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vcte

1 July 2022

vcte (very cool text editor) is a terminal-based text editor written in rust from scratch using raw terminal I/O.

features

  • scrollable file explorer and multi-file tab system
  • command palette (:open, :save, :quit, :help)
  • syntax highlighting — tokenises source files and assigns consistent colours
  • vim-inspired keybindings — view mode, insert mode, line jumps ({n}j), line delete (rr)
  • tab management — next/prev tab, reorder tabs, close tabs
  • raw terminal I/O via crossterm with alternate screen, mouse capture, and graceful cleanup

how it works

the editor manages its own screen buffer, handles keyboard/mouse events at the raw terminal level, and renders everything character by character. no TUI framework — just crossterm for the terminal abstraction layer.

built this to understand how editors like vim and emacs work under the hood.