mode it is located at the very bottom of the editor.
Note: When accessing the help system, Expert mode is temporarily disabled to display the help-system navigation keys.
Make Ctrl+Right and Ctrl+Delete stop at word ends instead of beginnings.
List the names of the available syntaxes and exit.
When neither the file’s name nor its first line give a clue, try using libmagic to determine the applicable syntax.
When a filename given on the command line ends in a colon plus digits
and this filename does not exist, then snip the colon plus digits and
understand the digits as a line number. If the trimmed filename does
not exist either, then repeat the process and understand the obtained
two numbers as line and column number. But if the doubly trimmed
filename does not exist either, then forget the trimming and accept
the original filename as is. To disable this colon parsing for some
file, use +1
or similar before the relevant filename.
Use the top-right corner of the screen for showing some state flags:
I
when auto-indenting, M
when the mark is on, L
when
hard-wrapping (breaking long lines), R
when recording a macro,
and S
when soft-wrapping.
When the buffer is modified, a star (*
) is shown after the
filename in the center of the title bar.
Suppress the title bar and instead show information about
the current buffer at the bottom of the screen, in the space
for the status bar. In this "mini bar" the filename is shown
on the left, followed by an asterisk if the buffer has been modified.
On the right are displayed the current line and column number, the
code of the character under the cursor (in Unicode format: U+xxxx),
the same flags as are shown by --stateflags
, and a percentage
that expresses how far the cursor is into the file (linewise).
When a file is loaded or saved, and also when switching between buffers,
the number of lines in the buffer is displayed after the filename.
This number is cleared upon the next keystroke, or replaced with an
[i/n] counter when multiple buffers are open.
The line plus column numbers and the character code are displayed only when
--constantshow
is used, and can be toggled on and off with M-C.
The state flags are displayed only when --stateflags
is used.
Hide all elements of the interface (title bar, status bar, and help lines) and use all rows of the terminal for showing the contents of the buffer. The status bar appears only when there is a significant message, and disappears after 1.5 seconds or upon the next keystroke. With M-Z the title bar plus status bar can be toggled. With M-X the help lines.
Use key bindings similar to the ones that most modern programs use: ^X cuts, ^C copies, ^V pastes, ^Z undoes, ^Y redoes, ^F searches forward, ^G searches next, ^S saves, ^O opens a file, ^Q quits, and (when the terminal permits) ^H shows help. Furthermore, ^A sets the mark, ^R makes replacements, ^D searches previous, ^P shows the position, ^T goes to a line, ^W writes out a file, and ^E executes a command. Note that this overrides option -p (--preserve).
Suspension is enabled by default, reachable via ^T^Z.
(If you want a plain ^Z to suspend nano, add
bind ^Z suspend main
to your nanorc.)
Toggles allow you to change certain aspects of the editor while you are editing, aspects that you would normally specify via command-line options or nanorc options. Each toggle can be flicked via a Meta-key combination — the Meta key is normally the Alt key (see Commands for more details). The following global toggles are available:
Constant Cursor Position Display
M-C toggles the -c (--constantshow) command-line option.
Smart Home Key
M-H toggles the -A (--smarthome) command-line option.
Auto Indent
M-I toggles the -i (--autoindent) command-line option.
Cut From Cursor To End-of-Line
M-K toggles the -k (--cutfromcursor) command-line option.
Long-Line Wrapping
M-L toggles the -b (--breaklonglines) command-line option.
Mouse Support
M-M toggles the -m (--mouse) command-line option.
Line Numbers
M-N toggles the -l (--linenumbers) command-line option.
Tabs To Spaces
M-O toggles the -E (--tabstospaces) command-line option.
Whitespace Display
M-P toggles the displaying of whitespace (see Whitespace).
Soft Wrapping
M-S toggles the -S (--softwrap) command-line option.
Expert
M-X toggles the -x (--nohelp) command-line option.
Syntax Coloring
M-Y toggles syntax coloring, when your nanorc defines syntaxes (see Syntax Highlighting).
Hidden Interface
M-Z toggles the -0 (--zero) command-line option, but without the -x (--nohelp) part. That is: it toggles just the title bar plus status bar (or the combined mini bar plus status bar), not the help lines. The latter are toggled with M-X.
Nanorc files can be used to configure nano
to your liking
without using command-line options. During startup nano
normally reads two files: first the system-wide file, /etc/nanorc
(the exact path may be different on your system), and then the user-specific
file, either ~/.nanorc or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nano/nanorc or
.config/nano/nanorc, whichever exists first.
However, if --rcfile is given, nano
skips the
above files and reads just the specified settings file.
A nanorc file can contain set
and unset
commands for
various options (see Settings). It can also contain commands that
define syntax highlighting (see Syntax Highlighting) and commands
that rebind keys (Rebinding Keys). Each command should be on a
separate line, and all commands should be written in lowercase.
Options that do not take an argument are unset by default. So using
the unset
command is only needed when wanting to override a
setting from the system’s nanorc file in your own nanorc. Options that
take an argument cannot be unset, but can be assigned the empty string.
Any command-line option overrides its nanorc setting, of course.
Quotes inside the characters parameters below should not be escaped. The last double quote on the line will be seen as the closing quote.
The supported settings in a nanorc file are:
set afterends
Make Ctrl+Right and Ctrl+Delete stop at word ends instead of beginnings.
set allow_insecure_backup
When backing up files, allow the backup to succeed even if its permissions can’t be (re)set due to special OS considerations. You should NOT enable this option unless you are sure you need it.
set atblanks
When soft line wrapping is enabled, make it wrap lines at blank characters (tabs and spaces) instead of always at the edge of the screen.
set autoindent
Automatically indent a newly created line to the same number of tabs and/or spaces as the previous line (or as the next line if the previous line is the beginning of a paragraph).
set backup
When saving a file, back up the previous version of it, using the current
filename suffixed with a tilde (~
).
set backupdir "directory"
Make and keep not just one backup file, but make and keep a uniquely
numbered one every time a file is saved — when backups are enabled
with set backup
or --backup or -B.
The uniquely numbered files are stored in the specified directory.
set boldtext
Use bold instead of reverse video for the title bar, status bar,
prompt bar, mini bar, key combos, line numbers, and selected text.
This can be overridden by setting the options titlecolor
,
statuscolor
, promptcolor
, minicolor
,
keycolor
, numbercolor
, and/or selectedcolor
.
set bookstyle
When justifying, treat any line that starts with whitespace as the beginning of a paragraph (unless auto-indenting is on).
set brackets "characters"
Set the characters treated as closing brackets when justifying
paragraphs. This may not include blank characters. Only closing
punctuation (see set punct
), optionally followed by the specified
closing brackets, can end sentences. The default value is
""')>]}".
set breaklonglines
Automatically hard-wrap the current line when it becomes overlong.
set casesensitive
Do case-sensitive searches by default.
set colonparsing
When a filename given on the command line ends in a colon plus digits
and this filename does not exist, then snip the colon plus digits and
understand the digits as a line number. If the trimmed filename does
not exist either, then repeat the process and understand the obtained
two numbers as line and column number. But if the doubly trimmed
filename does not exist either, then forget the trimming and accept
the original filename as is. To disable this colon parsing for some
file, use +1
or similar before the relevant filename.
set constantshow
Constantly display the cursor position on the status bar. Note that this overrides quickblank.
set cutfromcursor
Use cut-from-cursor-to-end-of-line by default, instead of cutting the whole line.
set emptyline
Do not use the line below the title bar, leaving it entirely blank.
set errorcolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the status bar when an error message is displayed.
The default value is bold,white,red.
See set keycolor
for valid color names.
set fill number
Set the target width for justifying and automatic hard-wrapping at this number of columns. If the value is 0 or less, wrapping occurs at the width of the screen minus number columns, allowing the wrap point to vary along with the width of the screen if the screen is resized. The default value is -8.
set functioncolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the concise function descriptions
in the two help lines at the bottom of the screen.
See set keycolor
for valid color names.
set guidestripe number
Draw a vertical stripe at the given column, to help judge the width of the
text. (The color of the stripe can be changed with set stripecolor
.)
set historylog
Save the last hundred search strings and replacement strings and executed commands, so they can be easily reused in later sessions.
set indicator
Display a "scrollbar" on the righthand side of the edit window. It shows the position of the viewport in the buffer and how much of the buffer is covered by the viewport.
set jumpyscrolling
Scroll the buffer contents per half-screen instead of per line.
set keycolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the shortcut key combos
in the two help lines at the bottom of the screen.
Valid names for the foreground and background colors are:
red
, green
, blue
,
magenta
, yellow
, cyan
,
white
, and black
.
Each of these eight names may be prefixed with the word
light
to get a brighter version of that color.
The word grey
or gray
may be used
as a synonym for lightblack
.
On a Linux console, light
does not have
any effect for a background color.
On terminal emulators that can do at least 256 colors,
other valid (but unprefixable) color names are:
pink
, purple
, mauve
,
lagoon
, mint
, lime
,
peach
, orange
, latte
,
rosy
, beet
, plum
, sea
,
sky
, slate
, teal
, sage
,
brown
, ocher
, sand
, tawny
,
brick
, crimson
, and normal
— where normal
means the default foreground or background color.
On such emulators, the color may also be specified as a three-digit hexadecimal
number prefixed with #
, with the digits representing the amounts of red,
green, and blue, respectively. This tells nano
to select from the
available palette the color that approximates the given values.
Either fgcolor or ,bgcolor may be left out,
and the pair may be preceded by bold
and/or italic
(separated by commas) to get a bold and/or slanting typeface,
if your terminal can do those.
set linenumbers
Display line numbers to the left of the text area. (Any line with an anchor additionally gets a mark in the margin.)
set locking
Enable vim-style lock-files for when editing files.
set magic
When neither the file’s name nor its first line give a clue, try using libmagic to determine the applicable syntax. (Calling libmagic can be relatively time consuming. It is therefore not done by default.)
set matchbrackets "characters"
Specify the opening and closing brackets that can be found by bracket searches. This may not include blank characters. The opening set must come before the closing set, and the two sets must be in the same order. The default value is "(<[{)>]}".
set minibar
Suppress the title bar and instead show information about
the current buffer at the bottom of the screen, in the space
for the status bar. In this "mini bar" the filename is shown
on the left, followed by an asterisk if the buffer has been modified.
On the right are displayed the current line and column number, the
code of the character under the cursor (in Unicode format: U+xxxx),
the same flags as are shown by set stateflags
, and a percentage
that expresses how far the cursor is into the file (linewise).
When a file is loaded or saved, and also when switching between buffers,
the number of lines in the buffer is displayed after the filename.
This number is cleared upon the next keystroke, or replaced with an
[i/n] counter when multiple buffers are open.
The line plus column numbers and the character code are displayed only when
set constantshow
is used, and can be toggled on and off with M-C.
The state flags are displayed only when set stateflags
is used.
set minicolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the mini bar.
(When this option is not specified, the colors of the title bar are used.)
See set keycolor
for valid color names.
set mouse
Enable mouse support, so that mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor, set the mark (with two clicks), or execute shortcuts.
set multibuffer
When reading in a file with ^R, insert it into a new buffer by default.
set noconvert
Don’t convert files from DOS/Mac format.
set nohelp
Don’t display the help lists at the bottom of the screen.
set nonewlines
Don’t automatically add a newline when a text does not end with one. (This can cause you to save non-POSIX text files.)
set nowrap
Deprecated option since it has become the default setting.
When needed, use unset breaklonglines
instead.
set numbercolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for line numbers.
See set keycolor
for valid color names.
set operatingdir "directory"
nano
only reads and writes files inside "directory" and its
subdirectories. Also, the current directory is changed to here, so
files are inserted from this directory. By default, the operating
directory feature is turned off.
set positionlog
Save the cursor position of files between editing sessions. The cursor position is remembered for the 200 most-recently edited files.
set preserve
Preserve the XOFF and XON sequences (^S and ^Q) so that they are caught by the terminal (stopping and resuming the output).
set promptcolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the prompt bar.
(When this option is not specified, the colors of the title bar are used.)
See set keycolor
for valid color names.
set punct "characters"
Set the characters treated as closing punctuation when justifying
paragraphs. This may not include blank characters. Only the
specified closing punctuation, optionally followed by closing brackets
(see set brackets
), can end sentences.
The default value is "!.?".
set quickblank
Make status-bar messages disappear after 1 keystroke instead of after 20. Note that option constantshow overrides this. When option minibar or zero is in effect, quickblank makes a message disappear after 0.8 seconds instead of after the default 1.5 seconds.
set quotestr "regex"
Set the regular expression for matching the quoting part of a line.
The default value is "^([ \t]*([!#%:;>|}]|//))+".
(Note that \t
stands for a literal Tab character.)
This makes it possible to rejustify blocks of quoted text when composing
email, and to rewrap blocks of line comments when writing source code.
set rawsequences
Interpret escape sequences directly, instead of asking ncurses
to translate them. (If you need this option to get some keys to work
properly, it means that the terminfo terminal description that is used
does not fully match the actual behavior of your terminal. This can
happen when you ssh into a BSD machine, for example.)
Using this option disables nano
’s mouse support.
set rebinddelete
Interpret the Delete and Backspace keys differently so that both work properly. You should only use this option when on your system either Backspace acts like Delete or Delete acts like Backspace.
set regexp
Do regular-expression searches by default.
Regular expressions in nano
are of the extended type (ERE).
set saveonexit
Save a changed buffer automatically on exit (^X); don’t prompt.
set scrollercolor fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the indicator alias "scrollbar".
See set keycolor
for valid color names.
set selectedcolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for selected text.
See set keycolor
for valid color names.
set showcursor
Put the cursor on the highlighted item in the file browser, and show the cursor in the help viewer, to aid braille users and people with poor vision.
set smarthome
Make the Home key smarter. When Home is pressed anywhere but at the very beginning of non-whitespace characters on a line, the cursor jumps to that beginning (either forwards or backwards). If the cursor is already at that position, it jumps to the true beginning of the line.
set softwrap
Display lines that exceed the screen’s width over multiple screen lines.
(You can make this soft-wrapping occur at whitespace instead of rudely at
the screen’s edge, by using also set atblanks
.)
set speller "program [argument …]"
Use the given program to do spell checking and correcting. See --speller for details.
set spotlightcolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for highlighting a search match.
The default value is black,lightyellow.
See set keycolor
for valid color names.
set stateflags
Use the top-right corner of the screen for showing some state flags:
I
when auto-indenting, M
when the mark is on, L
when
hard-wrapping (breaking long lines), R
when recording a macro,
and S
when soft-wrapping.
When the buffer is modified, a star (*
) is shown after the
filename in the center of the title bar.
set statuscolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the status bar.
See set keycolor
for valid color names.
set stripecolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the vertical guiding stripe.
See set keycolor
for valid color names.
set tabsize number
Use a tab size of number columns. The value of number must be greater than 0. The default value is 8.
set tabstospaces
Convert each typed tab to spaces — to the number of spaces that a tab at that position would take up. (Note: pasted tabs are not converted.)
set titlecolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor
Use this color combination for the title bar.
See set keycolor
for valid color names.
set trimblanks
Remove trailing whitespace from wrapped lines when automatic hard-wrapping occurs or when text is justified.
set unix
Save a file by default in Unix format. This overrides nano’s
default behavior of saving a file in the format that it had.
(This option has no effect when you also use set noconvert
.)
set whitespace "characters"
Set the two characters used to indicate the presence of tabs and spaces. They must be single-column characters. The default pair for a UTF-8 locale is "»·", and for other locales ">.".
set wordbounds
Detect word boundaries differently by treating punctuation characters as part of a word.
set wordchars "characters"
Specify which other characters (besides the normal alphanumeric ones)
should be considered as parts of words. When using this option, you
probably want to unset wordbounds
.
set zap
Let an unmodified Backspace or Delete erase the marked region (instead of a single character, and without affecting the cutbuffer).
set zero
Hide all elements of the interface (title bar, status bar, and help lines) and use all rows of the terminal for showing the contents of the buffer. The status bar appears only when there is a significant message, and disappears after 1.5 seconds or upon the next keystroke. With M-Z the title bar plus status bar can be toggled. With M-X the help lines.
Coloring the different syntactic elements of a file
is done via regular expressions (see the color
command below).
This is inherently imperfect, because regular expressions are not
powerful enough to fully parse a file. Nevertheless, regular
expressions can do a lot and are easy to make, so they are a
good fit for a small editor like nano
.
See /usr/share/nano/ and /usr/share/nano/extra/ for the syntax-coloring definitions that are available out of the box.
All regular expressions in nano
are POSIX extended regular expressions
(ERE). This means that .
, ?
, *
, +
, ^
,
$
, and several other characters are special.
The period .
matches any single character,
?
means the preceding item is optional,
*
means the preceding item may be matched zero or more times,
+
means the preceding item must be matched one or more times,
^
matches the beginning of a line, and $
the end,
\<
matches the start of a word, and \>
the end,
and \s
matches a blank.
It also means that lookahead and lookbehind are not possible.
A complete explanation can be found in the manual of GNU grep:
info grep regular
.
Each regular expression in a nanorc file should be wrapped in
double quotes (""
). Multiple regular expressions can follow
each other on a line by separating them with blanks. This means that
a regular expression cannot contain a double quote followed by a blank.
When you need this combination inside a regular expression,
then either the double quote or the blank should be put
between square brackets ([]
).
A separate syntax can be defined for each kind of file via the following commands in a nanorc file:
syntax name ["fileregex" …]
Start the definition of a syntax with this name.
All subsequent color
and other such commands
are added to this syntax, until a new syntax
command is encountered.
When nano
is run, this syntax is automatically
activated (for the relevant buffer) if the absolute filename
matches the extended regular expression fileregex.
Or the syntax can be explicitly activated (for all buffers)
by using the -Y or --syntax
command-line option followed by the name.
The default
syntax is special: it takes no fileregex,
and applies to files that don’t match any syntax’s regexes.
The none
syntax is reserved; specifying it on the
command line is the same as not having a syntax at all.
header "regex" …
If from all defined syntaxes no fileregex matched, then compare this regex (or regexes) against the first line of the current file, to determine whether this syntax should be used for it.
magic "regex" …
If no fileregex matched and no header
regex matched
either, then compare this regex (or regexes) against the
result of querying the magic
database about the current
file, to determine whether this syntax should be used for it.
(This querying is done only when libmagic
is actually installed
on the system and --magic or set magic
was given.)
formatter program [argument …]
Run the given program on the full contents of the current buffer.
linter program [argument …]
Use the given program to do a syntax check on the current buffer.
comment "string"
Use the given string for commenting and uncommenting lines. If the string contains a vertical bar or pipe character (|), this designates bracket-style comments; for example, "/*|*/" for CSS files. The characters before the pipe are prepended to the line and the characters after the pipe are appended at the end of the line. If no pipe character is present, the full string is prepended; for example, "#" for Python files. If empty double quotes are specified, the comment/uncomment functions are disabled; for example, "" for JSON. The default value is "#".
tabgives "string"
Make the <Tab> key produce the given string. Useful for languages like
Python that want to see only spaces for indentation.
This overrides the setting of the tabstospaces
option.
color [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor "regex" …
Paint all pieces of text that match the extended regular expression "regex"
with the given foreground and background colors, at least one of which must
be specified. Valid color names are:
red
, green
, blue
,
magenta
, yellow
, cyan
,
white
, and black
.
Each of these eight names may be prefixed with the word
light
to get a brighter version of that color.
The word grey
or gray
may be used
as a synonym for lightblack
.
On a Linux console, light
does not have
any effect for a background color.
On terminal emulators that can do at least 256 colors,
other valid (but unprefixable) color names are:
pink
, purple
, mauve
,
lagoon
, mint
, lime
,
peach
, orange
, latte
,
rosy
, beet
, plum
, sea
,
sky
, slate
, teal
, sage
,
brown
, ocher
, sand
, tawny
,
brick
, crimson
, and normal
— where normal
means the default foreground or background color.
On such emulators, the color may also be specified as a three-digit hexadecimal
number prefixed with #
, with the digits representing the amounts of red,
green, and blue, respectively. This tells nano
to select from the
available palette the color that approximates the given values.
The color pair may be preceded by bold
and/or italic
(separated by commas) to get a bold and/or slanting typeface,
if your terminal can do those.
All coloring commands are applied in the order in which they are specified, which means that later commands can recolor stuff that was colored earlier.
icolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor "regex" …
Same as above, except that the matching is case insensitive.
color [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor start="fromrx" end="torx"
Paint all pieces of text whose start matches extended regular expression "fromrx" and whose end matches extended regular expression "torx" with the given foreground and background colors, at least one of which must be specified. This means that, after an initial instance of "fromrx", all text until the first instance of "torx" is colored. This allows syntax highlighting to span multiple lines.
icolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor start="fromrx" end="torx"
Same as above, except that the matching is case insensitive.
include "syntaxfile"
Read in self-contained color syntaxes from "syntaxfile". Note that
"syntaxfile" may contain only the above commands, from syntax
to icolor
.
extendsyntax name command argument …
Extend the syntax previously defined as "name" with another command.
This allows you to add a new color
, icolor
, header
,
magic
, formatter
, linter
, comment
,
or tabgives
command to an already
defined syntax — useful when you want to slightly improve a syntax defined
in one of the system-installed files (which normally are not writable).
Key bindings can be changed via the following three commands in a nanorc file:
bind key function menu
Rebinds key
to function
in the context of menu
(or in all menus where the function exists when all
is used).
bind key "string" menu
Makes key
produce string
in the context of menu
(or in all menus where the key exists when all
is used).
Besides literal text and/or control codes, the string
may contain
function names between braces. These functions are invoked when the
key is typed. To include a literal opening brace, use {{}
.
unbind key menu
Unbinds key
from menu
(or from all menus where the key exists when all
is used).
Note that bind key "{function}" menu
is equivalent to
bind key function menu
, except that for the latter form
nano
checks the availability of the function
in the given menu
at startup time (and report an error if
it does not exist there), whereas for the first form nano
checks at execution time that the function
exists but not
whether it makes any sense in the current menu. The user has to take
care that a function name between braces (or any sequence of them)
is appropriate. Strange behavior can result when it is not.
The format of key
should be one of:
^X
where X is a Latin letter, or one of several ASCII characters (@, ], \, ^, _), or the word "Space". Example:
^C
.M-X
where X is any ASCII character except [, or the word "Space". Example:
M-8
.Sh-M-X
where X is a Latin letter. Example:
Sh-M-U
. By default, each Meta+letter keystroke does the same as the corresponding Shift+Meta+letter. But when any Shift+Meta bind is made, that will no longer be the case, for all letters.Fn
where n is a numeric value from 1 to 24. Example:
F10
. (Often,F13
toF24
can be typed asF1
toF12
with Shift.)Ins
orDel
Rebinding ^M
(Enter) or ^I
(Tab) is probably not a good idea.
Rebinding ^[
(Esc) is not possible, because its keycode
is the starter byte of Meta keystrokes and escape sequences.
Rebinding any of the dedicated cursor-moving keys (the arrows, Home, End,
PageUp and PageDown) is not possible.
On some terminals it’s not possible to rebind ^H
(unless --raw
is used) because its keycode is identical to that of the Backspace key.
Valid names for the function
to be bound are:
help
Invokes the help viewer.
cancel
Cancels the current command.
exit
Exits from the program (or from the help viewer or file browser).
writeout
Writes the current buffer to disk, asking for a name.
savefile
Writes the current file to disk without prompting.
insert
Inserts a file into the current buffer (at the current cursor position),
or into a new buffer when option multibuffer
is set.
whereis
Starts a forward search for text in the current buffer — or for filenames matching a string in the current list in the file browser.
wherewas
Starts a backward search for text in the current buffer — or for filenames matching a string in the current list in the file browser.
findprevious
Searches the next occurrence in the backward direction.
findnext
Searches the next occurrence in the forward direction.
replace
Interactively replaces text within the current buffer.
cut
Cuts and stores the current line (or the marked region).
copy
Copies the current line (or the marked region) without deleting it.
paste
Pastes the currently stored text into the current buffer at the current cursor position.
zap
Throws away the current line (or the marked region). (This function is bound by default to Alt+Delete.)
chopwordleft
Deletes from the cursor position to the beginning of the preceding word.
(This function is bound by default to Shift+Ctrl+Delete. If your terminal
produces ^H
for Ctrl+Backspace, you can make Ctrl+Backspace delete
the word to the left of the cursor by rebinding ^H to this function.)
chopwordright
Deletes from the cursor position to the beginning of the next word. (This function is bound by default to Ctrl+Delete.)
cutrestoffile
Cuts all text from the cursor position till the end of the buffer.
mark
Sets the mark at the current position, to start selecting text. Or, when it is set, unsets the mark.
location
Reports the current position of the cursor in the buffer: the line, column, and character positions.
wordcount
Counts and reports on the status bar the number of lines, words, and characters in the current buffer (or in the marked region).
execute
Prompts for a program to execute. The program’s output will be inserted into the current buffer (or into a new buffer when M-F is toggled).
speller
Invokes a spell-checking program, either the default hunspell
or GNU spell
, or the one defined by --speller or
set speller
.
formatter
Invokes a full-buffer-processing program (if the active syntax defines one). (The current buffer is written out to a temporary file, the program is run on it, and then the temporary file is read back in, replacing the contents of the buffer.)
linter
Invokes a syntax-checking program (if the active syntax defines one). If this program produces lines of the form "filename:linenum:charnum: some message", then the cursor is put at the indicated position in the mentioned file while showing "some message" on the status bar. You can move from message to message with PgUp and PgDn, and leave linting mode with ^C or Enter.
justify
Justifies the current paragraph (or the marked region). A paragraph is a group of contiguous lines that, apart from possibly the first line, all have the same indentation. The beginning of a paragraph is detected by either this lone line with a differing indentation or by a preceding blank line.
fulljustify
Justifies the entire current buffer (or the marked region).
indent
Indents (shifts to the right) the current line or the marked lines.
unindent
Unindents (shifts to the left) the current line or the marked lines.
comment
Comments or uncomments the current line or the marked lines, using the comment style specified in the active syntax.
complete
Completes (when possible) the fragment before the cursor to a full word found elsewhere in the current buffer.
left
Goes left one position (in the editor or browser).
right
Goes right one position (in the editor or browser).
up
Goes one line up (in the editor or browser).
down
Goes one line down (in the editor or browser).
scrollup
Scrolls the viewport up one row (meaning that the text slides down) while keeping the cursor in the same text position, if possible. (This function is bound by default to Alt+Up. If Alt+Up does nothing on your Linux console, see the FAQ: https://nano-editor.org/dist/latest/faq.html#4.1.)
scrolldown
Scrolls the viewport down one row (meaning that the text slides up) while keeping the cursor in the same text position, if possible. (This function is bound by default to Alt+Down.)
center
Scrolls the line with the cursor to the middle of the viewport.
cycle
Scrolls the line with the cursor first to the middle of the viewport, then to the top, then to the bottom.
prevword
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous word.
nextword
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the next word.
home
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current line.
end
Moves the cursor to the end of the current line.
beginpara
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current paragraph.
endpara
Moves the cursor to the end of the current paragraph.
prevblock
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current or preceding block of text. (Blocks are separated by one or more blank lines.)
nextblock
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the next block of text.
toprow
Moves the cursor to the first row in the viewport.
bottomrow
Moves the cursor to the last row in the viewport.
pageup
Goes up one screenful.
pagedown
Goes down one screenful.
firstline
Goes to the first line of the file.
lastline
Goes to the last line of the file.
gotoline
Goes to a specific line (and column if specified). Negative numbers count from the end of the file (and end of the line).
findbracket
Moves the cursor to the bracket (or brace or parenthesis, etc.) that matches
(pairs) with the one under the cursor. See set matchbrackets
.
anchor
Places an anchor at the current line, or removes it when already present. (An anchor is visible when line numbers are activated.)
prevanchor
Goes to the first anchor before the current line.
nextanchor
Goes to the first anchor after the current line.
prevbuf
Switches to editing/viewing the previous buffer when multiple buffers are open.
nextbuf
Switches to editing/viewing the next buffer when multiple buffers are open.
verbatim
Inserts the next keystroke verbatim into the file, or begins Unicode input when a hexadecimal digit is typed (see Entering Text for details).
tab
Inserts a tab at the current cursor location.
enter
Inserts a new line below the current one.
delete
Deletes the character under the cursor.
backspace
Deletes the character before the cursor.
recordmacro
Starts the recording of keystrokes — the keystrokes are stored as a macro. When already recording, the recording is stopped.
runmacro
Replays the keystrokes of the last recorded macro.
undo
Undoes the last performed text action (add text, delete text, etc).
redo
Redoes the last undone action (i.e., it undoes an undo).
refresh
Refreshes the screen.
suspend
Suspends the editor and returns control to the shell (until you tell the process to resume execution with fg).
casesens
Toggles whether searching/replacing ignores or respects the case of the given characters.
regexp
Toggles whether searching/replacing uses literal strings or regular expressions.
backwards
Toggles whether searching/replacing goes forward or backward.
older
Retrieves the previous (earlier) entry at a prompt.
newer
Retrieves the next (later) entry at a prompt.
flipreplace
Toggles between searching for something and replacing something.
flipgoto
Toggles between searching for text and targeting a line number.
flipexecute
Switches from inserting a file to executing a command.
flippipe
When executing a command, toggles whether the current buffer (or marked region) is piped to the command.
flipnewbuffer
Toggles between inserting into the current buffer and into a new empty buffer.
flipconvert
When reading in a file, toggles between converting and not converting it from DOS/Mac format. Converting is the default.
dosformat
When writing a file, switches to writing a DOS format (CR/LF).
macformat
When writing a file, switches to writing a Mac format.
append
When writing a file, appends to the end instead of overwriting.
prepend
When writing a file, ’prepends’ (writes at the beginning) instead of overwriting.
backup
When writing a file, creates a backup of the current file.
discardbuffer
When about to write a file, discard the current buffer without saving. (This function is bound by default only when option --saveonexit is in effect.)
browser
Starts the file browser (in the Read File and Write Out menus), allowing to select a file from a list.
gotodir
Goes to a directory to be specified, allowing to browse anywhere in the filesystem.
firstfile
Goes to the first file in the list when using the file browser.
lastfile
Goes to the last file in the list when using the file browser.
nohelp
Toggles the presence of the two-line list of key bindings at the bottom of the screen. (This toggle is special: it is available in all menus except the help viewer and the linter. All further toggles are available in the main menu only.)
zero
Toggles the presence of title bar and status bar.
constantshow
Toggles the constant display of the current line, column, and character positions.
softwrap
Toggles the displaying of overlong lines on multiple screen lines.
linenumbers
Toggles the display of line numbers in front of the text.
whitespacedisplay
Toggles the showing of whitespace.
nosyntax
Toggles syntax highlighting.
smarthome
Toggles the smartness of the Home key.
autoindent
Toggles whether a newly created line will contain the same amount of leading whitespace as the preceding line — or as the next line if the preceding line is the beginning of a paragraph.
cutfromcursor
Toggles whether cutting text cuts the whole line or just from the current cursor position to the end of the line.
breaklonglines
Toggles whether the overlong part of a line is hard-wrapped to the next line.
tabstospaces
Toggles whether typed tabs are converted to spaces.
mouse
Toggles mouse support.
Valid names for menu
are:
main
The main editor window where text is entered and edited.
help
The help-viewer menu.
search
The search menu (AKA whereis).
replace
The ’search to replace’ menu.
replacewith
The ’replace with’ menu, which comes up after ’search to replace’.
yesno
The ’yesno’ menu, where the Yes/No/All/Cancel question is asked.
gotoline
The ’goto line (and column)’ menu.
writeout
The ’write file’ menu.
insert
The ’insert file’ menu.
browser
The ’file browser’ menu, for selecting a file to be opened or inserted or written to.
whereisfile
The ’search for a file’ menu in the file browser.
gotodir
The ’go to directory’ menu in the file browser.
execute
The menu for inserting the output from an external command, or for filtering the buffer (or the marked region) through an external command, or for executing one of several tools.
spell
The menu of the integrated spell checker where the user can edit a misspelled word.
linter
The linter menu, which allows jumping through the linting messages.
all
A special name that encompasses all menus. For bind
it means
all menus where the specified function
exists; for unbind
it means all menus where the specified key
exists.
nano
emulates Pico quite closely, but there
are some differences between the two editors:
Hard-Wrapping
Unlike Pico, nano
does not automatically hard-wrap the current
line when it becomes overlong during typing. This hard-wrapping can be
switched on with the --breaklonglines option. With that option,
nano
by default breaks lines at screen width minus eight columns,
whereas Pico does it at screen width minus six columns. You can make
nano
do as Pico by using --fill=-6.
Scrolling
By default, nano
scrolls just one line (instead of half
a screen) when the cursor is moved to a line that is just out of view.
And when paging up or down, nano
keeps the cursor in the same
screen position as much as possible, instead of always placing it on the
first line of the viewport. The Pico-like behavior can be obtained
with the --jumpyscrolling option.
Edit Area
Pico never uses the line directly below the title bar, leaving it always
blank. nano
includes this line in the editing area, in order
to not waste space, and because in this way it is slightly clearer where
the text starts. If you are accustomed to this line being empty, you can
get it back with the --emptyline option.
Interactive Replace
Instead of allowing you to replace either just one occurrence of a search
string or all of them, nano
’s replace function is interactive:
it pauses at each found search string and asks whether to replace this
instance. You can then choose Yes, or No (skip this one), or All (don’t
ask any more), or Cancel (stop with replacing).
Search and Replace History
When the option -H or --historylog is given (or set in a nanorc file), text entered as search or replace strings is stored. These strings can be accessed with the up/down arrow keys at their respective prompts, or you can type the first few characters and then use Tab to cycle through the matching strings. A retrieved string can subsequently be edited.
Position History
When the option -P or --positionlog is given (or set in
a nanorc file), nano
will store the position of the cursor
when you close a file, and will place the cursor in that position
again when you later reopen the file.
Current Cursor Position
The output of the "Display Cursor Position" command (^C) displays not only the current line and character position of the cursor, but also (between the two) the current column position.
Spell Checking
In the internal spell checker misspelled words are sorted alphabetically and trimmed for uniqueness, such that the strings ’Aplpe’ and ’aplpe’ will be offered for correction separately.
Writing Selected Text to Files
When using the Write-Out key (^O), text that has been selected using the marking key (^^) can not just be written out to a new (or existing) file, it can also be appended or prepended to an existing file.
Reading Text from a Command
When using the Read-File key (^R), nano
can not just read a file,
it can also read the output of a command to be run (^X).
Reading from Working Directory
By default, Pico reads files from the user’s home directory (when
using ^R), but it writes files to the current working directory
(when using ^O). nano
makes this symmetrical: always reading
from and writing to the current working directory — the directory
that nano
was started in.
File Browser
In the file browser, nano
does not implement the Add, Copy,
Rename, and Delete commands that Pico provides. In nano
the
browser is just a file browser, not a file manager.
Toggles
Many options which alter the functionality of the program can be "toggled" on or off using Meta key sequences, meaning the program does not have to be restarted to turn a particular feature on or off. See Feature Toggles for a list of options that can be toggled. Or see the list at the end of the main internal help text (^G) instead.
Building nano
from source is straightforward if you are
familiar with compiling programs with autoconf support:
tar -xf nano-x.y.tar.gz cd nano-x.y ./configure make make install
The possible options to ./configure
are:
--disable-browser
Exclude the file browser that can be called with ^T when wanting to read or write a file.
--disable-color
Exclude support for syntax coloring. This also eliminates the -Y command-line option, which allows choosing a specific syntax.
--disable-comment
Exclude the single-keystroke comment/uncomment function (M-3).
--disable-extra
Exclude the Easter egg: a crawl of major contributors.
--disable-formatter
Exclude the code for calling a formatting tool.
--disable-help
Exclude the help texts (^G). This makes the binary much smaller, but also makes it difficult for new users to learn more than very basic things about using the editor.
--disable-histories
Exclude the code for handling the history files: the search and replace strings that were used, the commands that were executed, and the cursor position at which each file was closed. This also eliminates the -H and -P command-line options, which switch on the storing of search/replace strings, executed commands, and cursor positions.
--disable-justify
Exclude the text-justification functions (^J and M-J).
--disable-libmagic
Exclude the code for using the library of magic-number tests (for determining the file type and thus which syntax to use for coloring — in most cases the regexes for filename and header line will be enough).
--disable-linenumbers
Exclude the ability to show line numbers. This also eliminates the -l command-line option, which turns line numbering on.
--disable-linter
Exclude the code for calling a linting tool.
--disable-mouse
Exclude all mouse functionality. This also eliminates the -m command-line option, which enables the mouse functionality.
--disable-multibuffer
Exclude support for opening multiple files at a time and switching between them. This also eliminates the -F command-line option, which causes a file to be read into a separate buffer by default.
--disable-nanorc
Exclude support for reading the nanorc files at startup. With such support, you can store custom settings in a system-wide and a per-user nanorc file rather than having to pass command-line options to get the desired behavior. See Nanorc Files for more info. Disabling this also eliminates the -I command-line option, which inhibits the reading of nanorc files.
--disable-operatingdir
Exclude the code for setting an operating directory. This also eliminates the -o command-line option, which sets the operating directory.
--disable-speller
Exclude the code for spell checking. This also eliminates the -s command-line option, which allows specifying an alternate spell checker.
--disable-tabcomp
Exclude tab completion (when nano asks for a filename or search string or replace string or command to execute).
--disable-wordcomp
Exclude word completion (^]).
--disable-wrapping
Exclude all hard-wrapping of overlong lines. This also eliminates the -b and -w command-line options, which switch automatic long-line wrapping on and off, respectively.
--enable-tiny
This option implies all of the above. It also disables some other internals of the editor, like the function toggles, the marking of text, the undo/redo code, line anchors, the recording and playback of a macro, softwrapping, and the cut-to-end-of-line code. These things stay disabled also when using the enabling counterpart of the above options together with --enable-tiny to switch specific features back on.
--enable-debug
Include some code for runtime debugging output. This can get messy, so chances are you only want this feature when you’re working on the nano source.
--disable-nls
Exclude Native Language support. This disables the use of any
available GNU nano
translations.
--enable-utf8
Include support for handling and displaying Unicode files. This requires a "wide" version of the curses library.
--disable-utf8
Exclude support for handling and displaying Unicode files. Normally the configure script auto-detects whether to enable UTF-8 support or not. You can use this or the previous option to override that detection.
--enable-altrcname=name
Use the file with the given name (in the user’s home directory)
as nano’s settings file, instead of the default .nanorc
.