{{indexmenu>:computing:department:unix}} ====== Text File Editing ====== Several editors are available, including vi, emacs, XEmacs, nedit, and pico. If you are using an X-windows (graphics) terminal, We recommend two editors: NEdit and XEmacs. NEdit is probably the simplist one to start with. To edit a text file, type the name of the editor you want followed by the name of the file. For example: nedit letter.txt If the file is found in the current directory, the editor will open it for editing, otherwise it will create a new file. * [[http://www.nedit.org/|Nedit home page and documentation]] For more advanced users, xemacs is a powerful editor with many features, such as special formatting of programming languages. * [[http://www.xemacs.org/|XEmacs home page and documentation ]] Users who are used to the traditional Unix editor vi may like to try an enhanced version, vim (or gvim for the graphical version). ===== Setting a default editor ===== You can set the default editor for your account by setting the environment variable EDITOR. For most users, the correct way to do this is to add the line (for example): setenv EDITOR nedit in your accounts .cshrc file. After this takes effect, other programs which invoke editors (for example, when composing a mail message in mutt) will use your preferred editor rather than the default vi.