Fresh has everything I want in a text editor.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
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ZDNET Highlights
- Fresh is a new version of Simple Text Editor.
- The latest one is the one with Nano Mouse support.
- Fresh is free to use on Linux and macOS.
I have been a regular user of Nano text editor since its release.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of vi or emacs. (Sacrilege, I know.)
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I’ve always found the Nano text editor to be incredibly simple to use; It doesn’t get in my way, and it allows me to create or edit text files with very little complexity. And because I’m not a serious developer, I don’t need the extra features found in vi and emacs.
Still, there are some things about the Nano that could be improved.
Oh, okay – they to pass This has been improved thanks to a new tool called fresh,
A text-based editor with GUI-like options
The tagline for Fresh is, “A terminal text editor you can just use,” and it’s absolutely spot on. Where the Nano relies entirely on the keyboard, Fresh opts to add mouse support and more common keyboard shortcuts (like Ctrl+C for copy and Ctrl+V for paste) for everyday tasks like cut and paste.
Fresh is the best of both worlds: a text-based editor with GUI-like options. I am ready for it.
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Fresh has a menu system that you can access with your mouse, and it also has a built-in file manager.
One of my favorite features in Fresh is the ability to click anywhere in the file (which can be up to 10 GB in size), and the cursor automatically positions itself there. In the Nano, I have to use the keyboard arrow keys or page up/down keys to navigate to where I want to place the cursor. In large files, this may take time.
Fresh also offers a short list of themes to choose from (dark, light, high-contrast, and nostalgia), and you can even set a custom background image. The only caveat to setting the background is that it is done in the scripts/landscape-wide.txt file, which is not created by default.
And that’s the purpose of Fresh – to make using text editors on Linux simpler and more efficient.
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I never thought I’d find a text editor to replace Nano, but Fresh is hard to deny.
And if you’re thinking this is nothing more than a terminal app for beginners, think again. Fresh also includes support for:
- Ability to manipulate buffers, splits, and text
- Process spawning and file system access
- Virtual Buffers and Overlays
- custom keybinding mode
- Go to definition/reference
- Inline Diagnostics and Quick Solutions
- horizontal and vertical division
- project switching
fresh install
Installing Fresh is quite easy and free – you just need to know where to find the correct files. You will find the installer here latest download pageBut you have to expand the list to see .deb files.
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For example, if you download the .deb file, you can install Fresh with:
sudo dpkg -i fresh-editor*.deb
If you download the .rpm, the command will be:
sudo rpm -i fresh-editor*.rpm
You can also install with Flatpak or use AppImage.
To install via Flatpak, download the .flatpak file and issue the command:
install flatpak fresh-editor*.flatpak
Alternatively, you can download and run the installer script, which will perform a fresh install on your current distribution.
Curl | sh
Nano also for MacOS
For macOS, you must have homebrew Installed, after which you can do a fresh install with:
brew tap cinelaw/fresh && brew install fresh-editor
Trust me when I tell you that Fresh is an excellent terminal-based text editor. This is exactly the Nano replacement I was looking for, and I’m sure any Nano user will feel the same way.
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If you like the idea of ​​a terminal-based text editor with a little more gusto, give Fresh a try and see if it doesn’t become your new choice.
