Getting the default text editor used in system

I have used select-editor and I note that I am using /usr/bin/nano. Is this the default text editor I am using?

When I open text files, It opens with gedit

What command in terminal must be specified to get the default text editor that I am using, and have it returned to e in terminal?

2 Answers

First of all you should notice that there are two types of text editors..

1. The command line editors such as vim, nano, emacs, etc..
2. GUI text editors such as gedit, kate, ...

The default text editor when using the GUI is not the same as the command line text editors so when you are opening a file using GUI you probably are using the GUI text editors which is gedit by default. While when using the command line so you are using the command line text editors.

To know that is the default command line text editor in your system you can try one of the following methods:

First Method:

sudo update-alternatives --config editor

This command show you the text editors. The one you are using has the * in front

 Selection Path Priority Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0 /bin/nano 40 auto mode 1 /bin/ed -100 manual mode 2 /bin/nano 40 manual mode 3 /usr/bin/vim.basic 30 manual mode 4 /usr/bin/vim.tiny 10 manual mode

Second Method:

$ echo $EDITOR
/usr/bin/nano

to set the default editor you can add the following to your shell configuration ( ~/.bashrc):

export VISUAL="/usr/bin/nano"
export EDITOR="$VISUAL"

In my setup none of the common ways to change the default editor worked. So I just:

#~/.bashrc
alias edit=nano

Was all that I wanted anyways.