README
1
2 GNU nano -- a simple editor, inspired by Pico
3
4Overview
5
6 The nano project was started because of a few "problems" with the
7 wonderfully easy-to-use and friendly Pico text editor.
8
9 First and foremost was its license: the Pine suite does not use
10 the GPL, and (before using the Apache License) it had unclear
11 restrictions on redistribution. Because of this, Pine and Pico
12 were not included in many GNU/Linux distributions. Furthermore,
13 some features (like go-to-line-number or search-and-replace) were
14 unavailable for a long time or require a command-line flag. Yuck.
15
16 Nano aimed to solve these problems by: 1) being truly free software
17 by using the GPL, 2) emulating the functionality of Pico as closely
18 as is reasonable, and 3) including extra functionality by default.
19
20 Nowadays, nano wants to be a generally useful editor with sensible
21 defaults (linewise scrolling, no automatic line breaking).
22
23 The nano editor is an official GNU package. For more information on
24 GNU and the Free Software Foundation, please see https://www.gnu.org/.
25
26How to compile and install nano
27
28 Download the latest nano source tarball, then:
29
30 tar -xvf nano-x.y.tar.gz
31 cd nano-x.y
32 ./configure
33 make
34 make install
35
36 It's that simple. Use --prefix with configure to override the
37 default installation directory of /usr/local.
38
39 If you haven't configured with the --disable-nanorc option, after
40 installation you may want to copy the doc/sample.nanorc file to
41 your home directory, rename it to ".nanorc", and then edit it
42 according to your taste.
43
44Web Page
45
46 https://nano-editor.org/
47
48Mailing Lists
49
50 There are three nano-related mailing-lists.
51
52 + info-nano@gnu.org is a very low traffic list used to announce
53 new nano versions or other important info about the project.
54 + help-nano@gnu.org is for those seeking to get help without
55 wanting to hear about the technical details of its development.
56 + nano-devel@gnu.org is the list used by the people that make nano
57 and a general development discussion list, with moderate traffic.
58
59 To subscribe, send email to <name>-request@gnu.org with a subject
60 of "subscribe", where <name> is the list you want to subscribe to.
61
62Bug Reports
63
64 To report a bug, please file a description of the problem on nano's
65 bug tracker (https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=nano -- hover on
66 "Bugs", then click "Submit new"). The issue may have already been
67 reported, so please look first.
68
69Current Status
70
71 Since version 2.5.0, GNU nano has abandoned the distinction between
72 a stable and a development branch: it is now on a "rolling" release
73 -- fixing bugs and adding new features go hand in hand.
74
75Copyright Years
76
77 When in any file of this package a copyright notice mentions a
78 year range (such as 1999-2011), it is a shorthand for a list of
79 all the years in that interval.
80
README.GIT
1INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMPILING AND INSTALLING NANO FROM GIT
2=======================================================
3
4The latest changes and fixes for GNU nano are available via git, but
5building this needs a bit more care than the official tarballs.
6
7
8Prerequisites
9-------------
10
11To successfully compile GNU nano from git, you'll need the following
12packages:
13
14- autoconf (version >= 2.69)
15- automake (version >= 1.14)
16- autopoint (version >= 0.18.3)
17- gcc (version >= 5.0)
18- gettext (version >= 0.18.3)
19- git (version >= 2.7.4)
20- groff (version >= 1.12)
21- make (any version)
22- pkg-config (version >= 0.22)
23- texinfo (version >= 4.0)
24
25If you want UTF-8 support, you will also need libncursesw5-dev installed
26(version >= 5.7), or libslang2-dev (version >= 2.0) if you use --with-slang.
27
28These should all be available in your distro's package manager or software
29center, or otherwise on any GNU mirror.
30
31
32Download the source
33-------------------
34
35To obtain the current nano development branch (called 'master'), use the
36following command. It will create in your current working directory a
37subdirectory called 'nano' containing a copy of all of the files:
38
39 $ git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/nano.git nano
40
41
42Generate the configure script
43-----------------------------
44
45Once you have the sources in the "nano" directory,
46
47 $ cd nano
48 $ ./autogen.sh
49
50This will set up a configure script and a Makefile.in file.
51
52
53Configure your build
54--------------------
55
56To configure your build, run the configure script from the nano source
57directory:
58
59 $ ./configure [--add-options-here]
60
61
62Build and install
63-----------------
64
65From the nano source directory, build the code with:
66
67 $ make
68
69Then, once it's done compiling, run:
70
71 $ make install
72
73which should copy various files (i.e. the nano executable, the info and
74man pages, and syntax highlighting pattern files) to their appropriate
75directories.
76
77If you're installing into the default install directory (/usr/local),
78you'll need to run that "make install" command with root privileges.
79
80
81Problems?
82---------
83
84Please submit any bugs you find in the code in git via the bug tracker
85on Savannah (https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=nano).
86
87
88Contributing something
89----------------------
90
91If you have a fix for a bug, or the code for a new or improved feature,
92first create a branch off of master:
93
94 $ git checkout -b somename
95
96Then change the code so it does what you want, and commit it together
97with your Sign-off:
98
99 $ git commit -as
100
101In the commit message (after the one-line summary) give a rationale
102for the change. With your Signed-off-by you declare that the code is
103yours, or that you are free to reuse it, and that you submit it under
104the license that covers nano. Then create a patch (or patches):
105
106 $ git format-patch master
107
108Send that patch (or patches) to <nano-devel@gnu.org>, as an attachment
109or with git send-email.
110
111To keep most lines of nano's source code within a width of 80 characters,
112a tab size of four should be used. So in your nanorc file you may want
113to include 'set tabsize 4', or you could use -T4 on the command line.
114To make git display things as intended, you can do:
115
116 $ git config --local core.pager "less -x1,5"
117