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NEdit - Stability and thoroughness in a graphical coating

Joor Loohuis

This feature has been published in the Dutch Linux Magazine, vol. 2, no. 4, July 2001, as a first in a series on editors. The version displayed here has been modified slightly to accomodate the different context. The author has given explicit consent to reproduce the article on the NEdit web site and its mirrors.

contents

• introduction
• background
• editing with NEdit
• features
• configuration
• extensions
• faq
• NEdit at large

introduction

NEdit is an editor with a deceptively sober appearing graphical interface, behind which lies great power. Partly due to this property, NEdit is not only an editor that is easy to use for the numerous Windows users that make the transition to Linux, but it also has been the editor of choice for dyed-in-the-wool programmers on all kinds of UNIX platforms.

background

NEdit (pronounced: 'en-edit', short for Nirvana Editor) was originally developed at Fermi National Accellerator Laboratories, a very large research institute in the U.S.A., under supervision of Mark Edel. The goal was to develop an easy to learn graphical editor for use on the different UNIX variants that were in use around the institute. Although at that time the license could not be considered open, NEdit was freely available, with the aim of receiving feedback. To this end a number of mailing lists were set up. When Linux distributions first started to appear, the license initially kept distributors from bundling NEdit, but a slightly modified version was distributed with Irix, and modifications were made at Sun in order to be able to use NEdit with Workshop.

After difficult negociations, permission was granted late in 1999 to release NEdit under the GPL from then on, and Metro Link was found to be generous enough to provide NEdit with a new home, www.nedit.org. This was complemented by the first release under the GPL, version 5.1, in March 2000. The consequence was that Linux distributors took on a less negative attitude towards NEdit. The most important reservation was the fact that NEdit is based on Motif, which wasn't Free (strangely enough this didn't stop some distributors from placing Netscape on their CD's). Fortunately, at that time Lesstif, the Open Source implementation of Motif, was already well developed, so that it was possible to compile a completely GPL based NEdit. Last year OpemMotif was also released, which can be downloaded for free, but isn't Free. Either with Lesstif or OpenMotif it is quite easy to compile NEdit. At the time of this writing the stable version is 5.1.1, and aside from Linux (i386 glibc, i386 libc5, alpha, arm, ppc) binaries are available for operating systems like AIX, BSDI, Digital Unix, OSF-1, Tru64 Unix, FreeBSD 2.2 and up, HPUX, Irix 5 and up, SunOS 4 and Solaris (Sparc and x86). All these are statically linked to Motif, so it's not necessary to install this library. A version for win32 has been compiled using the Cygwin libraries, and NEdit is even in use under MacOS X.

Although NEdit has been a stable product for years, NEdit is still being actively developed. Aside from the occasional bug fix, a select group of developers from all over the world is continuously active with improving performance and extending the functionality. The project, and the running of it in particular, proved to be of enough interesting to the Slashdot crew to subject Mark Edel to one of their meanwhile famous interviews. The answers were described by Roblimo as a 'need to read' for anyone who ever hopes to lead an Open Source project.

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