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USING PICO ACNS BULLETIN ED-04 16 SEPTEMBER 1997 USING PICO DESCRIPTION ----------- Pico is a simple text editor developed by the University of Washington for the Pine mail system. You can use Pico with Pine or as a general purpose editor on Lamar. 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. The editor has four basic features: paragraph justification, case-insensitive searching, a spelling checker, and a file browser. Paragraph justification takes place in the paragraph that contains the cursor, 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. To cancel justification, use the control- U key combination immediately after justification. 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. The spell checker examines all words in the text. It then offers, in turn, each misspelled word for correction while simultaneously highlighting it in the text. Spell checking can be canceled at any time. The file browser is offered as an option in the "Read File" and "Write Out" command prompts. It helps you search for specific files and navigate directory hierarchies. File names with sizes and names of directories in the current working directory 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. ACCESS ------ To start Pico, enter the command: pico or pico filename where filename is the name of an existing file you want to edit or the name of a file you wish to create. If you don't specify a filename, Pico opens a blank file. Each character you type is automatically inserted into a buffer at the current cursor position. Pico automatically wraps the text to a new line when you come to the right margin. You only need to press the Return key to start a new paragraph. Editing commands are performed by typing special control-key combinations. (See the section, "Pico editing commands.") USING PICO'S ONLINE HELP ------------------------ To access Pico's online help, simply press ^G (hold down the CTRL key while pressing the G key). SAVING TEXT ----------- To save your file, press ^O. Pico will prompt you to enter a filename. If the file doesn't have a name yet, you must type one. If the file already has a name, it will follow the filename prompt, and you can just press Return. EXITING PICO ------------ When you are finished with your editing session, press ^X to exit Pico. Press Y to save your changes and N to leave the file as it was. PICO EDITING COMMANDS --------------------- You perform editing commands in Pico by typing special control-key sequences. A caret, '^', is used to denote the control key, so the CTRL-x key combination is written as ^X. To type the ^X combination, hold down the CTRL key, then press the x key. The following commands are available: ^G Display online help text. ^F Move Forward a character. ^B Move Backward a character. ^P Move to Previous line. ^N Move to Next line. ^A Move to beginning of current line. ^E Move to End of current line. ^V Move forward a page of text. ^Y Move backward a page of text. ^W Search for (where is) text, neglecting case. ^L Refresh the display. ^D Delete the character at the cursor position. ^^ Mark cursor position as beginning of selected text. To type this key combination, hold down the CTRL and Shift keys and press the 6 key. Then press the arrow keys to mark the selected text. Note: Setting mark when already set cancels the selection. ^K Cut selected text (displayed in inverse video). If no text is selected, the current line is deleted. Note: The selected text's boundary on the cursor side ends at the left edge of the cursor. So, with selected text to the left of the cursor, the character under the cursor is not selected. ^U Uncut (paste) last cut text inserting it at current cursor position. ^I Insert a tab at the current cursor position. ^J Format the current paragraph. Note: paragraphs are delimited by blank lines or indentation. ^T Invoke the spell checker. ^C Report current cursor position. ^R Insert an external file at the current cursor position. ^O Output the current buffer to a file, saving it. ^X Exit Pico, saving buffer. Pine and Pico are trademarks of the University of Washington. No commercial use of these trademarks may be made without prior written permission of the University of Washington. Editor's Note: This bulletin is based on Pico's online help and man pages. MAKING PICO YOUR DEFAULT EDITOR To make Pico your default editor, you must set the UNIX environment variable EDITOR. C SHELL ------- C shell users (% prompt) may add the following line to their .login file: setenv EDITOR /usr/local/bin/pico BOURNE OR KORN SHELL -------------------- Korn shell users ($ prompt) may add the following line to their .profile file: export EDITOR=/usr/local/bin/pico FYI --- If you have questions about Pico, you can send e- mail to help@colostate.edu or call the Computing Help Desk, 491-7276.