xclip VS micro-editor

I find it so annoying that these only work with plain text and RTF. On X11 there is `xclip`[0] and on Wayland there is `wl-clipboard`[1] both of which support binary file formats either through parsing the header or explicitly setting the MIME type.

This means you can do things like copy an image from the terminal and paste it into a graphical program like a browser or chat client and vice-versa. Also can be very useful in shell scripts for desktop automation.

The workaround on MacOS is to use AppleScript via `osascript` to `set the clipboard to...`.

[0] https://github.com/astrand/xclip

This reminds me of xclip.

I haven't used it in a while but xclip is a thing for X11 and you can create your own keyboard shortcuts and present a window with zenity or something.

This is apparently an issue with xclip, not Neovim: https://github.com/astrand/xclip/issues/38

Lately I've become a big fan of Micro. It's as portable as Nano. By default it uses the same shortcuts as typical desktop programs: Ctrl-S for save, Ctrl-Q for quit, Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V for copy/paste, etc. It integrates well with Linux desktops' clipboards by optionally using xclip. Just like Nano, it can have multiple files open for easy copy/pasting between files. But the best thing of all is that its scripting/plugin system is plain old Lua 5.1.

Requires: xclip

> How do you select text in your virtual terminal with the keyboard?

with xsel(1x) or xclip(1)

https://github.com/kfish/xsel

https://github.com/astrand/xclip

Micro editor (https://micro-editor.github.io/) works best for me but it's terminal-based.

Simple yet customizable? My thoughts go to Sublime Text if you want a GUI editor and closed-source is OK, or Micro if you want a TUI editor that is open source:

https://micro-editor.github.io/

Like OpenBox, most casual users can be dropped in and know their way around their interfaces, and both options are kinda lightweight compared to other modern options. There is power available for serious customization if you want (you can write plugins for them in Python and Lua, respectively).

Personally, both Vim and Emacs do not remind me much of OpenBox. I think i3wm is more a Vim, and I guess XMonad is the most Emacs-like window manager I've tried. (Arguably, EXWM is the only truly Emacs-like window manager...)

Love the look, definitely throwing me back to the halcyon QBasic days.

Another way to achieve an old school raster style green screen aesthetic is to combine cool-retro-term with the minimal editor "micro".

https://github.com/Swordfish90/cool-retro-term

https://github.com/zyedidia/micro

This is great! I used to install micro[0] as "nano with better shortcuts", but it was always a bit of an overkill, so I'm really happy with this change.

One quirk that remains: even with --modernbindings, Ctrl+X and Ctrl+C will add to nano's clipboard, instead of replacing whatever is there.

[0] https://micro-editor.github.io

To see more screenshots of micro, showcasing some of the default color schemes, see here.

Not sure these are really popular, but I cannot resist advertising a few utilities written in Go that I regularly use in my daily workflow:

- gdu: a NCDU clone, much faster on SSD mounts [1]

- duf: a `df` clone with a nicer interface [2]

- massren: a `vidir` clone (simpler to use but with fewer options) [3]

- gotop: a `top` clone [4]

- micro: a nice TUI editor [5]

Building this kind of tools in Go makes sense, as the executables are statically compiled and are thus easy to install on remote servers.

[1]: https://github.com/dundee/gdu

[2]: https://github.com/muesli/duf

[3]: https://github.com/laurent22/massren

[4]: https://github.com/xxxserxxx/gotop

[5]: https://github.com/zyedidia/micro

> The worst way to store and manipulate text is to use an array.

Claim made from theoretical considerations, without any actual reference to real-world editors. The popular Micro[1] text editor uses a simple line array[2], and performs fantastically well on real-world editing tasks.

Meanwhile, ropes are so complicated that even high-quality implementations have extremely subtle bugs[3] that can lead to state or content corruption.

Which data structure is "best" is not just a function of its asymptotic performance. Practical considerations are equally important (arguably more so).

[1] https://github.com/zyedidia/micro

[2] https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/blob/master/internal/buffe...

[3] https://github.com/cessen/ropey/pull/67