pico(1) | General Commands Manual | pico(1) |
pico - simple text editor in the style of the Alpine Composer
pico [ options ] [ file ]
Pico is a simple, display-oriented text editor based on the Alpine message system composer. As with Alpine, commands are displayed at the bottom of the screen, and context-sensitive help is provided. As characters are typed they are immediately inserted into the text.
Editing commands are entered using control-key combinations. As a work-around for communications programs that swallow certain control characters, you can emulate a control key by pressing ESCAPE twice, followed by the desired control character, e.g. "ESC ESC c" would be equivalent to entering a ctrl-c. The editor has five basic features: paragraph justification, searching, block cut/paste, a spelling checker, and a file browser.
Paragraph justification (or filling) takes place in the paragraph that contains the cursor, or, if the cursor is between lines, in the paragraph immediately below. Paragraphs are delimited by blank lines, or by lines beginning with a space or tab. Unjustification can be done immediately after justification using the control-U key combination.
String searches are not sensitive to case. A search begins at the current cursor position and wraps around the end of the text. The most recent search string is offered as the default in subsequent searches.
Blocks of text can be moved, copied or deleted with creative use of the command for mark (ctrl-^), delete (ctrl-k) and undelete (ctrl-u). The delete command will remove text between the "mark" and the current cursor position, and place it in the "cut" buffer. The undelete command effects a "paste" at the current cursor position.
The spell checker examines all words in the text. It then offers, in turn, each misspelled word for correction while highlighting it in the text. Spell checking can be cancelled at any time. Alternatively, pico will substitute for the default spell checking routine a routine defined by the SPELL environment variable. The replacement routine should read standard input and write standard output.
The file browser is offered as an option in the "Read File" and "Write Out" command prompts. It is intended to help in searching for specific files and navigating directory hierarchies. Filenames with sizes and names of directories in the current working directory are presented for selection. The current working directory is displayed on the top line of the display while the list of available commands takes up the bottom two. Several basic file manipulation functions are supported: file renaming, copying, and deletion.
More specific help is available in pico's online help.
Lastly, when a running pico is disconnected (i.e., receives a SIGHUP), pico will save the current work if needed before exiting. Work is saved under the current filename with ".save" appended. If the current work is unnamed, it is saved under the filename "pico.save".
If your terminal supports colors, Pico can be configured to color text. Users can configure the color of the text, the text in the key menu, the titlebar, messages and prompt in the status line. As an added feature Pico can also be used to configure the color of up to three different levels of quoted text, and the signature of an email message. This is useful when Pico is used as a tool (with the -t command line switch.)
Pico can tell you the number of colors that your terminal supports, when started with the switch -color_codes. In addition Pico will print a table showing the numerical code of every color supported in that terminal. In order to configure colors, one must use these numerical codes. For example, 0 is for black, so in order to configure a black color, one must use its code, the number 0.
In order to activate colors, one must use the option -ncolors with a numerical value indicating the number of colors that your terminal supports, for example, -ncolors 256 indicates that the user wishes to use a table of 256 colors.
All options that control color, are four letter options. Their last two letters are either "fc" or "bc", indicating foreground color and bacground color, respectively. The first two letters indicate the type of text that is being configured, for example "nt" stands for normal text, so that -ntfc represents the color of the normal text, while -ntbc represents the color of the background of normal text. Here is a complete list of the color options supported by Pico.
The manner in which lines longer than the display width are dealt is not immediately obvious. Lines that continue beyond the edge of the display are indicated by a '$' character at the end of the line. Long lines are scrolled horizontally as the cursor moves through them.
pico.save Unnamed interrupted work saved here. *.save Interrupted work on a named file is saved here.
Michael Seibel <mikes@cac.washington.edu>
Laurence Lundblade <lgl@cac.washington.edu>
Pico was originally derived from MicroEmacs 3.6, by Dave G. Conroy.
Copyright 1989-2008 by the University of Washington.
alpine(1)
Source distribution (part of the Alpine Message System):
$Date: 2009-02-02 13:54:23 -0600 (Mon, 02 Feb 2009) $
Version 5.08 |