pico (Pine’s message composition editor) is a very simple, easy-to-use text editor with a screen interface that provides basic text editing capabilities along with features such as paragraph justification, cut-and-paste capability, and spell checking. Initially developed at the University of Washington as a tool to create and modify e-mail text for the PINE e-mail environment (see Chapter 8), pico has evolved into a stand-alone text editing application for Linux users in the academic community.
To begin editing with pico, simply type the command pico filename at the shell prompt. A screen display appears, with the version number appearing at the top of the display, and a list of control key commands at the bottom. If filename exists, pico opens it for you; otherwise, it creates it. Navigating through files consists of CTRL key commands, similar to movement in emacs. Rather than discuss all of the commands and their usage, it is better to point the user to a very useful tutorial for pico at http://www.usd.edu/trio/tut/pico/index.html.
To exit pico, enter CTRL-X (the CTRL key and the x key at the same time). This will return you to the shell prompt.
pico is freeware, as long as the appropriate legal acknowledgments are given to University of Washington. In fact, if you are a PINE user, pico comes with PINE. If you are not able to access pico at your shell prompt, consult your system administrator. pico can be obtained for Linux at the following web site: http://www.washington.edu/pine/getpine/linux.html. It can be obtained for other UNIX variants at: http://www.washington.edu/pine/getpine/unix.html. Figure 5–6 is a picture of the startup screen for pico.
Figure 5–6: The startup screen for pico