vide1

README

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Vim Integrated Development Environment

Vim Inbuilt-editing Dynamically-tiling file Explorer

A modern, keyboard-driven terminal file manager and editor built in Go.

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VIDE1 Name Meaning

VIDE1 intentionally carries two complementary expansions, reflecting the dual nature of the tool:

• Vim Integrated Development Environment
• Vim Inbuilt-editing Dynamically-tiling file Explorer

These two meanings describe the two halves of VIDE1’s identity: a modal, keyboard-driven editor inspired by Vim, and a dynamic tiling file explorer inspired by modern tiling window managers.

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Why VIDE1 Has Two Meanings

VIDE1 was designed from the start to be both an editor and an environment. Traditional terminal tools tend to split these roles: one program for editing, another for file navigation, another for terminal panes, another for workspace management. VIDE1 merges all of these into a single binary.

Because of that hybrid nature, the name intentionally reflects both sides of the tool:

• As a Vim Integrated Development Environment, VIDE1 behaves like a lightweight modal IDE with panes, previews, terminals, and editing modes.
• As a Vim Inbuilt-editing Dynamically-tiling file Explorer, VIDE1 behaves like a fast, Miller-column file navigator with dynamic tiling and inline editing.

The dual meaning isn’t a pun — it’s a declaration of scope. VIDE1 is not just an editor with a file tree, and not just a file manager with an editor bolted on. It is both, equally, by design.

This dual identity guides its architecture, keybindings, and workflow philosophy:
everything is a pane, everything is modal, everything is keyboard-first.

Overview

VIDE1 is a fully keyboard-driven, terminal-native development workspace that combines a Vim-style file browser, a Hyprland-style dynamic tiling layout engine, an inline code editor, an asynchronous syntax-highlighted file previewer, and a live embedded PTY shell — all inside a single TUI binary written in pure Go.

No Electron. No LSP daemon. No config files needed to get started. Just launch and go.

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Features

🗂️ Miller Column File Browser

Navigate your filesystem using the classic Miller Columns pattern — three columns showing your parent directory, current directory, and a live preview of the selected item.

🪟 Hyprland-Style Dynamic Tiling

Split any pane horizontally or vertically on demand. The layout engine recursively partitions terminal dimensions using a binary tree — every pane gets exactly the space it deserves, recalculated live on resize.

🔍 Async Syntax-Highlighted Preview

Hover over any code file and a goroutine immediately fires to load and highlight it using Chroma. The UI never blocks. Line numbers included.

✏️ Inline Vim Editor

Open any file directly inside a tiling pane. A fully modal editor — Normal, Insert, and Command modes — with no external process spawned. Your buffer, your pane, your workspace.

💻 Embedded PTY Terminal

Spawn a live interactive shell inside any pane with ctrl+t. Keyboard input is piped directly to the shell process via a pseudo-terminal. stdout/stderr stream back in real time.

🎨 TrueColor Aesthetics

• 24-bit color One Dark palette
• Nerd Font icons next to every file entry
• Per-extension neon color coding
• Rounded gradient borders (active pane: magenta, inactive: gray)
• Color-coded status bar showing current mode and path

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Installation

Prerequisites

• Go 1.21 or later
• A terminal with TrueColor support (kitty, Alacritty, WezTerm, iTerm2, etc.)
• A Nerd Font installed and set as your terminal font (for icons)

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/sidx1-scratch/vide1
cd vide1
go build -o vide1 .
./vide1

Or run directly without building:

go run . 

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Install a release

If you don't want to compile from source or mess around with git or go, you can download a pre-built binary from the Releases page (Linux and macOS only because the pty terminal only supports unix-like systems).

Install to PATH (System-wide)

To make VIDE1 available from anywhere on your system, install it to a directory in your PATH:

Option 1: Install to /usr/local/bin (Linux/macOS)

# Build and install system-wide
sudo go build -o /usr/local/bin/vide1 .

# Or if you already built it
sudo cp vide1 /usr/local/bin/

Option 2: Install to ~/.local/bin (User-local, Linux/macOS)

# Create the directory if it doesn't exist
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin

# Build and install
go build -o ~/.local/bin/vide1 .

# Or copy existing binary
cp vide1 ~/.local/bin/

# Add ~/.local/bin to your PATH if not already there
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
# Or for Zsh:
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
# Reload your shell
source ~/.bashrc  # or source ~/.zshrc

Option 3: Use Go install (Recommended for Go developers)

# This installs directly to $GOPATH/bin (which should be in your PATH)
go install github.com/sidx1-scratch/vide1@latest

After installation, you can run VIDE1 from any directory:

vide1

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Usage

Basic Usage

Launch VIDE1 from your terminal:

# Start in current directory
vide1

# Start in a specific directory
vide1 /path/to/project

# Start in your home directory
vide1 ~

Quick Start Guide

1. Navigate the file tree using j/k to move up/down
2. Enter a directory with l, →, or Enter
3. Go back with h or ←
4. Preview files automatically — just select them
5. Open a file for editing with e
6. Edit files using Vim-like modal editing:
   • i to enter Insert mode
   • Esc to return to Normal mode
   • : to enter Command mode
   • :w to save, :q to quit
7. Split panes with Ctrl+w
8. Open a terminal with Ctrl+t
9. Switch panes with Tab
10. Quit with q or Ctrl+c

Example Workflow

# Start VIDE1 in your project
vide1 ~/myproject

# Navigate to src/
j j l (or use arrow keys)

# Open main.go for editing
e

# Enter insert mode and make changes
i

# Save and return to normal mode
Esc
:w

# Quit the editor
:q

# Open a terminal in the new pane
Ctrl+t

# Switch back to file browser
Tab

# Quit VIDE1
q

Advanced Usage Tips

• Multiple panes: Create a complex layout by repeatedly splitting panes with Ctrl+w
• Terminal integration: Run commands in the terminal pane while editing files in another
• File preview: Preview files without opening them by navigating through the file tree
• Quick navigation: Use h and l to quickly traverse directory structures
• Workspace management: Create custom layouts for different projects

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Keybindings

🗂️ Explorer Mode

Key	Action
j / ↓	Move cursor down
k / ↑	Move cursor up
l / → / enter	Enter directory
h / ←	Go to parent directory
e	Open file in inline editor
q	Quit VIDE1
ctrl+c	Force quit

🪟 Tiling / Workspace

Key	Action
ctrl+w	Split active pane (auto direction)
ctrl+shift+tab	Split active pane (alternate binding)
tab	Cycle focus to next pane
ctrl+t	Spawn a new live terminal pane

✏️ Editor — Normal Mode

Key	Action
i	Enter Insert mode
:	Open Command bar
h / j / k / l	Navigate cursor (left/down/up/right)
esc	Return to Normal mode

✏️ Editor — Insert Mode

Key	Action
esc	Return to Normal mode
Any key	Type into the buffer

✏️ Editor — Command Mode

Command	Action
:w + enter	Write buffer to disk
:q + enter	Quit editor, return to file tree
:wq + enter	Write and quit
esc	Cancel command

💻 Terminal Pane

Key	Action
Any key	Sent directly to shell
ctrl+d	EOF / exit shell
ctrl+c	Interrupt running process
tab	(focus must not be in terminal) Switch pane

Tip: Press tab to move focus away from a terminal pane before using other workspace commands.

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Architecture

vide1/
├── main.go           # Bubble Tea model, tiling WM (wmModel), pane navigator (paneModel)
├── load_file.go      # Async file loader → Chroma syntax highlighter → tea.Cmd
├── terminal_pane.go  # PTY-backed TerminalPane, goroutine read loop, key routing
├── theme.go          # TrueColor palette, Nerd Font icons, per-ext styles, status bar
├── go.mod
└── go.sum

Key design decisions

• Binary tree layout — each pane is a leaf node. Splitting morphs a leaf into an internal node with two children. renderNode recurses to distribute width/height.
• Bubble Tea command model — all async work (file reads, PTY reads) returns tea.Cmd and communicates via typed messages (fileLoadedMsg, termOutputMsg). No shared state between goroutines and the main loop.
• Single binary, zero runtime deps — no config daemon, no server, no LSP. Just the binary.

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Dependencies

Package	Purpose
charmbracelet/bubbletea	Elm-architecture TUI framework
charmbracelet/lipgloss	Layout, borders, TrueColor styling
charmbracelet/bubbles	textarea component for the inline editor
alecthomas/chroma/v2	Syntax highlighting for 300+ languages
creack/pty	PTY creation for the embedded terminal

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Roadmap

• Fuzzy file finder (/ to search)
• Git status indicators (modified, staged, untracked)
• Bookmarks / jump list
• Config file (~/.config/vide1/config.toml) for custom keybindings and themes
• File operations (rename, delete, copy, move) with confirmation prompts
• Mouse support
• Remote filesystem support (SFTP/SSH)

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Contributing

Pull requests are welcome! Please open an issue first to discuss major changes.

# Run the dev build
go run .

# Lint
go vet ./...

# Format
gofmt -w .

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License

VIDE1 is free software, released under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

Copyright (C) 2026 sidx1-scratch

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

See the full license text at https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html.