Classic Text Editor

cedit is a small, fast text editor that looks and feels like the text-mode editors of the 80s and 90s.

It borrows from two places:

• TempleOS, Terry A. Davis's operating system. Its font, black ink on white paper, blue frames and thin arrow pointer are where cedit's look comes from.
• MS-DOS EDIT, the editor that came with DOS. A menu bar you can drive from the keyboard, simple dialog boxes, and no modes to learn: you open it and type.

Features

• Plain typing with the usual Ctrl shortcuts.
• Huge files open at once and never freeze the editor.
• Split windows, showing different files or the same file in two places.
• Syntax highlighting for C, C++, HolyC, Python, Shell, Makefile, JavaScript, TypeScript, JSON, Go, Rust, Lua and Markdown.
• Light and dark themes, three text sizes, word wrap and line numbers.

Downloads

Ready-made builds of each release are on the Releases page:

Each holds a single program file, with nothing to install. On Linux and macOS, unpack it and run it:

tar -xzf cedit-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
./cedit [file]
sudo mv cedit /usr/local/bin/     # optional: run it as cedit from anywhere

On macOS, a download from a browser is blocked the first time, as cedit isn't signed by Apple; xattr -d com.apple.quarantine cedit allows it.

On Windows, unpack the zip and double-click cedit.exe, or run cedit.exe [file] from a terminal. If SmartScreen warns of an unrecognized app, choose More info, then Run anyway.

Build

Linux / macOS

You need a C compiler, CMake 3.27 or newer, Ninja, and on Linux the X11 and Wayland development files:

Debian 12 and Ubuntu 22.04 ship an older CMake; pipx install cmake gets a current one.

Then build it, and optionally install it:

cmake --preset release            # configure, once (downloads SDL2)
cmake --build --preset release    # builds build/cedit
ctest --preset release            # runs the tests
sudo cmake --install build        # copies it to /usr/local/bin

For debugging, use the debug preset, or asan for AddressSanitizer and UBSan, in place of release. They build into build-debug/ and build-asan/.

The presets build with Ninja, and with clang where it is installed. To use gcc, configure with cmake --preset release -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=gcc.

Windows

You need Visual Studio 2022 or later (Community, or just the Build Tools) with the Desktop development with C++ workload. (The build downloads SDL2 by itself.)

Either open the cedit folder in Visual Studio and build, or run these in a Developer PowerShell for VS:

cmake --preset release            # configure, once (downloads SDL2)
cmake --build --preset release    # builds build\cedit.exe
ctest --preset release            # runs the tests

The debug and asan presets work there too (asan without UBSan, which Visual C++ lacks). If the configure step warns of a 32-bit build, use the x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS instead.

Run

cedit [file]

If the file doesn't exist yet, cedit creates it when you first save. You can also drop a file onto the window to open it.

A few keys to get started:

On macOS, Cmd works as Ctrl as well, except where the system's own application menu answers first.

Settings such as dark mode and text size are changed from the View and Edit menus, and cedit remembers them, and the window size, in ~/.config/cedit/cedit.conf (on Windows, %APPDATA%\cedit\cedit.conf).

License

cedit is released under the MIT License.