Kod

Kod is a modal text/code editor for the terminal, heavily inspired by vim/Neovim and helix. The main goal of this project is to explore and learn about code editors - how they are made, the patterns, algorithms and data structures they use, etc.

After the initial few months of exploration, I decided to actually start peeking at helix's source code and I realized just how much I have written that was already in helix, e.g. the entire rendering process, terminal ui, compositing was almost identical.

From then on, I continued to study helix's codebase for any new feature I wanted in kod. Sometimes I'd copy verbatim code, other times I would make slight adjustments. Sometimes I'd decide to take a different approach, e.g. no dynamic lib loading, or implement the thing myself.

State of the project

I'm using kod as my EDITOR for any git operations I do from the terminal, but it is under active development and I want to gradually start adopting it for more code editing tasks.

Features

This is a high-level, unordered, non-exhaustive list of features I want in kod.

Text editing:

• 🟡 Vim motions: The most obvious ones. I try to add more as I go, but full vim parity is not a goal
• 🟢 Load/Save files from disk
• 🟢 Unicode characters
• 🟢 Undo/Redo
• 🟢 Select mode (similar to vim visual mode)
• 🟢 Replace mode
• ⚪️ Dot repeat
• 🟡 Registers
• ⚪️ Bracketed paste
• 🟡 Search (search working, but no replace at the moment)
• ⚪️ Count before a motion e.g. 5dw
• 🟢 Syntax highlighting
• 🟡 Theme(s)
• ⚪️ Indentation

Workspace and code nav:

• 🟢 Split windows
• ⚪️ Multiple open buffers/documents
• 🟡 Commands
• ⚪️ Jump lists
• ⚪️ Built-in fuzzy finder ala Telescope (suitable for more than finding files)
• ⚪️ Project-wide search/replace
• ⚪️ Basic file explorer ala mini.files
• ⚪️ Quickfix lists

IDE:

• ⚪️ Code-aware text objects, e.g. "dif" (delete inside function)
• ⚪️ LSP diagnostics, goto definition/impl, actions, hover, etc.
• 🟡 Support for multiple languages
• ⚪️ Snippets
• ⚪️ Mouse
• ⚪️ Git gutter highlights
• ⚪️ Autosuggest (very low on the list)

Running kod

To build kod you need Rust and a C/C++ compiler and build tools

• Install Rust

Then do one of these things:

• $ cargo run to run kod in dev mode
• $ cargo run --release to compile an optimised build
• $ cargo install --path . to install kod on your system

Similar to helix, kod will download and compile a bunch of tree-sitter language grammars the first time it is built. Unlike helix, it statically links the grammars and doesn't require runtime files.

Kod currently does not have any means of loading configuration, keybinds, or themes at runtime.