Ask HN: Text Editor

1 points by minroot ↗ HN
I have been for the past few years looking for a perfect editor I can live with. Learned Vim, but can't edit Indian languages with it because of being in a terminal. Tried to use emacs, but everytime I install it I find it buggy in most basic things like undoing changes. Tried vscode, but my old laptop is not much equipped for it.

Once watched Russ Cox's screen cast on Acme, I kinda liked it.

I actually don't know exactly what are the things I wish to have in a text editor or program editor. I wish someone knew what I wanted and there were an editor where I could feel home.

I feel sad, one of the primary tool of programmers is in this shape. I'm not sure if it's just me feel this way.

I am looking for a better place, please send help.

7 comments

[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 33.2 ms ] thread
Emacs is your friend.
OP said they tried Emacs already multiple times and it doesn't work for them.

    M-x emacs-is-still-your-friend-anyway
> ...but can't edit Indian languages with it because of being in a terminal.

What do you mean exactly with "because of being in a terminal"?

I use Greek and I switch between English and Greek under my terminal and works just fine; the reason I switch from Greek back to English is so I can take advantage of the whole mapped keys I personally use.

Not sure if this is the issue, but what comes to mind is that some languages in south Asia write from right to left instead of left to right.
Try Emacs again with evil and undo-tree installed. Evil behaves like Vim to a high enough degree that you’ll be comfortable with it if you’re comfortable with Vim. And I haven’t had problems with undo.

If that doesn’t work, how about neovim-gtk or vanilla Neovim in a terminal emulator that’s capable of handling Indian languages?