> Fedora does not currently have a default terminal text editor, because > the $EDITOR environment variable is unset by default. But a common > scenario where users wind up in a terminal text editor is when using > 'git commit'. By default, git picks vi. You need to spend time > learning how to use it, for even basic editing tasks. It sounds reasonable to me to set a default value for $EDITOR. But I'm not all that sure if the default editor should be set to "nano". It's true that programmers who use these terminal editors can easily change $EDITOR and often do when settings system for the first-time. There are still Emacs users for example who do this. And it's also true that first-time users suddenly being face-to-face with Vim isn't going to be a pleasant end-user experience. I love to use Vim and it is my $EDITOR value. I also don't think it's all that complicated... for example to do basic editing you only need to know that Vim has two modes, "normal" and "interactive". In normal mode user gives commands by hitting colon and typing command. :w saves a file, :q exits Vim. Commands can be combined so for example :wq saves and quits existing buffer. Hitting <i> key switches to "interactive" mode aka. editing mode and <esc> key returns user back to "normal" mode. There you go, basics of using Vim explained in 10 seconds. It's true that where Vim stumbles is the first-time user experience and intuitiveness. Concept of modes isn't well known these days of because of GUIs. Vim also gives few visual glues as to what press and what to do after start-up. Knowing that user has to type colon ":" before any commands is absolutely required and it isn't all that well explained in the Vim initial screen. It basically says "type :help, :quit" and that's about it. But for example the given case where the git will default to Vim when doing a commit, it's likely user won't even see that little help. It's true that users can press <f1> key to get help but a lot of times users don't know this since use of <f1> for help has declined. Nano isn't necessarily easier editor by any means but at least it shows users some visual glues. But do users know that ^ character signifies "hold-ctrl-key-and-press-x-key"? It's true that it can be easier to discover but I've seen first-time users of nano (and first-time users to Linux) try nano and trying to type <^> key and when that has failed tried to do <shift>+<^>+something which also leads to failure and frustration. The default terminal editor preferably should use "ctrl+s" to save and not "ctrl+o" and it should say "ctrl+s" instead of "^o". To exit terminal editor, it should say "ctrl+q" and not "^x". While it's true that this is explained if user press <f1> key in Nano... if Vim is not easy enough, then we should assume that Nano isn't easy enough which means that we're probably dealing with new users coming from Microsoft Windows and they are the kind of people who would assume these kinds of keys. And setting default $EDITOR to "nano" is to first and foremost to serve their needs and make things easier for them. Who even are the target audience of Fedora? Are there any metrics about which editors are most used in Fedora? Fedora to me has primarily been developer's distribution. And Vim has constantly been the favourite editor among programmers. It would make more sense to me to do research on editors and then pick the most common editor user base of Fedora uses. So I will definitely support setting a default value for $EDITOR. But I'd do research to see what editor Fedora users actually use and most likely would like to be the default value. Meanwhile "nano" is a decent initial value. But it most likely isn't the optimal one for the people this change intends to assist. _______________________________________________ devel mailing list -- devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
