You can use BBEdit as your default shell (terminal) editor instead of pico by setting the EDITOR environment variable to BBEdit. Since version 6.5 (I believe) BBEdit has come with a command line program to launch bbedit from the terminal.
Add the following to your ~/.cshrc file (you can also type it in the terminal to check the effect).
setenv EDITOR bbedit
That will set your editor to BBEdit. If you want to try it out, use a program such as less to open a text file (e.g. less /etc/hostconfig). Then type the letter v in less, and the file will open in BBEdit for editing rather then pico.Mac OS X Hints
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