mg is a lightweight, high-performance text editor that is designed to be small, fast, and portable. It is based on the Emacs text editor but aims to provide a simpler and more streamlined editing experience. Developed by Marc Rochkind, mg offers a subset of Emacs’ features while maintaining a focus on efficiency and speed.
Here are some key features and characteristics of mg:
- Small and Portable: mg is designed to be compact and lightweight, making it suitable for use on a wide range of systems, including older or resource-constrained machines. It has minimal dependencies and can be easily compiled and installed on various Unix-like operating systems.
- Fast Performance: Despite its small size, mg offers fast performance, allowing users to edit and manipulate text efficiently. It achieves this by employing efficient algorithms and optimizations, ensuring smooth responsiveness even when working with large files.
- Based on Emacs: mg is built upon the principles of Emacs, borrowing concepts and keybindings from the popular text editor. This familiarity makes it easy for Emacs users to transition to mg while still offering a simplified and streamlined editing experience.
- Customizable: Like Emacs, mg is highly customizable, allowing users to configure various aspects of the editor to suit their preferences. Users can customize keybindings, define macros, and extend functionality through scripting using the built-in mg scripting language.
- Terminal-based Interface: mg provides a terminal-based interface, meaning that it runs within a terminal window or console. This makes it well-suited for remote editing tasks, as it can be used over SSH or other remote connections without requiring a graphical environment.
- Open Source: mg is open-source software released under a permissive license, allowing users to modify, distribute, and contribute to its development freely.
mg Command Examples
1. Open a file for editing:
# mg [path/to/file]
2. Open a file at a specified line number:
# mg +[line_number] [path/to/file]
3. Open files in a read-only mode:
# mg -R [path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...]
4. Disable ~ backup files while editing:
# mg -n [path/to/file]
Summary
Overall, mg is a versatile and efficient text editor that offers a balance of simplicity, performance, and flexibility. Its lightweight nature and terminal-based interface make it particularly useful for users who prefer a minimalistic editing environment or need to work on systems with limited resources.