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Dotfiles

nano

nano is the simple terminal editor that’s on almost every Linux system. The config is installed to ~/.nanorc.

Default nano With this config
nano with default settings nano with this config: line numbers, colours, scrollbar

Settings

Section titled “Settings”
Setting Effect
linenumbers line numbers on the left
tabsize 4 Tab inserts a real tab character, shown 4 wide (same as Vim and Neovim)
autoindent new lines keep the previous line’s indent
mouse click to move the cursor, drag to select
constantshow always show the cursor position at the bottom
historylog remember search/replace history
positionlog reopen files where you left off
smarthome Home jumps to the first non-space character, then to column 0
softwrap long lines wrap on screen without changing the file
indicator a scrollbar-like position marker on the right

Syntax highlighting

Section titled “Syntax highlighting”
include "/usr/share/nano/*.nanorc"

loads nano’s built-in highlighting rules. They’re in a different place on each system, so the installer rewrites this line when it copies the file:

System Folder
Linux /usr/share/nano
macOS, Apple Silicon (Homebrew) /opt/homebrew/share/nano
macOS, Intel (Homebrew) /usr/local/share/nano

The repo keeps one file with the Linux path; the installer changes it during the copy, rather than keeping three versions of the file.

Spell check

Section titled “Spell check”
Terminal window
sudo apt install aspell aspell-en       # Linux
brew install aspell                     # macOS

In a file, press Ctrl+T twice: the first opens the “execute” prompt, the second runs the spell checker (aspell -c).

Colours

Section titled “Colours”

The bars (title, status, prompts) use muted brightblack backgrounds. In kitty you can make text semi-transparent but not backgrounds, so bright bars would stand out in inactive tabs. Line numbers are dim grey; the help shortcuts at the bottom are cyan and green.

Edge cases

Section titled “Edge cases”
  • macOS ships nano 2.0.6 (from 2008). It doesn’t understand most of these settings and shows Unknown flag errors. Install a current nano: brew install nano. The installer warns about this on macOS.
  • Colour names like slate and grey need a recent nano (6.0+). Older versions report unknown colours.
  • The installer doesn’t install nano — only the config.
  • YAML doesn’t allow tabs. Vim and Neovim switch to spaces for YAML files automatically; nano doesn’t, so indent YAML with spaces by hand. (nano can do it per file type with extendsyntax yaml tabgives " ", but that line errors on start-up wherever nano’s syntax files are missing, so it isn’t in the config.)
  • /usr/share/nano does not exist warning: nano (or its syntax files) isn’t installed. Highlighting won’t load until it is; everything else works.
  • Installed to ~/.nanorc, not ~/.config/nano/nanorc. The repo keeps the file under .config/nano/ but installs it to the classic location. nano reads ~/.nanorc first, so if both exist, ~/.config/nano/nanorc is ignored.