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pico(1) General Commands Manual pico(1)
Name
pico - simple text editor in the style of the Alpine Composer
Syntax
pico [ options ] [ file ]
Description
Pico is a simple, display-oriented text editor based on the Alpine message system com-
poser. As with Alpine, commands are displayed at the bottom of the screen, and context-
sensitive help is provided. As characters are typed they are immediately inserted into
the text.
Editing commands are entered using control-key combinations. As a work-around for commu-
nications programs that swallow certain control characters, you can emulate a control key
by pressing ESCAPE twice, followed by the desired control character, e.g. "ESC ESC c"
would be equivalent to entering a ctrl-c. The editor has five basic features: paragraph
justification, searching, block cut/paste, a spelling checker, and a file browser.
Paragraph justification (or filling) takes place in the paragraph that contains the cur-
sor, or, if the cursor is between lines, in the paragraph immediately below. Paragraphs
are delimited by blank lines, or by lines beginning with a space or tab. Unjustification
can be done immediately after justification using the control-U key combination.
String searches are not sensitive to case. A search begins at the current cursor position
and wraps around the end of the text. The most recent search string is offered as the
default in subsequent searches.
Blocks of text can be moved, copied or deleted with creative use of the command for mark
(ctrl-^), delete (ctrl-k) and undelete (ctrl-u). The delete command will remove text
between the "mark" and the current cursor position, and place it in the "cut" buffer. The
undelete command effects a "paste" at the current cursor position.
The spell checker examines all words in the text. It then offers, in turn, each mis-
spelled word for correction while highlighting it in the text. Spell checking can be can-
celled at any time. Alternatively, pico will substitute for the default spell checking
routine a routine defined by the SPELL environment variable. The replacement routine
should read standard input and write standard output.
The file browser is offered as an option in the "Read File" and "Write Out" command
prompts. It is intended to help in searching for specific files and navigating directory
hierarchies. Filenames with sizes and names of directories in the current working direc-
tory are presented for selection. The current working directory is displayed on the top
line of the display while the list of available commands takes up the bottom two. Several
basic file manipulation functions are supported: file renaming, copying, and deletion.
More specific help is available in pico's online help.
Options
+n Causes pico to be started with the cursor located n lines into the file. (Note: no
space between "+" sign and number)
-a Display all files including those beginning with a period (.).
-b Enable the option to Replace text matches found using the "Where is" command. This
now does nothing. Instead, the option is always turned on (as if the -b flag had
been specified).
-d Rebind the "delete" key so the character the cursor is on is rubbed out rather than
the character to its left.
-e Enable file name completion.
-f Use function keys for commands. This option supported only in conjunction with UW
Enhanced NCSA telnet.
-h List valid command line options.
-j Enable "Goto" command in the file browser. This enables the command to permit
explicitly telling pilot which directory to visit.
-g Enable "Show Cursor" mode in file browser. Cause cursor to be positioned before
the current selection rather than placed at the lower left of the display.
-k Causes "Cut Text" command to remove characters from the cursor position to the end
of the line rather than remove the entire line.
-m Enable mouse functionality. This only works when pico is run from within an X Win-
dow System "xterm" window.
-nn The -nn option enables new mail notification. The n argument is optional, and
specifies how often, in seconds, your mailbox is checked for new mail. For exam-
ple, -n60 causes pico to check for new mail once every minute. The default inter-
val is 180 seconds, while the minimum allowed is 30. (Note: no space between "n"
and the number)
-o dir Sets operating directory. Only files within this directory are accessible. Like-
wise, the file browser is limited to the specified directory subtree.
-rn Sets column used to limit the "Justify" command's right margin
-s speller
Specify an alternate program spell to use when spell checking.
-t Enable "tool" mode. Intended for when pico is used as the editor within other
tools (e.g., Elm, Pnews). Pico will not prompt for save on exit, and will not
rename the buffer during the "Write Out" command.
-v View the file only, disallowing any editing.
-version
Print Pico version and exit.
-w Disable word wrap (thus allow editing of long lines).
-x Disable keymenu at the bottom of the screen.
-z Enable ^Z suspension of pico.
-p Preserve the "start" and "stop" characters, typically Ctrl-Q and Ctrl-S, which are
sometimes used in communications paths to control data flow between devices that
operate at different speeds.
-Q quotestr
Set the quote string. Especially useful when composing email, setting this allows
the quote string to be checked for when Justifying paragraphs. A common quote
string is "> ".
-W word_separators
If characters listed here appear in the middle of a word surrounded by alphanumeric
characters that word is split into two words. This is used by the Forward and Back-
ward word commands and by the spell checker.
-q Termcap or terminfo definition for input escape sequences are used in preference to
sequences defined by default. This option is only available if pico was compiled
with the TERMCAP_WINS define turned on.
-setlocale_ctype
Do setlocale(LC_CTYPE) if available. Default is to not do this setlocale.
-no_setlocale_collate
Do not do setlocale(LC_COLLATE). Default is to do this setlocale.
Lastly, when a running pico is disconnected (i.e., receives a SIGHUP), pico will save the
current work if needed before exiting. Work is saved under the current filename with
".save" appended. If the current work is unnamed, it is saved under the filename
"pico.save".
Color Support
If your terminal supports colors, Pico can be configured to color text. Users can config-
ure the color of the text, the text in the key menu, the titlebar, messages and prompt in
the status line. As an added feature Pico can also be used to configure the color of up to
three different levels of quoted text, and the signature of an email message. This is use-
ful when Pico is used as a tool (with the -t command line switch.)
Pico can tell you the number of colors that your terminal supports, when started with the
switch -color_codes. In addition Pico will print a table showing the numerical code of
every color supported in that terminal. In order to configure colors, one must use these
numerical codes. For example, 0 is for black, so in order to configure a black color, one
must use its code, the number 0.
In order to activate colors, one must use the option -ncolors with a numerical value indi-
cating the number of colors that your terminal supports, for example, -ncolors 256 indi-
cates that the user wishes to use a table of 256 colors.
All options that control color, are four letter options. Their last two letters are either
"fc" or "bc", indicating foreground color and bacground color, respectively. The first two
letters indicate the type of text that is being configured, for example "nt" stands for
normal text, so that -ntfc represents the color of the normal text, while -ntbc represents
the color of the background of normal text. Here is a complete list of the color options
supported by Pico.
-color_code
displays the number of colors supported by the terminal, and a table showing the
association of colors and numerical codes
-ncolors number
activates color support in Pico, and tells Pico how many colors to use. Depending
on your terminal number could be 8, 16, or 256.
-ntfc num
specifies the number num of the color to be used to color normal text.
-ntbc num
specifies the number num of the color of the background for normal text.
-rtfc num
specifies the number num of the color of reverse text. Default: same as background
color of normal text (if specified.)
-rtbc num
specifies the number num of the color of the background of reverse text. Default:
same as color of normal text (if specified.)
-tbfc num
specifies the number num of then color of text of the title bar. Default: same as
foreground color of reverse text.
-tbbc num
specifies the number num of the color in the background of the title bar.
-klfc num
specifies the number num of the color of the text of the key label.
-klbc num
specifies the number num of the color in the background of the key label.
-knfc num
specifies the number num of the color of the text of the key name.
-knbc num
specifies the number num of the color of the background of the key name.
-stfc num
specifies the number num of the color of the text of the status line.
-stbc num
specifies the number num of the color of the background of the status line.
-prfc num
specifies the number num of the color of the text of a prompt.
-prbc num
specifies the number num of the color of the background of a prompt.
-q1fc num
specifies the number num of the color of the text of level one of quoted text.
-q1bc num
specifies the number num of the color of the background of level one of quoted
text. If the option -q1bc is used, the default value of this option is the back-
ground color or normal text.
-q2fc num
specifies the number num of the color of text of level two of quoted text.
-q2bc num
specifies the number num of the color of the background of level two of quoted
text. If the option -q1bc is used, the default value of this option is the back-
ground color or normal text.
-q3fc num
specifies the number num of the color of text of level three of quoted text.
-sbfc num
specifies the number num of the color of text of signature block text.
-sbbc num
specifies the number num of the color of the background of signature block text.
Bugs
The manner in which lines longer than the display width are dealt is not immediately obvi-
ous. Lines that continue beyond the edge of the display are indicated by a '$' character
at the end of the line. Long lines are scrolled horizontally as the cursor moves through
them.
Files
pico.save Unnamed interrupted work saved here.
*.save Interrupted work on a named file is saved here.
Authors
Michael Seibel <mikes AT cac.edu>
Laurence Lundblade <lgl AT cac.edu>
Pico was originally derived from MicroEmacs 3.6, by Dave G. Conroy.
Copyright 1989-2008 by the University of Washington.
See Also
alpine(1)
Source distribution (part of the Alpine Message System):
$Date: 2009-02-02 13:54:23 -0600 (Mon, 02 Feb 2009) $
Version 5.09 pico(1)
Generated by $Id: phpMan.php,v 4.55 2007/09/05 04:42:51 chedong Exp $ Author: Che Dong
On Apache
Under GNU General Public License
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