Pico - Basic Information

Pico(PIne COmposer) is a Unix-based simple text-editor that can be used to plain text(ASCII) editing as well as for writing program source code. It has basic features like text entry, searching, spelling checker, file browsing and paragraph justification, but does not have text enhancement features like bold, italics, etc. Pico was created at the University of Washington.

Entering pico

As pico is a Unix-based text editor, you need to first log in to interactive.cs.tamu.edu using PuTTY or Tera Term Pro. Once logged in, at the prompt type

>pico filename

and press Enter. If filename exists, it is opened else an empty file and screen are brought up. The top line of the Pico window shows pico's version, the current file name (or buffer for an unsaved file) being edited and whether there are any changes that have not been saved. The bottom two lines contain some of the available commands. The line above this is used to report messages and receive corresponding command input.

Figure 1

The first line shows the version of pico being used, the name of the file currently being edited (here junk.c) and whether there are any changes to be saved.
At the bottom, there is a list of some of the available commands.

Note : In pico, all commands start with ^, which denotes the control or Ctrl key on the keyboard. Hence, a command Control-Q, will be denoted at ^Q.

^G(F1) display the help text

Move command

^F move forward a character
^B move backward a character
^P move to previous line
^N move to next line
^A move the start of current line
^E move to end of current line
^V(F8) move forward one page of text
^Y(F7) move backward one page of text

Editing commands

^D delete character at cursor position
^^ mark cursor postion as start of selected text
^K(F9) Cut selected text(displayed in inverse characters). If no text
has been selected, the current line is deleted
^U(F10) Paste last cut text inserting at the current cursor position.
^I insert a tab at the current cursor position.
^R(F5) Insert and external file at the current cursor position.
^C Report current cursor positon

Justify, search and other commands

^J justify the current paragraph (paragraphs are delimited by blank lines or indentation)
^T invoke the spelling checker

Save commands

^O save the current file
^X save and exit the current file (see Exiting pico)

Exiting pico

To exit pico, type ^X. You will be asked if you want to save the buffer/file you are currently editing. Answer either y or n. You will be prompted to change the filename, if it already exists. Respond accordingly and press Enter. This will exit pico and bring you back to the command prompt