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Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 13:22:41 -0400
From: Charles Wilson <cwilson AT ece DOT gatech DOT edu>
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To: Michael Ring <m DOT ring AT ndh DOT net>
CC: cygwin-apps AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com, Chris Faylor <cgf AT cygnus DOT com>
Subject: Re: RFD: Include an easy editor in the cygwin-standard-distribution
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> If it must be vim we could use Chuck Wilson's version because it is
> very independant of other packages; I would personally prefer the full
> version with gnome support but that can always be distributed as an
> addon to cygwin.
>

I was planning to include 'vim' in the group of packages I'm recompiling
for 'official distribution' in latest/extras/ (or latest/../extras/ or
wherever). However, my version of vim is not totally independent; you
still need ncurses and terminfo, which is huge.

I think vim should be available -- perhaps in the official download site
but not downloaded by default since it's such a big package. I think a
small and easy-to-use editor should be included in the default cygwin
download set -- perhaps 'pico' from the pine suite -- built using
termcap and not terminfo, and without pine-mail integration? 

Actually, I've got a better idea than pico -- 'nano' is "just like pico"
but much much smaller. Here's a note from the author: "Note that the
primary aim of nano is to emulate Pico while adding a few key "missing"
features. I do NOT want just a GPL'ed Pico clone, nor do I want
something that strays too far from the Pico design (simple and
straightforward)."

A quick build of nano on my system links to curses, but I think if
curses is not present then nano will use termcap. If not, then at
minimum a 'nano' or 'tiny-vim' distribution can be built statically
linked to ncurses, and include only /usr/share/terminfo/l/linux,
.../c/cygwin, and .../r/rxvt.

http://www.asty.org/nano/

ADVANTAGES:

GNU autoconf support. 
Truly free license (GNU GPL). 
Growing internationalization (i18n) support. 
Goto-line # available (no command-line flag needed). 
Interactive search and replace. 
Autoindent support. 
1/2 - 1/8 size of Pico binary (ideal for rescue disks). 
Slang curses-wrapper support (again, good for rescue disks). 
Stand alone distribution, not a part of a larger package. 

DISADS:
Code is not nearly as stable/mature as Pico (crashes still occur
occasionally). 
No integration into mailer programs (this is also an advantage,
however). 
No integrated spell function like Pico has (yet, nano invokes ispell). 
If you like reading through 1000 makefiles to find the right one for
your system, you're out of luck with nano.

--Chuck