= = = NONTEXT TEXT EDITOR = = =

By Jack Eisenmann

Nontext is a revolution in terminal based text editors. It uses a new paradigm in which the user and the computer are in a cordial conversation. Here is a typical Nontext session:

John-Eisenmanns-MacBook-Pro:Desktop Jack$ nontext

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

PLEASE

0

THANK YOU

YES 0/17: N YES 1/17: o YES 2/17: n YES 3/17: t YES 4/17: e YES 5/17: x YES 6/17: t YES 7/17: YES 8/17: i YES 9/17: s YES 10/17: YES 11/17: g YES 12/17: r YES 13/17: e YES 14/17: a YES 15/17: t YES 16/17: . YES NO NO NO NO

PLEASE

10

THANK YOU

YES YES YES YES YES YES

PLEASE

8

THANK YOU

YES 8/22: i YES 9/22: s YES 10/22: YES 11/22: v YES 12/22: e YES 13/22: r YES 14/22: y YES 15/22: YES 16/22: g YES 17/22: r YES 18/22: e YES 19/22: a YES 20/22: t YES 21/22: . YES

PLEASE

myFile.txt

THANK YOU

YES YES

Did you see that? Nontext said please and thankyou. There is no other text editor which interacts so warmly with people.

Nontext has countless other advantages. Vim users take pride in "never leaving the home row". This is blatantly false: Dozens of commands require you to move your finger up or down one key! In Nontext, every command is on the home row, and none of them require you to hold shift. Emacs occupies 26 megabytes of hard drive space, while Nontext uses less than 4 kilobytes. Do the math: Emacs requires 650,000% more memory. The clear winner is Nontext.

You are probably eager to obtain this fantastic text editor. Fortunately, Nontext is free and open source. The program is designed for Unix, but it may also work on Windows. To install and run:

Right click here and save the nontext script to your desktop. In Chrome, the menu option is "Save link as...". Open a terminal window. Type sudo mv ~/Desktop/nontext /usr/bin/ to move the file into the appropriate location. You may need to enter your system password. To make the file executable, run the command sudo chmod a+x /usr/bin/nontext . In any terminal window, enter nontext to call the script.

From here you enter command mode. The editor begins with an empty text buffer. Each command may be invoked with a single keystroke. Listed below are all commands and their easy-to-remember mnemonics:

a (annihilate): Clear the entire buffer.

(annihilate): Clear the entire buffer. s (see you later): Quit Nontext.

(see you later): Quit Nontext. d (dollop): Copy given file into buffer.

(dollop): Copy given file into buffer. f (fire): Write buffer into given file.

(fire): Write buffer into given file. j (jingle): Insert character after cursor and move cursor forward.

(jingle): Insert character after cursor and move cursor forward. k (keyhole): View position and character under cursor.

(keyhole): View position and character under cursor. l (leap): Move cursor to specified position.

(leap): Move cursor to specified position. ; (semielliptical): Delete character under cursor and move cursor backward.

The jingle command requires an additional keystroke to specify a character. Dollop, fire, and leap will kindly request a line of input with PLEASE.

When a command succeeds, Nontext will print YES. If there is a problem, Nontext will print NO. It's very simple!

Repeating the keyhole command moves the cursor forward. This generous feature allows you to view sequential characters without leaping.

That summarizes all of Nontext. It has no other confusing distractions. After practicing for 5 months, you will find yourself preferring Nontext over all other text editors. Trust me.

Disclaimer: This editor is a joke. It does function as described, but is not desirable to use!

If you want a somewhat less facetious version of Nontext, go to this page.