textivus-editor

README

Textivus

Textivus is a fast, friendly terminal (TUI) text editor for Linux inspired by the simplicity of nano/micro, with modern comforts like multi-file buffers, incremental search/replace, and syntax highlighting.

A text editor for the rest of us!

Features

• Instant startup - No bloat, just editing
• Classic DOS EDIT styling - Dark blue menu bar and status bar with cyan highlights
• Modern keyboard shortcuts - Ctrl+S, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+Z, etc.
• Configurable keybindings - Customize shortcuts via Options menu
• Multiple buffers - Edit multiple files with fast switching (Alt+< / Alt+>)
• Recent files & directories - Quick access to recently opened files and directories
• Favorites - Star frequently-used files/directories for quick access
• Mouse support - Click to position cursor, drag to select, scroll wheel
• Shift+Arrow selection - Select text the modern way
• Word wrap - Toggle via Options menu
• Line numbers - Toggle via Options menu or Ctrl+L
• Syntax highlighting - Auto-detected by file extension
• Find & Replace - Ctrl+F to find, Ctrl+H to find and replace
• Go to Line - Ctrl+G to jump to a specific line
• Cut Line - Ctrl+K to cut the entire current line (like nano)
• Word & Character counts - Displayed in the status bar
• Clipboard support - Native X11/Wayland support, OSC52 for SSH
• Undo/Redo - Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y with full history

Installation

Quick Install (Linux/macOS)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cornish/textivus-editor/main/install.sh | sh

Or download manually from GitHub Releases.

From Source

Requires Go 1.21 or later.

git clone https://github.com/cornish/textivus-editor.git
cd textivus-editor
go build
./textivus [filename]

Clipboard Support (Linux)

For clipboard integration with other applications, install one of:

# X11
sudo apt install xclip
# or
sudo apt install xsel

# Wayland
sudo apt install wl-clipboard

Without these tools, copy/paste will only work within Textivus.

Keyboard Shortcuts

File Operations

Action	Shortcut
New	Ctrl+N
Open	Ctrl+O
Recent Files	Ctrl+R
Recent Dirs	(File menu)
Save	Ctrl+S
Close	Ctrl+W
Quit	Ctrl+Q

Buffers

Action	Shortcut
Previous Buffer	Alt+<
Next Buffer	Alt+>
Buffer 1-9	Alt+1 through Alt+9

Editing

Action	Shortcut
Undo	Ctrl+Z
Redo	Ctrl+Y
Cut	Ctrl+X
Copy	Ctrl+C
Paste	Ctrl+V
Cut Line	Ctrl+K
Select All	Ctrl+A
Indent	Tab
Dedent	Shift+Tab
Block Indent	Tab (with selection)
Block Dedent	Shift+Tab (with selection)

Search

Action	Shortcut
Find	Ctrl+F
Find Next	F3
Replace	Ctrl+H
Go to Line	Ctrl+G

Navigation

Action	Shortcut
Start of file	Ctrl+Home
End of file	Ctrl+End
Start of line	Home
End of line	End
Word left/right	Ctrl+Left/Right
Page up/down	PgUp/PgDn

Selection

Action	Shortcut
Select with cursor	Shift+Arrow
Select word	Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right
Select to line start/end	Shift+Home/End
Select to file start/end	Ctrl+Shift+Home/End

Options

Action	Shortcut
Toggle Line Numbers	Ctrl+L

Menu Navigation

• F10 or click to open File menu
• Alt+F File, Alt+B Buffers, Alt+E Edit, Alt+S Search, Alt+O Options, Alt+H Help
• Arrow keys to navigate within menus
• Press underlined letter to select item
• Enter to select, Escape to close

All keyboard shortcuts can be customized via Options → Keybindings.

File Browser

The file browser (Ctrl+O to open, or File → Save As) supports:

Key	Action
Enter	Open file or enter directory
F	Toggle favorite on selected item
Backspace	Go to parent directory
Esc	Cancel

Favorites

Press F on any file or directory to add it to your favorites. Favorited items show a star (★) next to their name.

When you have favorites, a ★ Favorites entry appears at the top of every directory listing. Enter it to see all your favorited files and directories in one place - a quick way to jump to frequently-used locations.

Favorites are saved in your config file and persist across sessions.

Status Bar

The status bar shows:

• Filename (with * if modified)
• Word count (W:xxx)
• Character count (C:xxx)
• Current line and column
• File encoding (UTF-8)

Configuration

Textivus stores its configuration in ~/.config/textivus/config.toml:

[editor]
word_wrap = false
line_numbers = false
syntax_highlight = true
true_color = true    # Set to false for older terminals
backup_count = 0     # 0=disabled, 1=filename~, 2+=numbered (filename~1~ newest)
max_buffers = 20     # Maximum open buffers (0=unlimited)
tab_width = 4        # Display width of tab characters
tabs_to_spaces = false  # true = insert spaces, false = insert tab characters

[theme]
name = "default"  # or "dark", "light", "monokai", "nord", "dracula", "gruvbox", "solarized", "catppuccin"

Keybindings

Keybindings are stored in ~/.config/textivus/keybindings.toml and can be edited via Options → Keybindings. Each action supports a primary and alternate binding:

[save]
primary = "ctrl+s"

[find]
primary = "ctrl+f"
alternate = "f3"

Themes

Textivus supports color themes with 9 built-in options:

• default - Classic DOS EDIT style (blue/cyan)
• dark - Modern dark theme
• light - Light theme for bright environments
• monokai - Monokai-inspired dark theme
• nord - Arctic, north-bluish palette
• dracula - Dark theme with vibrant colors
• gruvbox - Retro groove color scheme
• solarized - Precision colors (dark variant)
• catppuccin - Soothing pastel theme (Mocha)

Switch themes at runtime via the Options menu, or set the default in your config file.

In the theme dialog, press E to edit a theme or C to copy it with a new name - the theme file will open directly in Textivus for editing.

Custom Themes

Create custom themes in ~/.config/textivus/themes/:

# ~/.config/textivus/themes/mytheme.toml
name = "mytheme"
description = "My custom theme"
author = "Your Name"

[ui]
menu_bg = "#3B4252"
menu_fg = "#ECEFF4"
menu_highlight_bg = "#5E81AC"
menu_highlight_fg = "#ECEFF4"
status_bg = "#3B4252"
status_fg = "#ECEFF4"
status_accent = "#88C0D0"
selection_bg = "#4C566A"
selection_fg = "#ECEFF4"
line_number = "#4C566A"
line_number_active = "#D8DEE9"
error_fg = "#BF616A"
disabled_fg = "#4C566A"
dialog_bg = "#3B4252"
dialog_fg = "#ECEFF4"
dialog_border = "#4C566A"
dialog_title = "#88C0D0"
dialog_button = "#5E81AC"
dialog_button_fg = "#ECEFF4"

[syntax]
keyword = "#81A1C1"
string = "#A3BE8C"
comment = "#616E88"
number = "#B48EAD"
operator = "#81A1C1"
function = "#88C0D0"
type = "#8FBCBB"

Then reference it in your config: name = "mytheme"

Color Formats

Colors can be specified as:

• ANSI 16 colors: "0" - "15"
• 256-color palette: "16" - "255"
• Hex colors: "#RGB" or "#RRGGBB"

True Color Support

Hex colors use 24-bit "true color" by default, which requires a modern terminal:

• iTerm2, Alacritty, Kitty, Windows Terminal
• GNOME Terminal, Konsole, VS Code terminal

For older terminals, set true_color = false in your config to automatically convert hex colors to the nearest 256-color match.

Non-goals

Textivus is not an IDE:

• No always-on language servers
• No background project indexing
• No plugin marketplace

Why "Textivus"?

"A Festivus for the rest of us!"

Named as a nod to the Seinfeld holiday, because every text editor tries to be Vim or Emacs. Textivus is for the rest of us who just want to edit text.

Built With

• Bubbletea - TUI framework
• Lipgloss - Styling
• go-runewidth - Unicode width calculation
• Chroma - Syntax highlighting

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Feel free to submit issues and pull requests.

Development Setup

After cloning, run:

make setup

This configures a pre-commit hook that auto-formats Go code. Other useful commands:

make build   # Build binary
make test    # Run tests
make fmt     # Format code
make lint    # Run linters

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"I got a lot of problems with you people!" - Frank Costanza