IRIS

Yet another terminal text editor. Taking inspiration from vim and friends as well as other popular text editors (nano, emacs, VScode) to a lesser extent. This only currently is designed to work in macOS and Linux.

All PRs are welcome

Why "Iris"?

• it's an easy combination of letters to type on an ascii keyboard without being uncomfortable on the fingers
• The Iris is part of the eye, the "window to the soul" -- your text editor is usually the window into your code
• Iris is the greek goddess of the rainbow, represents a bridge between different aspects, much like your editor bridges text and code. (Thanks ChatGPT)

How to run

Prerequisites: cmake, ninja, Python

I provide a wrapper python script to run all the required commands.

• To build just the binary, run ./run.py
• To also run the unit tests: ./run.py test
• For integration tests using hecate and tmux, run ./run.py test -I

To make a release binary, run the following commands on a Fedora-based system. (Adjust as needed for your local system)

$ sudo dnf install glibc-static libstdc++-static
$ ./run.py --release

How to use

Normal mode

iris is a vim-inspired modal text editor. As with vim, any you'll need to switch to write mode to insert any characters. In read mode, you can perform the following actions (alphabetically ordered):

Key	Description
a	Go to write mode right of the current character
A	Go to write mode at the end of the current line
b	Move cursor back one word
dl	Delete the current line
dw	Delete the current word
f	Find next entered char ahead in file
F	Find next entered char back in file
g	Go to top of file
G	Go to bottom of file
h	Move cursor left
i	Go to write mode left of the current character
j	Move cursor down
J	Move current line down one
k	Move cursor up
K	Move current line up one
l	Move cursor right
o	Enter newline below and go to write mode
O	Move cursor right
r	Replace char under cursor with next entered character
R	Redo
tn	Go to next tab
tp	Go to previous tab
tt	Open new tab
u	Undo
w	Move cursor forward one word
x	Delete character under the cursor
z	Center the current line in the screen
;	Go to command mode
~	Switch case of char under cursor
[	Go to beginning of paragraph (previous empty line)
]	Go to end of paragraph (next empty line)
_	Go to beginning of line
$	Go to end of line

Command mode

Likewise, you can switch to command mode with the semicolon ; key. The following commands in alphabetical order are available:

Command	Description
;b <int>	Display the buffer at the given index
;lb	List all open buffers
;ping	pong (for testing purposes)
;e	Open a new buffer - specify a filename to open an existing file
;q	Quit
;q!	Force Quit without saving
;wq	Save and quit
;w	Save file
;wa	Save all files
;qa	Quit all

CLI

The below flags are available in the CLI as well. See --help for more info.

Flag	Description
-l<int>	Open the named file on the given line number
--version	Print the current version and exit.