I've been using Joe's Own Editor the past couple of years when I want to do basic view/editing in terminal (I use Sublime Text for development). Really like it because it provides syntax highlighting for a ton of file types, let's me get around with arrow keys/mouse, and gives me an easy way to look up keyboard commands I may have forgotten.

https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io

You can install it with your OS's package management system, and there's a Windows installer on the site.

I did adjust some of the default settings, which are configured and well documented in a .joerc file.

You can try micro: https://micro-editor.github.io/

> Vim is already the best and most customizable modal editor

Weird statement. "Best" is up to debate, but "most customizable" is definitely Emacs.

I cannot really imagine a really good non-modal programmer's editor. Surely it should behave differently when editing Python compared to editing HTML?

You're using the emacs definition of major modes. "Modal editor" has a different meaning. Vim has three modes [1]. Emacs is not considered a modal editor, but some of its features are similar to Vim's last-line mode.

[1] https://alvinalexander.com/linux/vim-vi-mode-editor-command-...

Run Emacs in Evil mode or similar and you get modal editing inside a special editor mode. If anything, Emacs is an extra-modal editor. :)

Emacs is IDE, like Eclipse or Idea. It contains text editor, of course, but it much more than just text editor. It's not fair to compare say GEdit and Eclipse in terms of configurability, because GEdit is text editor, while Eclipse is IDE.

mcedit (part of mc) in gnome-terminal currently the best non-modal editor, AFAIK, especially when you like to use mc to navigate file system.

What an unfortunate name. All search results are for the Minecraft editor.

It's also fairly obtuse for non-experts. A champion non-modal editor would have a learning curve as shallow as nano but more depth that could reveal itself over time.

It predates Minecraft by about a decade, I think.