Text editors for git

A text editor edits plain text, and is important to any type of computer work.

There are text editors with a graphical user interface and text editors that allow you to edit text in the terminal, for example on a remote cluster (and some allow both modes of operation). This page tells you how to connect different editors to git, so that command line git will open them.

Demonstration. Command line git starting the VScode graphical editor to write a commit message (don’t worry about what the command does, we cover this in the CodeRefinery workshop). Picture should be animated.

Choosing the right editor is a matter of taste and preferences. Since we often spend significant portions of our days editing text and source code, it can be valuable to invest time into learning your favourite editor really well. Below we list few common options and give some pros/cons.

Search below for what you use. We will demonstrate with Nano, and that is reasonable to start with for this workshop.

What you need

The Nano editor is the minimum and already covered under git configurtation, so you don’t have to do anything more. Below is more information on how common editors work and are configured to work with git.

Nano (terminal)

Easy to start and comes with git but with minimal functionality (thus we use it for demos). This comes installed as default on most Linux distributions. If you do not already have a favorite editor, we recommend this to be used with this during the course.

WindowsmacOSLinux

Nano is installed as part of the Git for Windows installer and no extra installation is needed. It is available from the git-bash shell.

To set it as the git editor:

$ git config --global core.editor nano

The keyboard shortcuts are displayed at the bottom of the editor window. Using this shortcuts involves pressing and holding down the control key (Ctrl) on your keyboard and pressing another key. The pressing down and holding the Ctrl key is represented by a hat “^”.

Tutorial: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/how-to-use-nano-text-editor

To create or open a file called mytext.txt:

$ nano mytext.txt

To save content: Ctrl + o (hold the Ctrl key and press the o)

To close a file: Ctrl + x (hold the Ctrl key and press the x)

To move up, down, left or right with the document: Use the arrow keys and Page-up, Page-down keys

Deleting text: Navigate to where the text to be deleted located in the document using arrow keys. Use the Delete or Backspace keys to delete text.

To find: Ctrl + w then type the word to find and press enter (please note it is w not f as in most other editors).

Visual Studio Code (graphical)

Visual Studio Code is a lightweight (around 200 MB) but powerful source code editor. It is free and open source and runs on your desktop and is available for Windows, macOS and Linux. It has a rich ecosystem of extensions for languages such as C++, Fortran, R, C#, Matlab, Java, Python, PHP, and Go.

Please visit the download page for installation instructions.

To configure git to use VScode from the command line:

$ git config --global core.editor "code --wait"

Notepad++ (graphical)

If you are on Windows and want to use Notepad or Notepad++, you can configure this by providing the full path to the executable and optionally set some options. For example (adjust the path if needed, and note the quotation):

$ git config --global core.editor "'C:/Program Files/Notepad++/notepad++.exe' -multiInst -notabbar -nosession -noPlugin"

Vi/Vim (terminal/both)

This editor takes some effort to get started. But has more functionality than Nano, especially if you write programming code. Syntax highlighting, clever copy-paste and better refactoring are some features.

Interactive Vim tutorial: http://www.openvim.com

To create or open a file called mytext.txt:

$ vi mytext.txt

To close a file: Hit Escape, then type :wq and hit Enter.

Emacs (both)

Like Vim, Emacs takes some effort and learning to get started and offers almost unlimited functionality. It is possible to interact with version control, even compile and run code, send emails, etc. all from the editor itself.

Emacs guided tour: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/

To create or open a file called mytext.txt:

$ emacs mytext.txt

To close a file: Type Ctrl-x followed by Ctrl-c.

Not listed above

This page contains a nice summary on how to configure Git with many other editors.

Verification of editor working with command-line git.

The following command should open your preferred editor with a Git config file. Close it without changing anything and verify that the git command then finishes.

$ git config --global --edit