Ncurses Text Editor (WIP)

Status: In Progress

A terminal-based text editor built in C++ using the ncurses library, inspired by Vim. Designed to be lightweight, modular, and efficient—with tiling windows, multiple buffers, and Vim-like modal editing.

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Build

git clone https://github.com/aarya-bhatia/ncurses-editor.git 
cd ncurses-editor
make

Run

bin/main [<filename1> [<filename2>...]]

Test

bin/test

Logs

Program will create and append logs to the file stderr.log in the project directory. View logs in another terminal with tail -f stderr.log.

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Features (In Progress)

• Tiling window management using a binary tree layout
• Tab and buffer management for multiple open files
• Vim-style modal editing: Insert, Normal, and Command modes
• Lazy redraw: only update modified parts of the screen
• Graceful terminal resizing
• Plugin-like file event handlers (e.g., :Ex to explore files)
• Chord-style keybindings for navigation and actions
• Modular and extensible architecture

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Screenshots

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Insert Mode

Key	Action
<Esc>	Exit insert mode

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Command Mode

Command	Description
:q[uit]	Exit program
<Esc>	Exit command mode
<Enter>	Execute command
:<line>	Jump to specified line
:sp, :vs	create horizontal/vertical split
:right, :left, :top, :bottom	navigate to window pane
:tabnext / :tabprev	Switch to next or previous tab
:edit <filename> / :open <filename>	Open a file if it exists
:close	Close current window
:tabclose	Close current tab
:save	Save current file to disk.
:tabnew	Open and switch to new tab.
:copy	Copy current line
:Ex	Open file explorer in buffer

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Normal Mode

Key	Action
h	Move left
j	Move down
k	Move up
l	Move right
0	Jump to start of line
$	Jump to end of line
i	Enter insert mode
:	Enter command mode
G	Go to end of file
gg	Go to start of file
yy	Copy the current line
p	Paste copied line below
x	Erase character at cursor
o	Insert line below cursor
dd	Delete current line
<space>w + hjkl	Navigate to window split in left/down/top/right direction.
<space>wc	Close window
<space>t + pn	Navigate to previous/next tab
<space>te	Open new tab
<space>tc	Close tab

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Credits

• ncurses for terminal rendering
• Catch2 for unit testing

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Roadmap / TODO

Core

• Auto-scroll when cursor jumps off-screen
• Efficient line redraw after inserts/deletes
• Handle empty buffer states
• Read filenames from command-line arguments
• Open and edit multiple files
• Use buffer IDs instead of filenames

Features

• Line number display
• Run external shell commands on current line
• Visual mode
• Popup UI for long messages
• Command history
• Color support