[OpenBSD] secure text editor

[jonsec]

using vi , mg and etc ... is difficult when your environment is desktop.

what is your suggestion package? (like notepad or notepad++)

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Originally Posted by jonsec

using vi , mg and etc ... is difficult when your environment is desktop.

Why do you consider it difficult?

Doesn't seem like much effort to open a terminal emulator window and run vi(1), or create a file at ~/.local/share/applications/vi-edit.desktop that will do that for you when you click on the menu entry or use the "open with" option in a graphical file manager:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=vi
Comment=Run vi(1)
Type=Application
Exec=xterm -e vi %F
Categories=Utility;TextEditor;

But if you really need a graphical editor then x11/xfce4/mousepad is nice. Or x11/gnome/gedit for editing system files with the x11/gnome/gvfs admin:// backend:

gedit admin:///full/path/to/file

I've not actually tested the admin:// feature in OpenBSD though so I'm not sure if that will work.

EDIT: no, the admin:// backend does not appear to be available under OpenBSD.

[PapaParrot]

I like joe, also some times, and for non root edits, leafpad

[jonsec]

thanks to Head_on_a_Stick and PapaParrot

mousepad is good choose.

[bsdun]

There is nothing better than vim. It takes some time to learn, but then it saves tremendous amount of time every day; and time is money. It has non-terminal graphical counterpart gvim. Install vim + gvim:

pkg_add vim-8.2.534-gtk3.tgz

[e1-531g]

I use vim's clone neovim in terminal emulator on Gnu/Linux (there is a OpenBSD port for that), but if I had to use GUI-based editor I would use Geany.
I don't know about security of these editors.

[PapaParrot]

@Head_on_a_Stick
Mouspad is ok, I have used it but not much, can it be run as root though ?

[jggimi]

I've been a vi user since the early 1980's. I use gvim (noted by bsdun above) when editing unicode text files (ebook content, typically).

[hitest]

Vi has really grown on me; it's my editor of choice. In addition to mousepad there's leafpad.

puffy$ sudo pkg_add leafpad
quirks-3.325 signed on 2020-06-09T15:08:04Z
leafpad-0.8.18.1p7: ok

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Originally Posted by PapaParrot

Mouspad is ok, I have used it but not much, can it be run as root though ?

Yes, it can. You will need to specify keepenv in /etc/doas.conf though so that the DISPLAY parameter is preserved.

[bsdun]

EDIT: this information is no longer valid.

[bsdun]

neovim is an experimental clone of vim. All of it's best new features are ported back into vim. For example the ability to open terminal emulator inside vim

:terminal

I won't go into more details, but I'll say that I've studied both vim and neovim, and have chosen vim as my main text editor.