Joe's Own Editor

Last updated
Joe's Own Editor
Original author(s) Joseph H. Allen
Developer(s) Joseph H. Allen, Marek 'Marx' Grac and others
Initial releasejoe0.0.0 ca. August 22, 1991;32 years ago (1991-08-22) [1]
Written in C
Operating system Unix-like, DOS, Win32
Platform Cross-platform
Size ≈0.45 MiB (macOS/x86)
Available inEnglish, German, French, Russian, Ukrainian
Type Text editor
License GPL version 1 (or later)
Website joe-editor.sourceforge.net

JOE or Joe's Own Editor is an ncurses-based text editor for Unix systems, available under the GPL. It is designed to be easy to use. [2] [3]

Contents

JOE is available for most major Linux distributions, [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] open-source BSD systems [10] [11] [12] and Apple's macOS via package managers such as Homebrew.

Description of features

The upper part of the screen displays the integrated help, while the lower part of the screen shows the options menu. (The actual editing space in the middle is reduced to a single line for the sole purpose of making this compact illustration.) Joe-help-options.png
The upper part of the screen displays the integrated help, while the lower part of the screen shows the options menu. (The actual editing space in the middle is reduced to a single line for the sole purpose of making this compact illustration.)

JOE includes an integrated help system and a reminder of how to get help is always on the screen. The key sequences in JOE are similar to those of WordStar and Turbo C: many are combinations of the Control key and another key, or combinations of Ctrl+K and another key, or combinations of the Escape key and another key. Numerous settings are also available through Ctrl+T. The program is generally customizable through an extensive configuration file, and it supports color syntax highlighting for numerous popular file formats, a feature that is also configurable.

JOE installs hard links and a set of rc files that configure JOE to emulate Emacs keybindings (when invoked as jmacs), Pico (when invoked as jpico), or WordStar (when invoked as jstar). There is also a variant called "rjoe", which is restricted in that it allows one to edit only the files specified on the command line (which can be useful to enforce the principle of least privilege).

While the user interface of the editor is reminiscent of DOS editors, it also includes the typical Unix editor features such as internal command history, tab completion in file selection menus, regular expression search system and the ability to filter (pipe) arbitrary blocks of text through any external command.

History

JOE was among the default editors in the early popular Linux distributions, [13] [14] [15] [16] which gave it some prominence and helped build a user base. [17] [18] It continues to be included as an option in Linux distributions, sometimes in the critical role as a "rescue mode" editor. [7]

After version 2.8 was released by Joseph Allen in 1995, the development cycle had halted for several years. The development was taken over by a new group of enthusiasts in 2001, led by Marek Grac, who released 2.9 and several later versions, introducing a standardized build system and fixing many bugs. Allen returned to the project in 2004 and released version 3.0, which introduced syntax highlighting and support for UTF-8. [19]

The Joe of JOE is not the same Joe as the Joe of JWM.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linux distribution</span> Operating system based on the Linux kernel

A Linux distribution is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and often a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one of the Linux distributions, which are available for a wide variety of systems ranging from embedded devices and personal computers to powerful supercomputers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slackware</span> Linux distribution (operating system)

Slackware is a Linux distribution created by Patrick Volkerding in 1993. Originally based on Softlanding Linux System (SLS), Slackware has been the basis for many other Linux distributions, most notably the first versions of SUSE Linux distributions, and is the oldest distribution that is still maintained.

man page Unix software documentation

A man page is a form of software documentation usually found on a Unix or Unix-like operating system. Topics covered include computer programs, formal standards and conventions, and even abstract concepts. A user may invoke a man page by issuing the man command.

Almquist shell is a lightweight Unix shell originally written by Kenneth Almquist in the late 1980s. Initially a clone of the System V.4 variant of the Bourne shell, it replaced the original Bourne shell in the BSD versions of Unix released in the early 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blackbox</span> Free and open-source stacking window manager for the X Window System

Blackbox is a free and open-source stacking window manager for the X Window System.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ion (window manager)</span> Tiling and tabbing window manager

In Unix computing, Ion is a tiling and tabbing window manager for the X Window System. It is designed such that it is possible to manage windows using only a keyboard, without needing a mouse. It is the successor of PWM and is written by the same author, Tuomo Valkonen. Since the first release of Ion in the summer 2000, similar alternative window management ideas have begun to show in other new window managers: Larswm, ratpoison, StumpWM, wmii, xmonad and dwm.

pkgsrc Package manager for Unix-like operating systems

pkgsrc is a package management system for Unix-like operating systems. It was forked from the FreeBSD ports collection in 1997 as the primary package management system for NetBSD. Since then it has evolved independently; in 1999, support for Solaris was added, followed by support for other operating systems.

Technical variations of Linux distributions include support for different hardware devices and systems or software package configurations. Organizational differences may be motivated by historical reasons. Other criteria include security, including how quickly security upgrades are available; ease of package management; and number of packages available.

This article provides basic comparisons for notable text editors. More feature details for text editors are available from the Category of text editor features and from the individual products' articles. This article may not be up-to-date or necessarily all-inclusive.

The magic SysRq key is a key combination understood by the Linux kernel, which allows the user to perform various low-level commands regardless of the system's state. It is often used to recover from freezes, or to reboot a computer without corrupting the filesystem. Its effect is similar to the computer's hardware reset button but with many more options and much more control.

BioLinux is a term used in a variety of projects involved in making access to bioinformatics software on a Linux platform easier using one or more of the following methods:

mg (text editor)

mg, originally called MicroGnuEmacs, is a public-domain text editor that runs on Unix-like operating systems. It is based on MicroEMACS, but intended to more closely resemble GNU Emacs while still maintaining a small memory footprint and fast speed. An expanded version of the original is included as part of OpenBSD, where it is maintained, and snapshots of the OpenBSD version are available in the native package management trees of many other systems, including MacPorts, FreeBSD Ports, pkgsrc and Debian.

HAL is a software subsystem for UNIX-like operating systems providing hardware abstraction.

Super key (❖) is an alternative name for what is commonly labelled as the Windows key or Command key on modern keyboards, typically bound and handled as such by Linux and BSD operating systems and software today.

MCC Interim Linux is a Linux distribution first released in February 1992 by Owen Le Blanc of the Manchester Computing Centre (MCC), part of the University of Manchester. It was the first Linux distribution created for computer users who were not Unix experts and featured a menu-driven installer that installed both the kernel and a set of end-user and programming tools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNU Emacs</span> GNU version of the Emacs text editor

GNU Emacs is a free software text editor. It was created by GNU Project founder Richard Stallman, based on the Emacs editor developed for Unix operating systems. GNU Emacs has been a central component of the GNU project and a flagship project of the free software movement. Its tag line is "the extensible self-documenting text editor."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WeeChat</span> IRC client

WeeChat is a free and open-source Internet Relay Chat client that is designed to be light and fast. It is released under the terms of the GNU GPL-3.0-or-later and has been developed since 2003.

XZ Utils is a set of free software command-line lossless data compressors, including the programs lzma and xz, for Unix-like operating systems and, from version 5.0 onwards, Microsoft Windows. For compression/decompression the Lempel–Ziv–Markov chain algorithm (LZMA) is used. XZ Utils started as a Unix port of Igor Pavlov's LZMA-SDK that has been adapted to fit seamlessly into Unix environments and their usual structure and behavior.

References

  1. ↑ "J (Joe's Editor) New Release". google.ch.
  2. ↑ Danen, Vincent (August 2008). "Customize the Joe text editor". ZDNet White papers. Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2009-09-25.
  3. ↑ Halliwell, Andrew (June 2001). "Joe Cool: Using the text editor Joe" (PDF). Linux Magazine. Vol. 3, no. 6. pp. 64–65. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-09-28. Retrieved 2009-09-26.
  4. ↑ "Ubuntu – Package Search Results -- joe". ubuntu.com.
  5. ↑ "Debian -- Package Search Results -- joe". debian.org.
  6. ↑ "RPM resource joe". rpmfind.net.
  7. 1 2 Jang, Michael (2007). "Basic Linux Knowledge". RHCE Linux Study Guide (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill Professional. pp. 8, 358–359. ISBN   9780072264548 . Retrieved 2009-09-27. Popular text editors for Linux configuration files include [...] joe [...] If you have to rescue an RHEL5 system, you'll have access to these editors when booting your system from RHEL5 rescue media. [...] If you boot in rescue mode and try to start emacs or pico, that starts the joe editor instead.
  8. ↑ Fedora joe package [ permanent dead link ]
  9. ↑ "software.opensuse.org: Search". opensuse.org.
  10. ↑ "[ports] Index of /head/editors/joe". freebsd.org.
  11. ↑ "pkgsrc.se - The NetBSD package collection". pkgsrc.se.
  12. ↑ "OpenPorts.se - The OpenBSD package collection". openports.se. Archived from the original on 2021-04-26. Retrieved 2009-09-27.
  13. ↑ SLS 1.03 archive Archived 2005-01-25 at the Wayback Machine (originally released in 1993) indicates that joe was shipped as a "recommended" package on the third installation diskette of SLS
  14. ↑ Niels Horn's blog: Older Slackware versions states that joe was available in Slackware 1.01 (released in 1993). Slackware 1.1.2 archive [ permanent dead link ] (originally released in 1994) indicates that joe was shipped on the fourth diskette named AP2 (section "Various applications that do not need X")
  15. ↑ S.u.S.E. Linux pre-1.0 early beta [ permanent dead link ] (from August 1995) included joe.
  16. ↑ Editors section of Debian 0.93R6 (originally released in November 1995) included joe and seven other editors.
  17. ↑ "Popularity Contest Statistics -- Debian Quality Assurance". debian.org.
  18. ↑ Ubuntu popularity-contest statistics including joe
  19. ↑ "Joe's Own Editor - History". sourceforge.net.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.