(nano.info)Pico Compatibility

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9 Pico Compatibility
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‘nano’ attempts to emulate Pico as closely as possible, but there are
some differences between the editors:

‘Interactive Replace’
     Instead of allowing you to replace either just one occurrence of a
     search string or all of them, ‘nano’’s replace function is
     interactive: it will pause at each found search string and query
     whether to replace this instance.  You can then choose Yes, or No
     (skip this one), or All (don’t ask any more), or Cancel (stop with
     replacing).

‘Search and Replace History’
     When the option ‘-H’ or ‘--historylog’ is given (or set in the a
     nanorc file), text entered as search or replace strings is stored.
     These strings can be accessed with the up/down arrow keys, or you
     can type the first few characters and then use ‘Tab’ to cycle
     through the matching strings.  A retrieved string can subsequently
     be edited.

‘Position History’
     When the option ‘-P’ or ‘--positionlog’ is given (or set in a
     nanorc file), ‘nano’ will store the position of the cursor when you
     close a file, and will place the cursor in that position again when
     you later reopen the file.

‘Current Cursor Position’
     The output of the "Display Cursor Position" command (‘^C’) displays
     not only the current line and character position of the cursor, but
     also (between the two) the current column position.

‘Hard-Wrapping’
     By default, ‘nano’ hard-wraps lines at screen width minus eight
     columns, whereas Pico does it at screen width minus six columns.
     You can make ‘nano’ do the same as Pico by using ‘--fill=-6’.

‘Spell Checking’
     In the internal spell checker misspelled words are sorted
     alphabetically and trimmed for uniqueness, such that the words
     ’apple’ and ’Apple’ will be prompted for correction separately.

‘Writing Selected Text to Files’
     When using the Write-Out key (‘^O’), text that has been selected
     using the marking key (‘^^’) can not just be written out to a new
     (or existing) file, it can also be appended or prepended to an
     existing file.

‘Reading Text from a Command’
     When using the Read-File key (‘^R’), ‘nano’ can not just read a
     file, it can also read the output of a command to be run (‘^X’).

‘Reading from Working Directory’
     By default, Pico will read files from the user’s home directory
     (when using ‘^R’), but it will write files to the current working
     directory (when using ‘^O’).  ‘nano’ makes this symmetrical: always
     reading from and writing to the current working directory — the
     directory that ‘nano’ was started in.

‘File Browser’
     In the file browser, ‘nano’ does not implement the Add, Copy,
     Rename, and Delete commands that Pico provides.  In ‘nano’ the
     browser is just a file browser, not a file manager.

‘Toggles’
     Many options which alter the functionality of the program can be
     "toggled" on or off using Meta key sequences, meaning the program
     does not have to be restarted to turn a particular feature on or
     off.  Note: Feature Toggles for a list of options that can be
     toggled.  Or see the list at the end of the main internal help text
     (‘^G’) instead.