Nano has already supplanted the great EMacs and Vim as the most popular text editor of all linux distros, for though it has many omissions in functionality it scores over the older, more complete programs in two important respects. First, it is slightly simpler; and secondly it has the text “^ Exit” inscribed in highlighted text on its footer
EDIT : This sees to be going over some people’s heads. It’s a hitchiker’s guide to the galaxy reference.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions . . . it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.
You obviously haven’t used much vim if you think modes slow you down. First it means you don’t have to bring your right hand all the way to the arrows whenever you want to move the cursor, secondly it means you can use shortcuts without adding a modifier everytime - this translates to fewer keypresses.
If you customize nanorc then you can also point and click with the mouse and highlight text and copy/paste like it was a GUI from the terminal. Most people shiting on Nano just never learned it because they learned the editor they are familiar with. Same reason I shit on vim.
I was talking about the new user experience. No new user can navigate without the arrow keys, the most you can expect is looking up i and esc to enter and exit edit mode, and then using both modes the same way being annoyed at being in the wrong mode when something doesn’t work.
Keeping track of the modes is also obviously something only problematic to those not familiar with vim.