Xide

Xide is the planned Tala integrated development environment. The renewed application is implemented with Kotlin/JVM 25 and Compose Multiplatform. Xide is a future project, is not a primary development focus at present, and is not ready for daily use. Current work is limited to small foundation slices that keep the intended architecture coherent.

Architecture

The application shell, editor integration, project model, language services, indexing, commands, settings, and extension host are Kotlin/JVM components. Compose Multiplatform owns the desktop UI. Development uses a system JDK 25, while the native Xide distribution contains a minimized Java runtime image rather than requiring users to install a full JDK.

Built-in language support is prioritized in this order:

1. Tala
2. Kotlin
3. Java
4. Groovy
5. Python

Extensions are Kotlin/JVM JARs. They are loaded from the platform-specific extension directory:

• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Xide\Extensions\
• Linux and macOS: $HOME/.xide/Extensions/

The previous Objective-C XIT experiment is preserved under legacy/xit/ only as historical implementation material. It is not the renewed application toolkit, an active CI target, or the architectural direction for new Xide code. Current CodeQL extraction covers Kotlin/JVM and GitHub Actions, not this retired toolkit.

Current foundation

The renewed Kotlin/JVM foundation currently has five modules. xide-document provides:

• immutable, versioned document snapshots;
• validated UTF-16 offset ranges and text edits;
• LF, CRLF, and CR-aware line/column conversion;
• supplementary-character handling compatible with JVM and LSP UTF-16 coordinates;
• conversion of the compiler's zero-based line and Unicode-scalar column positions to UTF-16 offsets, rejecting positions outside the snapshot instead of clamping them; and
• stale-version protection for concurrent editor consumers.

xide-compiler consumes the bounded TADG v1 structured diagnostic protocol and starts talac, the compiler, as talac [--entry=<class>] --emit=metadata -- <source>: a check that generates no code. The entry is the first class of the file with a Main method, written with the namespace of the file; a file without one is checked without an entry. Every request uses a unique temporary side channel, drains process output concurrently, enforces a timeout, and refuses to reconstruct diagnostics by scraping terminal text. xide-app binds results to the exact document version that was checked, discards stale asynchronous results after edits, and renders accepted records in its problems surface.

The application module also owns the Compose desktop shell. Its arrangement follows the familiar IDE layout, which is the direction for the final design: a toolbar on top, a stripe of tool-window buttons on the left edge, the Project tool window beside it, a tabbed editor in the centre with the Problems tool window below it, and a status bar at the bottom. UI updates pass through the versioned document API rather than maintaining a second mutable text model.

• Project tool window. Open Folder shows a folder as a tree. Directories are read one level at a time when they are expanded, symbolic links are listed but never followed, and a directory that cannot be read or that has more entries than the listing limit says so instead of looking complete.
• Exclusions. Xide leaves nothing out on its own. The only source of exclusions is .xide/exclude.list in the opened folder, written in .gitignore syntax. When the file does not exist, Xide generates it from the folder's .gitignore files; patterns from a nested .gitignore are rewritten so they mean the same thing from the opened folder. An existing list, whether generated or written by hand, is only read and never regenerated. A folder with neither file has no exclusions.
• Editor. Each open document has a tab with its own close control. A modified tab does not close silently: a bar offers to save, discard, or cancel. The gutter shows line numbers and a marker on each line that has a problem; long lines scroll horizontally instead of wrapping so the gutter stays aligned.
• Languages. Tala (.tala), Kotlin (.kt, .kts), Java (.java), Groovy (.groovy, .gradle), and Python (.py) sources open, edit, and save as text. Analysis is a separate capability: the compiler Check action is connected for Tala only, and it is disabled for the other languages rather than pretending to check them. Until the Tala toolchain settles, Kotlin is the first language the editor work targets.
• Syntax colouring. The editor colours keywords, numbers, strings with their escapes and embedded expressions, comments, documentation comments and annotations for all five languages. Kotlin, Java and Groovy are split into tokens by the IntelliJ lexers of xide-psi; Tala and Python by the tokenizers of xide-syntax. The tokenizers are total: any text, however malformed, yields tokens that cover every non-blank character exactly once, which checkTokens verifies. Colouring is lexical only; names are not coloured by meaning. Soft keywords such as Kotlin's value or Python's match are recognized from neighbouring tokens, so an unusual position may stay uncoloured. A text longer than 400,000 UTF-16 code units is shown uncoloured.
• Syntax trees. xide-psi runs the IntelliJ PSI platform without the IDE. SourceAnalyzer parses Kotlin and Java with the parsers of the Kotlin embeddable compiler and Groovy with the IntelliJ Groovy parser, and returns the syntax errors and a declaration outline of a text. Tala has its own PSI language with a structural parser: it recognizes namespaces, using directives, types and members, keeps bodies opaque, and reports no errors, because Tala errors come from the compiler. The editor does not show the PSI syntax errors yet, and there is no resolution or type information.
• Structure tool window. Lists the declarations of the active Tala, Kotlin, Java or Groovy document as an indented list, from the outline of SourceAnalyzer. Selecting a declaration moves the caret to its start, and the declaration around the caret is marked. The list is read again a moment after an edit, on a background thread, and only while the tool window is open; a row of an older text does not navigate. Python has no parser and therefore no structure. The window is closed when Xide starts.
• Problems and status. The Problems tool window lists the active document's diagnostics with their severity, code and location. The status bar shows the current activity, problem counts, the caret position, the line separator, the encoding, and the language.
• Shortcuts. Ctrl+N, Ctrl+O, Ctrl+S, Ctrl+W/Ctrl+F4 act on files and tabs; Alt+1, Alt+7 and Alt+6 toggle the Project, Structure and Problems tool windows.

Semantic code analysis for Kotlin, Java and Groovy, resizable tool windows, and file operations in the Project tool window are not implemented yet.

Selecting a problem reveals its primary location in the editor. A location is resolved only while it is provably the text the compiler read: the checked document must still have the version its diagnostics were produced for, and the target must be an open, saved, and unmodified .tala file. Locations in files that are not open, in documents edited since the check, or outside the document are declined with a status message rather than approximated. The editor gives up keyboard focus while it shows the range, because a focused text field keeps its own caret; clicking into the editor resumes typing. Opening the target file on demand and navigating related locations are not implemented yet.

ProblemNavigationUiTest and ShellUiTest drive the real Compose shell: they click rendered problems and check the editor selection, open sources from the Project tool window, toggle tool windows from the stripe and from the keyboard, close clean and modified tabs, and read the gutter and status bar back through the semantics tree.

Settings loading, quick-fix application, and the extension host remain future slices.

Artwork

The application icon is the vector file modules/app/src/main/resources/com/progmasoft/xide/app/Xide-App.svg. The desktop shell decodes it at start-up and uses it as the window icon. branding/Xide-Social-Preview.svg is the repository social-preview artwork and is not packaged with the application. Both files are self-contained vector drawings without embedded images, fonts, scripts, or external references.

Native installers still use the platform default icon: the .ico, .icns, and .png files that the packaging tasks need are not generated from the vector source yet.

Settings

User settings are Kotlin scripts named Settings.xide.kts:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Xide\User\Settings.xide.kts
• Linux and macOS: $HOME/.config/Xide/User/Settings.xide.kts

The renewed settings model covers appearance, editor behavior, and terminal typography. A settings file is optional; Xide uses built-in defaults for values that are not configured.

Installation

Xide installation and updates are managed by ProgmaIDEs Toolbox. Install the toolbox globally with Tazel, the build system and package manager of Tala:

tazel install --global Progmasoft.IdeToolbox

Open ProgmaIDEs Toolbox and install Xide from there. Automatic updates belong to Toolbox rather than to the Xide process.

Development

JDK 25 is required. Run all Kotlin, document, and Compose application checks with the Gradle wrapper:

gradlew.bat check

check also builds the Dokka HTML documentation of every module with undocumented-declaration reporting and warnings as failures, so a public declaration without KDoc fails the build. The pages are written to each module's build/dokka/html.

Launch the current desktop shell during development with:

gradlew.bat :modules:app:run

License

Xide is licensed under MPL-2.0 WITH AdditionRef-Progmasoft-Exception-1.1. The exception permits static and dynamic linking with independent components under licenses of their choice, including proprietary licenses, while Xide files and modifications to those files remain subject to MPL-2.0. See LICENSE.txt and LICENSES/AdditionRef-Progmasoft-Exception-1.1.txt. The separate Progmasoft Patent Grant, Version 1.1, is documented in PATENTS and LICENSES/AdditionRef-Progmasoft-Patent-Grant-1.1.txt.

third_party/ holds code from other projects under their own licenses. third_party/intellij-groovy-psi is the Groovy lexer and parser of IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition under the Apache License 2.0; its UPSTREAM.md records the origin and every change. See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt.