Command line text editor

I'm looking for a very basic command line text editor. I've heard of Pico but don't know if it would work in WinXP. Otherwise, any other CLI text editor without bells and whiltles?Good help menu would be nice and breginner friendly, (i.e with instruction of how to bring help). If you know link for downloading. that would be nice.

 

Windows XP does indeed have a command line text editor. To use it, issue the 'edit' command at the command line. Of course, you can pass text documents to it (ie. issue 'edit filename.txt')

 

It would be nice to have the most common commands listed in the bottom and even syntax highlighted in colour... I have come across Nano text editor (Pico clone) screeshots that have those but I don't know which version has them and the download link for downloads suitable for Windows. Or is there some other simple one I have misssed?

 

Well sir, there are excellent programs for this, but you'd be hard pressed to find one that operates in real mode (ie via command line).

I can recommend EditPlus as a Windows text editor. It has syntax higlighting, and the interface is fairly simple.

Others are huge fans of Notepad++, but I've never used this myself, so I cannot comment on it.

 

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I want to use something that even LOOKS like CLI, (i.e. no visual interface at all) so I can get used to working in that environment. I'm totally new to this so I want to start small, hence the colours and common command reminders at the bottom...

 

Well... I suppose you could use the command line itself as a text editor. Commands are available by issuing the 'Help' command, or command-specific help can be seen by appending ' /?' to a command. You can simply use the redirector '>>' to append text to a file.

There's no syntax highlighting, though. Other than that, I'm not sure...google's not turning anything up, either