Learn vim. Its the most versatile, fastest, and pluggable text editor.
this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2021
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Vim is absolutely the right answer. No visual interface at all and easy to customize aesthetically by putting a few lines into .vimrc.
Learning curve: There is one, but it really isn't that bad. Read a guide first because minimalist is not the same as instinctive. If you learn a bit about modes and specific commands before you get started, Vim is way easier to use than the hype would lead you to believe.
Of course, OP wants something without a lot of features. Vim has tons of features, although none of Vim's advanced features are noticeable unless you read through :help or learn some extra commands. If you just learn basic navigation, mode-shifting, and HOW TO SAVE/EXIT, then you probably won't find a more minimalist text editing experience. Except for ed.
I wish this were libre so I could play it till the end and learn Vim.
I just used vimtutor to learn, but this seems more fun
Hmm, so if it only displays text, no other UI elements, then what about it could even look like it was designed in the 90s? Or do you just want an editor that can display variable-width font?
GNU nano can't be not mentioned here, it's command line only
Maybe https://xi-editor.io, or https://github.com/linuxmint/xed, or also https://kakoune.org
I checked the GUIs for Xi (I love the idea of it being built upon Rust) but they all seem to be dead except for Tau which has more shit than Gedit (the one I'm using now), same goes with Xed and I think Kakoune is a terminal based text editor.
Xed is not really dead at all. I use it instead of gedit.
What about Mousepad or Featherpad? Gedit, Pluma, Geany are a little more featured but still good and snappy. Cudatext is like a mix of simple editor and Atom-like code editor. But it's one of the faster editors I've used.
nano
You can try a few of these 1954 editors here: https://texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?EditorIndex
Or a few of these I listed here: https://wiki.tilde.fun/dev/editor/start
I would like something that when I click on my files it opens almost instantly and only displays text in a notepad without any buttons tools, or just the bare minimum
Mousepad is created for exactly that purpose, if you liked GTK. I think the Qt equivalent would be Featherpad.
What desktop environment do you use? Kate is pretty fast on my system and it's a full-blown IDE. The only super slow editors I know are Electron-based like Atom. Why not use vscodium instead of Atom btw? As far as I knew Atom got left behind a bit when Microsoft bought Github.
Typora with gotham theme - it is markdown, though, but has the ability to link files like [[wikilinks]] do. Marktext is rather ugly, but used to be far more powerful than Typora and was a Typora knock-off, but this last version I downloaded has too many glitches. ghostwriter with the dark colorful theme is good, too and, when in preview mode, you can also open internal links to your other files. If you write a lot, it is well worth your time to learn markdown and use its editors - but only if they have the interacting outline pane. Vim and Emacs take forever to learn. I can use markdown, though, in email (if I use a browser extension) or online on Nextcloud's page or on some phone apps. If you find a favorite, try to customize a css file a bit to make it your own and back up that css file. With a markdown editor, you can read those files on almost any other software, so are not tied down. Flexible and easy is great. Many regular editors like Atom and gedit have plugins/addons to give you at least some markdown functionality. The size of your files will be far tinier than an .rtf. .docx, or .odt file, but can still compress well. Many markdown editors can use or read highlighting,too, and of course you'll have bold. You can write quotes and code blocks and you can also use a lot of markdown on social media (even on Lemmy) and it helps with html.