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Portal/IDB/icon-wiki-portal.png
Debian Wiki Text Editor portal - This portal covers all aspects of viewing, editing and creating text content on Debian.
Contents
Applications
aptitude search "?tag(use::editing)" aptitude search "?tag(works-with::software:source)"
Console
Text editors that can be used in a command line interface environment.
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/nano
nano - small, friendly text editor inspired by Pico
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/vim
vim - A full-featured extensible editor with syntax highlighting
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/emacs-nox
emacs - the extensible self-documenting text editor( high learning curve)
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/hx
hx - Helix offers everything needed to edit source code without additional plugins, syntax highlighting, multiple cursors.
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/mc
mc - Midnight Commander provides an internal text editor (mc -e,mcedit)
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/edlin
edlin - Standard line editor (edlin)
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/kilo
kilo - Small text editor (kilo)
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/chr
chr - terminal-based text editor (chr)
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/far2l
far2l - Linux port of FAR v2 (far2ledit)
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/jed
jed - editor for programmers (textmode version)
jupp/joe/joe-jupp - user friendly full screen text editor with keybindings/modes, hex editor, syntax highlighting, search/replace, regex, macros and status lines.
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/ne
ne - easy-to-use and powerful text editor
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/dte
dte - small and easy to use console text editor
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/micro
micro - easy and mouse-friendly console text editor
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/neovim
neovim - A full-featured extensible editor with syntax highlighting (Vim-clone with new features)
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/e3
e3 - very small text editor supporting many key bindings (Emacs, Vi, Pico, Nedit, Wordstar)
Graphical
Text editors that can be used in a graphical environment.
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/gedit
gedit - Default text editor of Gnome desktop environment. Aiming at simplicity by default, can be configured as full fledged integrated development environment through various plugins provided by gedit-plugins package.
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/geany
geany - Advanced text editor with basic features of integrated development environment and has only few dependencies on other packages.
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/scite
scite - A GTK+ based programmers editor, uses Scintilla editing component.
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/kwrite
kwrite - Default text editor of KDE Software compilation, provides syntax highlighting and ability to export documents to PDF, HTML, PostScript among other features.
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/kate
kate - Acronym for KDE Advanced Text Editor, can be turned to full featured integrated development environment, providing extendable (via XML) syntax highlighting, session management and other features.
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/mousepad
mousepad - Default editor of Xfce desktop environment, intended to be, simple, fast and easy to use.
GUI version of vim, provided by packages vim-gtk3, vim-gtk, vim-athena.
Emacs - The default Emacs package includes an interface for X11. emacs, emacs-gtk, emacs-lucid
https://screenshots.debian.net/package/jedit
jedit - very powerful/flexible (like emacs) and also easy to use (like notepad). Has many plugins for specialized needs.
How to set a default text editor
See also: DesktopDefaultSettings
For administrator
You can set a text editor as default with the update-alternatives command:
update-alternatives --set editor /path/to/the/chosen/editor
or
update-alternatives --config editor
and to see the list of possible paths:
update-alternatives --list editor
Then, just use the editor command instead of vim, emacs or nano for example.
For users
You have to set the environment variable "$EDITOR".
E.g.: to use Emacs as default text editor, just add in your ~/.profile file:
export EDITOR=emacs