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Pico is an easy to use text editor available on central system computers at UMD. Pico has many useful features, including text justification, spell checking, and reading in (inserting) other text files.

The Pine and elm electronic mail programs use the pico editor for composing mail messages Some older accounts may still haveanother editor (elmed or vi) as the default editor for elm. These accounts can switch elm to use the pico editor by changing the editor in their elm options screen to "pico -t".

To use the pico editor to create or edit a file, enter the following command at any unix % prompt.

ub.d.umn.edu% pico filename

If the file filename already exists it will be opened for editing in the pico editor. If it does not exist you will be asked if you want to save the file as filename when you exit the pico editor.

The pico editor screen

Control characters
Pico uses control characters to execute commands. Control characters are formed by holding the key down while another key is pressed. They are used to move about the text, perform editing functions, or to invoke commands. Control characters are indicated by a ^ preceding the character. For example, -U would be shown as ^U. Case of alphabetic characters does not matter; for example, ^a is identical to ^A.

Pico's commands
Many of the commands you can use in pico are listed at the bottom of your screen. You can use the following keys and commands within the pico editor:

Arrow keys Move the cursor around.

Delete key/Backspace key Erase character and move back one character.

^G Help: Display a help screen.

^X Exit: Finish editing a file. When you choose this, pico will ask you "Modified buffer: Save before leaving (y/n)?" Press the y key if you want to save your changes. You will then be prompted with "File Name to write : filename". Press if filename is the name you want the file saved as, or delete that name and enter another.

^O Write Out: Writes the changes you have made to your file to the stored copy but does not quit the editor.You will be prompted with "File Name to write : filename". Press if filename is the name you want the file saved as, or delete that name and enter another.

^C Cursor Position: Displays the line number and character position of the cursor.
Note: When using Pico from within Pine ^C cancels the message you are composing.

^J Justify: Reformat the text in the paragraph the cursor is on. This is useful when you have been editing a paragraph and the lines become uneven.

^R Read File: This will allow you to insert text from an existing file. You will be prompted for the name of a file to be inserted. The file name is relative to your home directory or may begin with / if it is to be an absolute path name. The file will be inserted where the cursor is located. Note that files on personal computers must be first transferred to the system Pine is running on before they can be inserted.

^W Where is: Search the file for a word or part of a word. The cursor is put on the first occurrence appearing after the location of the cursor. The search will wrap to the beginning of the file when it no longer finds matches in the remainder of the file. To search for the same string a second time, press ^W to begin search and then just press to accept the previous search string shown in square brackets rather than entering a new search string.

^Y Prev Page: Go back one screen in the file.

^V Next Page: Go forward one screen in the file.

^K Del Line: Delete the entire line the cursor is currently on. The last batch of lines that were deleted one after another is saved so they can be undeleted elsewhere. You can also "mark" a series of lines by pressing ^6 and then using the up or down arrow keys to extend the selection. Pressing ^K once will delete the the entire marked selection.

^U Undel Line: Undelete the last line or series of lines you deleted. To delete a series of lines and "undelete" them in another part of your message, be sure to delete all of the lines at the same time. Using the Del Line and Undel Line commands is a convenient way to move text to a new location in your message.

^T To Spell: Check the spelling in the message you are composing. You will be prompted at the bottom of the screen with each misspelled word. You can correct the word, then press return to actually change it in the text. If the word is not misspelled or is a name or such, don't change it and just press return to continue the spell check. If a word is misspelled more than once, then you will be prompted to confirm the correction of each occurrence of it. Lines beginning with > (included mail messages) will not be checked.

Other cursor positioning keys
^A Beginning of line
^E End of line
^@ Next word (or Ctl-)

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