evidence: nano(1) is better than Emacs

evidence: nano(1) is better than Emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

When I did my daily routine the other day - hacking
hq.af.mil and such - I made an interesting discovery:
and I have a screenshot to prove it!

nano(1) is actually better than Emacs at displaying:

    /etc/apt/sources.list

Here is the screenshot [1].

nano is a text editor that many people begin to use
when they enter the Unix or Linux world. At that
point, gedit doesn't do anything (besides it reminds
you of notepad), Emacs is too vast, Vim doesn't make
any sense whatsoever (especially not when you still
use the non-US keyboard layout), and Eclipse is -
well, part of the reason why those people were exiled
to the Unix world to begin with.

Then, after a year or so, people move on to get more
power. nano leads to Emacs, just as karate leads to
muay Thai, and smoking pot leads to carpentry.

So we can absolutely not be content with being
inferior to nano in any way!

Question: Does anyone know of a package to get that
sweet look? If not, this is an excellent project for
any bunch of school kids - be it in kindergarten or
Ph.D. Computer Science!

[1] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/dumps/nano_emacs.png

-- 
underground experts united

Re: evidence: nano(1) is better than Emacs

[Bob Proulx]

Emanuel Berg wrote:
> Question: Does anyone know of a package to get that
> sweet look?

Install debian-el and it will include apt-sources mode.  It has syntax
highlighting and other mode specific keybindinds for editing various
Debian files.

  $ apt-cache show debian-el

  Description-en: Emacs helpers specific to Debian users
   This package contains:
   .
    apt-sources - major mode for editing Debian sources.list files;
    apt-utils - interface to APT (Debian package management);
    debian-bug - an Emacs command to submit a bug report;
    deb-view - view contents of Debian package, similarly to tar-mode;
    gnus-BTS - provides buttons for bug numbers seen in Gnus messages;
    preseed - major mode for editing debian-installer preseed files.
   .
   See /usr/share/doc/debian-el/README.Debian for a short description of
   all files, or the Info node `debian-el' for details.

Here are the various related packages in the emacs-goodies-el source.

  https://packages.debian.org/source/sid/emacs-goodies-el

Bob

Re: evidence: nano(1) is better than Emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com> writes:

>> Question: Does anyone know of a package to get that
>> sweet look?
>
> Install debian-el and it will include apt-sources
> mode.

Here is a screenshot that proves Proulx is right:

    http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/dumps/emacs_nano_debial_el.png

But... doesn't nano still look the best?

-- 
underground experts united

Re: evidence: nano(1) is better than Emacs

[H. Dieter Wilhelm]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com> writes:
>
>>> Question: Does anyone know of a package to get that
>>> sweet look?
>>
>> Install debian-el and it will include apt-sources
>> mode.
>
> Here is a screenshot that proves Proulx is right:
>
>     http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/dumps/emacs_nano_debial_el.png
>
> But... doesn't nano still look the best?

Of course ... *not*! ;-)

-- 
Best wishes
H. Dieter Wilhelm
Darmstadt, Germany

Re: evidence: nano(1) is *NOT* better than Emacs

[Dan Espen]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com> writes:
>
>>> Question: Does anyone know of a package to get that
>>> sweet look?
>>
>> Install debian-el and it will include apt-sources
>> mode.
>
> Here is a screenshot that proves Proulx is right:
>
>     http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/dumps/emacs_nano_debial_el.png
>
> But... doesn't nano still look the best?

If you like the brighter higher contrast colors,
I'd agree Nano looks better.

The colors are easily fixed.

If you don't like 2 lines of your screen being taken up
by a display of shortcuts, Nano looses.

-- 
Dan Espen

Re: evidence: nano(1) is better than Emacs

[Bob Proulx]

Emanuel Berg wrote:
>     http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/dumps/emacs_nano_debial_el.png
> 
> But... doesn't nano still look the best?

At that point it is simply bike shedding the choice of chosen colors
for the color theme.  Since everyone has a different idea of what
color themes are best there isn't any objective score available.  It
is purely subjective of what colors do you like better.  If you want
to change the colors in emacs to the same ones used in nano then that
would make them identical.  How can one rate looks?  Beauty is in the
eye of the beholder.  You might as well be trying to rate which
Jackson Pollock (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Pollock)
painting looks better than another.  It is all a matter of personal
taste.

The mode help (C-h m) says:

   - Comments are displayed in `font-lock-comment-face';
   - Strings are displayed in `font-lock-string-face';
   - Certain other expressions are displayed in other faces according to
     the value of the variable `font-lock-keywords'.

  To customize the faces (colors, fonts, etc.) used by Font Lock for
  fontifying different parts of buffer text, use M-x customize-face.

Bob

Re: evidence: nano(1) is *NOT* better than Emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:

> If you like the brighter higher contrast colors, I'd
> agree Nano looks better.
>
> The colors are easily fixed.

Yes, I know you can change the colors in Emacs :)

> If you don't like 2 lines of your screen being taken
> up by a display of shortcuts, Nano looses.

Unfortunately not.

Just because you can configure things in Emacs and
spend a lifetime doing so doesn't mean other editors
are completely unconfigurable. Try this:

    nano --nohelp --morespace

Damn! nano wins again!

-- 
underground experts united

Re: evidence: nano(1) is better than Emacs

[saint]

Emanuel Berg writes:
 > Here is a screenshot that proves Proulx is right:
 > 
 >     http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/dumps/emacs_nano_debial_el.png
 > 
 > But... doesn't nano still look the best?

Can you change the colors in nano?

-- 
 /\           ___                                    Ubuntu: ancient
/___/\_|_|\_|__|___Gian Uberto Lauri_____               African word
  //--\| | \|  |   Integralista GNUslamico            meaning "I can
\/                 coltivatore diretto di software       not install
     già sistemista a tempo (altrui) perso...                Debian"

Warning: gnome-config-daemon considered more dangerous than GOTO

Re: evidence: nano(1) is *NOT* better than Emacs

[Dan Espen]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:
>
>> If you like the brighter higher contrast colors, I'd
>> agree Nano looks better.
>>
>> The colors are easily fixed.
>
> Yes, I know you can change the colors in Emacs :)
>
>> If you don't like 2 lines of your screen being taken
>> up by a display of shortcuts, Nano looses.
>
> Unfortunately not.
>
> Just because you can configure things in Emacs and
> spend a lifetime doing so doesn't mean other editors
> are completely unconfigurable. Try this:
>
>     nano --nohelp --morespace
>
> Damn! nano wins again!

Pardon my saying so, but that's ridiculous.

In the case of Emacs, you rule out any changes.
Then you make changes to Nano and claim victory.

-- 
Dan Espen

Re: evidence: nano(1) is better than Emacs

[Yuri Khan]

On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 1:37 PM,  <saint@eng.it> wrote:

> Can you change the colors in nano?

Can. But it lacks indirection layers.

=== /usr/share/nano/debian.nanorc ===
syntax "apt/sources.list" "sources\.list(\.old|~)?$"
# component
color brightmagenta "^deb(-src)? ((http|file|ftp):/[^
]+|cdrom:\[[^\]]+\]/|cdrom:\[[-a-zA-Z0-9\._\(\) ]+\]/) [^ ]+ .+$"
# distribution
color brightred "^deb(-src)? ((http|file|ftp):/[^
]+|cdrom:\[[^\]]+\]/|cdrom:\[[-a-zA-Z0-9\._\(\) ]+\]/) [^ ]+"
# URI
color brightgreen "(http|file|ftp):/[^ ]+"
[…]
===

So one does not simply change one face and get e.g. all keywords
recolored; instead, one has to copy all the relevant configs and edit
them for each language.

Re: evidence: nano(1) is better than Emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Yuri Khan <yuri.v.khan@gmail.com> writes:

> On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 1:37 PM, <saint@eng.it> wrote:
>
>> Can you change the colors in nano?
>
> Can. But it lacks indirection layers. ...
>
> So one does not simply change one face and get e.g.
> all keywords recolored; instead, one has to copy all
> the relevant configs and edit them for each
> language.

You can also change the color in the terminal below
nano. That is possible in the Linux VT (console, ttys)
but also in X terminals, e.g., xterm, urxvt, and so
on.

I have a page that describes - or shows I should say -
how to do it:

http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/cols/www/index.html

Go nuts :)

-- 
underground experts united

Re: evidence: nano(1) is *NOT* better than Emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:

> Pardon my saying so, but that's ridiculous.
>
> In the case of Emacs, you rule out any changes. Then
> you make changes to Nano and claim victory.

With configuration, all bets are of. We can have a
competition - who can make Emacs look the best, and
who can make nano look the best? That'd be interesting
but the judges' call would be disputed I think even if
unanimous (which is remote).

Without configuration, as it shows in the screenshot I
posted, I think nano looks the best with respect to
the syntax highlighting.

So I'm sorry, nano ownz you. It is the 1337 stuff.
Deal with it.

And... check out:

http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/emacs.html

Kind of creative Emacs use especially for a guy who
rules out changes to Emacs? :)

-- 
underground experts united