A simple text editor fully navigable with cursor keys?
June 30, 2020 9:33 PM Subscribe
My toddler plays with MS notepad.exe to make ASCII tables, word art and so on. On the one hand Notepad is great because it's a minimal tool with very little distraction. But there are two specific quibbles which make it a little frustrating and make me wonder if there's a better alternative out there.
The two quibbles are: (a) you can't navigate empty space with cursor keys at will unless there's already space characters created with the spacebar, and (b) the default insert behavior results in insertion rather than overwrite when you press a key - which means that when you type a character everything to the right gets pushed by a space.
Is there software available which creates something more like a text-navigation-space than a word-processor-space? Specifically, meaning you can move up/down/left/right with the cursor keys, even through empty space, and typing a character overwrites whatever was there rather than pushing everything to the right one place further right.
Other than that it needs to still be fixed-width-font and minimally distracting and with the ability to make the font large, just like Notepad. He doesn't use a mouse or pointing device, just the keyboard and generally the less features the better. Any tips appreciated. Thanks!!
The two quibbles are: (a) you can't navigate empty space with cursor keys at will unless there's already space characters created with the spacebar, and (b) the default insert behavior results in insertion rather than overwrite when you press a key - which means that when you type a character everything to the right gets pushed by a space.
Is there software available which creates something more like a text-navigation-space than a word-processor-space? Specifically, meaning you can move up/down/left/right with the cursor keys, even through empty space, and typing a character overwrites whatever was there rather than pushing everything to the right one place further right.
Other than that it needs to still be fixed-width-font and minimally distracting and with the ability to make the font large, just like Notepad. He doesn't use a mouse or pointing device, just the keyboard and generally the less features the better. Any tips appreciated. Thanks!!
And I have to add, this is the best "which is the best text editor" question I've ever seen on the Internet, hands down.
posted by biogeo at 10:27 PM on June 30, 2020 [15 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 10:27 PM on June 30, 2020 [15 favorites]
Textpad has a lot of the features you want. It even has a block select mode that can copy/cut and paste blocks of text inside other text ( either insert or overwrite). It also can quickly make macros that can be used to make repetitive patterns.
I have also had to use Notepad++ on work computers and it has some similar features.
posted by Short End Of A Wishbone at 10:47 PM on June 30, 2020
I have also had to use Notepad++ on work computers and it has some similar features.
posted by Short End Of A Wishbone at 10:47 PM on June 30, 2020
(If you happen to have a copy of Excel - then it might also be able to work. Select all the cells in a blank sheet and allocate a fixed width font to them. Then adjust the width of all your columns to be just wide enough to show one character.)
posted by rongorongo at 11:04 PM on June 30, 2020
posted by rongorongo at 11:04 PM on June 30, 2020
There may be bit of a learning curve for the person installing it and no obvious way to prevent accidental commands from doing surprising things, but emacs (or Xemacs, or other derivatives) in what's called "picture mode" probably does what you want and works on most operating systems.
(To be clear, I mean surprising in the "I accidentally switched to hex display and couldn't get back to ascii," sense, not the "I saw scary things" sense.)
posted by eotvos at 1:12 AM on July 1, 2020
(To be clear, I mean surprising in the "I accidentally switched to hex display and couldn't get back to ascii," sense, not the "I saw scary things" sense.)
posted by eotvos at 1:12 AM on July 1, 2020
Orca, while not a text editor first and foremost, is the only software I’ve ever used that has the behavior you seek (on preview: I have not used emacs).
posted by STFUDonnie at 1:56 AM on July 1, 2020
posted by STFUDonnie at 1:56 AM on July 1, 2020
Check out the list of Ascii/ANSI art text editors on Wikipedia. AcidDraw was the rage back in the day, TheDraw seemed nice when I briefly tried it also.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:59 AM on July 1, 2020
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:59 AM on July 1, 2020
A bit of a weirder suggestion - yourworldoftext.com is an editor exactly like what you want, except it’s a shared world - any number of people could be typing into it at the same time. Of course you don’t want your toddler to be sharing an editor with randos: you can create your own space by adding words to the URL, as in https://www.yourworldoftext.com/metafilter - just pick something unguessable. If you have more than one computer at home, you and your kid could play text games together. If they have friends who are similarly into concrete poetry, they could join in too, remotely. Just stay away from the homepage where anyone could be typing anything!
posted by moonmilk at 6:26 AM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by moonmilk at 6:26 AM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
Seconding SaltySalticid. ANSI/ASCII art programs are essentially text editors designed specifically for making art. I would also check out Rexpaint if you are running windows but it may be a bit overkill for your kid's needs.
posted by Television Name at 9:21 AM on July 1, 2020
posted by Television Name at 9:21 AM on July 1, 2020
Alternatively, you could try using Wordpad with a monospaced font. If you pre-fill the document with white space you should be able to navigate fully using cursor keys . You should also be able to press the insert key on the keyboard to toggle between insert mode and overwrite mode which I believe is what you want for point (b).
posted by Television Name at 9:29 AM on July 1, 2020
posted by Television Name at 9:29 AM on July 1, 2020
HxD (a Windows hex editor) almost works -- you can hide the hex view. You still have to create a blank file of spaces though.
posted by neckro23 at 3:35 PM on July 1, 2020
posted by neckro23 at 3:35 PM on July 1, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
It used to be that you could switch between insertion and overwrite mode using the "INS" key on standard wide-layout keyboards (U.S. QWERTY keyboards, at least). I think a lot of programs no longer honor that traditional behavior, and a lot of modern keyboards no longer even have that key, but Notepad might actually still work that way if you've got a keyboard with that key. A quick search (Stackoverflow) suggests that Notepad++ also offers that functionality through a clickable GUI element.
As for navigating empty space with the cursor, how about just starting your kid off with a document consisting of a bunch of rows filled with spaces? So if the document window is 80 columns of text wide and, say, 30 rows high, just make a "sandbox.txt" file with 30 lines of 80 spaces each, and open that up every time your kid wants to play. Maybe not quite as convenient as a program that does it for you but it should work.
You could also search for programs designed for people creating ASCII art, but my guess is those are going to have more bells and whistles than it sounds like you're looking for.
This sounds fun, I would have loved this when I was a kid!
posted by biogeo at 10:23 PM on June 30, 2020 [3 favorites]