Customize Nano Text Editor
26 comments
·October 25, 2025p4bl0
I tried a long time ago [1,2] to initiate this discussion on Nano here. I'm glad it's happening :).
its_notjack
I must have used nano for years at this point, and I'm shocked to find out how customisable nano actually is! I tend to use micro[0] on most of my systems now just because it comes with really lovely defaults and keybindings that are a bit more familiar, but this might make me take a second look at nano in future.
tpoacher
It's not just customisable, it's also insanely scriptable. Any action that you can do in nano itself corresponds to a command, and you can create "string macros" that you can bind to key combinations. Additionally it can execute external commands on any nano buffer and return the result. Combining the two is very powerful.
E.g. I have a configuration which allows me to use nano while editing pdf side-by-side, and be able to click on the pdf and land in the correct line in nano, and vice-versa. (and obviously compiling the latex document itself happens via a custom keystroke).
digisign
Before I used micro & ne I used nano, and configured the keybindings to work in the CUA style. I still have the dot files, didn't delete them, but they rarely get used anymore.
I think they recently added Ctrl+S to save by default, even if unconfigured, woohoo.
flkiwi
Same same. Never even occurred to me to look. That's the risk of a (successful) low-friction product though: you use it in quick bursts where the tool is necessary but largely invisible, and you never invest in learning more about it because it works so well with the defaults. There's probably a profound strategic insight buried in there somewhere.
tracker1
Also worth a look, if you want more TUI..
sanex
Nano is my go-to whenever doing something quick in the terminal. It's quick, I don't need to learn how to use it, and now it's going to be slightly more convenient. I had no idea it had these options. Thank you!
chawyehsu
It seems few people are aware of how customizable nano actually is. Usually, they use nano with the default preset for quick bootstrapping tasks and then switch to vim without hesitation. While vim/neovim are certainly very powerful, nano remains my go-to editor for many quick terminal operations. I've customized it quite a bit[1], especially the key bindings, though the defaults are already excellent.
[1]: https://github.com/chawyehsu/dotfiles/blob/main/.config/nano...
davidcollantes
I would dearly love it if you could comment a little bit more that nanorc. I am going to “steal” some of it, for sure. Thank you much for sharing it!
qsort
blakesterz
They also have a nice cheat sheet there: https://nano-editor.org/cheatsheet.html
jasperry
The line numbers and position bar are some real quality-of-life enhancements!
I don't regularly use nano anymore, but I have often thought that more programs should imitate the way it shows the command shortcuts on-screen as a kind of instant tutorial. I remember my physics major friends in college thinking it was pure snobbery for vi not to do that by default. Back then we were dialing in to an HP-UX server and using pico, which nano is an open-source clone of. For those who aren't aware, pico was originally the editor component of the Pine email client.
mystifyingpoi
> physics major friends in college thinking it was pure snobbery for vi
I don't think it is snobbery, that approach would clutter the entire screen. Basically every single small/capital letter and symbol has a function in vim.
ziotom78
Absolutely, the shortcut help is so useful!
I believe that Nano and Pico copied it from Wordstar.
jdorfman
I’ve been using nano as my default bash profile editor for over 15 years. It’s also great for quick updates for other config files.
Definitely going to enable mouse support. Didn’t know that was possible.
Ekaros
Did you know Nano supports mouse? Alt+M... Not that I use that much, but it is fun fact.
p4bl0
This is the very first item in the linked blog post.
positron26
Right after the nano maintainer got bullied out by the FSF, I noticed two bindings got their defaults changed. They never change. I almost feel like it was graffiti, a flex against the old maintainer, a retribution for not doing whatever the FSF wanted.
Since forever, GNU readline programs and nano had identical bindings. I'm fast moving around the CLI because I'm fast at nano. Emacs has the same defaults. What sane organization only abandons their own defaults and prioritizes that work after pushing the existing maintainer out (or irritating them enough to accomplish this)?
threatofrain
What about LSP?
I actually prefer 'constantshow' instead of 'linenumbers'. That way if you want to select/copy some text from the terminal it doesn't include those line numbers.