NC State Computing Center

Editors in Unity/Unix

There are several editors that are available under Unity; two of the more popular ones for line mode (dial-in or telnet) users are Pico and vi. For users with access to a Unix workstation, you have X editors available, such as Crisp and NEdit. We will discuss the Pico editor for line mode (telnet) users and NEdit for users on an X-Window system.

Pico

Pico is a very easy to use editor that is available on Unity and is recommended for new users. To invoke the editor you enter pico followed by a filename. This filename can be a new file (one that doesn't exist) or an already created file that you wish to edit.

For this exercise, we need to create two files, test1 and file2_test; both files will be in created within our home directory. 

	unity% pico test1 [return]
You get the following on your screen: 

	PICO 1.7 File: test1
	__ 
	
	
	
	
	
	[ New file ]
	^G Get Help ^O WriteOut ^R Read File^Y Prev Pg ^K Del Line ^C Cur Pos
	^X Exit ^J Justify ^W Where is ^V Next Pg ^U UnDel Lin^T To Spell
Your cursor is on the first line and you can begin entering text. Enter a couple of sentences in your file. Notice that Pico will word wrap for you when you get to the end of the line. A command line at the bottom of your screen shows the available commands, which are executed by holding down your CTRL key and pressing the appropriate letter corresponding to the command you wish to invoke.

To exit out of Pico, hold down your CTRL key and press the letter X. You are prompted:

	Modified buffer: Save before leaving (y/n)? y
	File Name to Write: test1[return]
Enter y to save the modified buffer. Now you see

	Modified buffer: Save before leaving (y/n)? y[return]
	File Name to write : test1 [return]

Enter "y" to save the modified buffer and [return] to accept the name (test1). You are now back at your unity prompt.

Create another file, in the same manner, and name it file2_test. Have it contain a couple of sentences.

Go on to next section, More on files and directories

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