Vis – Combining Modal Editing with Structural Regular Expressions
4 months ago
- #text-editor
- #vi-alternative
- #open-source
- Vis is a modern, legacy-free editor combining vi(m) and sam features.
- Supports multiple cursors/selections and structural regular expressions.
- Decent Unicode support, handles large, binary, or single-line files.
- Uses Parsing Expression Grammars (PEGs) via Lua's LPeg for syntax highlighting.
- Core written in clean, modern C for resource-constrained environments.
- Lua API available for in-process extensions.
- Focuses on efficient text management; clipboard, digraphs handled externally.
- Plans for client/server architecture with external window management.
- Not bug-for-bug compatible with vi(m); aims for more powerful editing.
- Requires C99 compiler, POSIX.1-2008, libtermkey, curses (recommended), Lua >=5.2 (optional), LPeg >=0.12 (optional), TRE (optional).
- Build with `./configure && make && sudo make install`.
- Documentation available in vis(1) manual page, Wiki, FAQ, and API docs.
- Features not planned: tabs, file browser, archives, network protocols, encryption, GUIs, VimL, RTL text, ex mode, diff mode, vimgrep, spell checker.
- Contribution areas: Artwork, Themes, Documentation, Lua API, Testing, Packaging, Core Design.
- Developer resources: Developer Overview, #vis-editor IRC on libera.