Micro v1.0 – a terminal-based text editor written in Go

https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/releases/tag/v1.0

by speckz • 10 years ago

161 39 10 years ago

github.com

creshal• 10 years ago

Common keybindings (ctrl-s, ctrl-c, ctrl-v, ctrl-z...)

How do those not get blocked by terminal emulators?

frou_dh• 10 years ago

Presumably they respect that the running program has put the terminal into "raw mode"

e.g. with https://github.com/golang/crypto/blob/master/ssh/terminal/ut...

scrollaway2• 10 years ago

First reaction: Congrats, looks great!

Second reaction: Yet another, completely different syntax highlighting implementation/definition list... https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/tree/master/runtime/syntax

Couldn't pick any of the hundreds that already exist? :(

anilgulecha2• 10 years ago

Looks like these are just nanorc files. so reusing nano's definitions? The project name also checks out.

scrollaway2• 10 years ago

They look similar, but definitely not the same:

https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/blob/master/runtime/syntax...

https://github.com/nanorc/nanorc/blob/master/csharp.nanorc

Looks like they were s&r'd. Which kind of makes the case: why not just make it compatible with nanorc? (Or anything else really, just, something that doesn't create yet-another uncountable set of syntax highlighting files that has to be maintained to support just one more editor)

z3t4• 10 years ago

What is the best syntax highlighting implementation/definition format out there ?

adontz• 10 years ago

8.5Mb is a little too much for editor named micro. Whole DD-WRT/OpenWRT Linux Image is twice smaller.

anilgulecha2• 10 years ago

I think the name is a play on the other popular editor 'nano'.

JadeNB• 10 years ago

Allowing it a comfortable 1000-fold growth factor! :-)

throwaway0209• 10 years ago

The compressed binary is only ~2.6mb.... Whereas nano is only 141k on my system uncompressed.

bpizzi• 10 years ago

That's because Go hasn't been historically very good at keeping binaries small.

However things are starting to get better: https://blog.golang.org/go1.7-binary-size.

kseistrup2• 10 years ago

The binary is unstripped. Strip it, and it loses ~3 MB.

f2f2• 10 years ago

also statically linked, at least on osx.

falcolas• 10 years ago

Relative to: Atom, VS, Sublime Text, the mac Notes app, and modern hard drive sizes - it's pretty small.

No, it's not as small as Nano, but I have a hard time getting my hackles up over a single binary I can download in under a second.

Tloewald• 10 years ago

The Notes app executable is 2.4MB uncompressed and Notes handles a whole bunch of stuff this thing doesn't. Sublime is 12.5MB.

aruggirello• 10 years ago

For a comparison, my /usr/share/atom folder is >200Mb - just the main Atom executable alone is over 54Mb.

ChuckMcM2• 10 years ago

And kilo[1] is 28k but it doesn't have as many features. Also a "keyboard" vs "keystroke" editor, editors built before ginormous keyboards became ubiquitous use various keystrokes for commands, ones that came to exist in an assumed presence of a ginormous keyboard use special keys for commands. (example, if the only way to move the cursor up in your editor is the cursor up arrow key, you are a "keyboard" based editor. Not that either choice is better or worse just something I find an interesting distinction.

[1] https://github.com/antirez/kilo

SamReidHughes• 10 years ago

That's weird, I didn't know keyboards used to be smaller. I assumed they started with the space cadet and kept shrinking.

integrii• 10 years ago

Leave it to HN to complain about an 8Mb go binary.

mrcactu5• 10 years ago

just curious -- what motivated you to write a new text editor?

zyedidia3• 10 years ago

I know people for whom Vim was overwhelming to learn and they gave up or didn't use it properly. I'm trying to make an terminal-based editor which gives them as much as possible of the power of Vim or Emacs, while making it dead simple to learn and use.

ipstone2014• 10 years ago

It's AWESOME.

I have used emacs, vim, micro-emacs, sublime, notepad++, wscite, etc etc. This might not be so feature rich, but in my first try, this felt just right!

nickpsecurity• 10 years ago

This is great work. I hated the usability of both Vim and Emacs coming from a Windows background. I knew it could be more intuitive. You've definitely accomplished that. One problem I ran into is figuring out how to close current document but keep editor open. I didn't see it skimming help tutorial or help commands. In most editors, it's called "close" (with "quit" as separate option) or "new." I suggest adding that if the command doesn't exist or putting it in help near "save" and "quit" if it does exist.

rco8786• 10 years ago

Why does it seem like Go programmers need to include "in Go" on the tail end of product announcements?

mi100hael• 10 years ago

There's also already a reasonably-popular Go project called "Micro," though honestly both projects could have picked better names.

https://github.com/micro

zyedidia3• 10 years ago

Yes it's unfortunate that there is already a popular Go project called "micro." The name here is a play on "nano" editor and I had already started the project by the time I saw https://github.com/micro. Oh well, I still like the name.

f2f2• 10 years ago

because it targets a specific audience. people not interested in editors may look it up because they're interested in Go, and vice versa.

editors written in Rust also announce it proudly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8734307, so do many other projects.

lohankin• 10 years ago

They cracked some vulnerability in HN ranking algo. "Go" is a magic word

AYBABTME• 10 years ago

"in language X" tells me, "I'm comfortable hacking in language X, I'm happy with the idea of using a product written in something I can hack". A pretty good reason, I think.

exadeci• 10 years ago

Go is hype and people think that because it's done by google it's cool meanwhile people at Google are using more and more Rust they even made their own editor with it:

https://github.com/google/xi-editor

msluyter• 10 years ago

Any way to bind the mac command key (⌘)?

zyedidia3• 10 years ago

Unfortunately it is impossible to bind the mac command key because the terminal does not forward those key events to the applications (for example pressing Cmd-Q closes the terminal, not the app running in the terminal). See this issue: https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/issues/19.

sebastos• 10 years ago

This looks amazing. Finally an editor that will work for an ssh session, yet doesn't demand you learn a bunch of unnatural incantations that are completely contrary to all of your everyday muscle memory. And cross platform too. Win, win, win.

jhallenworld• 10 years ago

I've compared the performance of Micro with some other editors, see:

https://github.com/jhallen/joes-sandbox/tree/master/editor-p...

Micro v1.0 – a terminal-based text editor written in Go

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