147 lines
4.5 KiB
Markdown
147 lines
4.5 KiB
Markdown
# Flow Control: a programmer's text editor
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This is my Zig text editor. It is under active development, but usually stable
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and is my daily driver for most things coding related.
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https://github.com/neurocyte/flow/assets/1552770/97aae817-c209-4c08-bc65-0a0bf1f2d4c6
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# Requirements
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- A modern terminal with 24bit color and kitty keyboard protocol support. Kitty and
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ghostty are the only recommended terminals at this time. Most other terminals
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will work, but with reduced functionality.
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- NerdFonts support
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- Linux, MacOS, (somewhat experimental) Windows, Android (Termux) or FreeBSD. Other BSDs
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probably work too, but nobody has tried it yet.
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- A UTF-8 locale (very important!)
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# Building
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Make sure your system meets the requirements listed above.
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Flow tracks zig master most of the time. Build with:
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```shell
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zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast
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```
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Sometimes zig master may introduce breaking changes and Flow may take a few days to
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catch up. In that case there is a simple zig wrapper script provided that will download
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and build with the last known compatible version of zig. The version is stored in
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`build.zig.version`.
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Build with the zig wrapper:
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```shell
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./zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast
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```
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The zig wrapper places the downloaded zig compiler in the `.cache` directory and does
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not touch your system. It requires `bash`, `curl` and `jq` to run.
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Thanks to Zig you may also cross-compile from any host to pretty much any
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target. For example:
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```shell
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zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast -Dtarget=x86_64-windows --prefix zig-out/x86_64-windows
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zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast -Dtarget=x86_64-macos-none --prefix zig-out/x86_64-macos
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zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast -Dtarget=aarch64-linux-musl --prefix zig-out/aarch64-linux -Dcpu=baseline
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```
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# Running Flow Control
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The output binary is:
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```shell
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zig-out/bin/flow
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```
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Place it in your path for convenient access:
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```shell
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sudo cp zig-out/bin/flow /usr/local/bin
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```
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Flow Control is a single statically linked binary. No further runtime is required.
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You may install it on another system by simply copying the binary.
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```shell
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scp zig-out/bin/flow root@otherhost:/usr/local/bin
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```
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Configuration is mostly dynamically maintained with various commands in the UI.
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It stored under the standard user configuration path. Usually `~/.config/flow`.
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(%APPDATA%\Roaming\flow on Windows)
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Logs, traces and per-project most recently used file lists are stored in the
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standard user runtime cache directory. Usually `~/.cache/flow`.
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Files to load may be specifed on the command line:
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```shell
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flow fileA.zig fileB.zig
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```
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Common target line specifiers are supported too:
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```shell
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flow file.txt:123
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```
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Or Vim style:
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```shell
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flow file.txt +123
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```
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Use the --language option to force the file type of a file:
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```shell
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flow --language bash ~/.bash_profile
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```
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See `flow --help` for the full list of command line options.
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# Terminal configuration
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Kitty, Ghostty and most other terminals have default keybindings that conflict
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with common editor commands. I highly recommend rebinding them to keys that are
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not generally used anywhere else.
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For Kitty rebinding `kitty_mod` is usually enough:
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```
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kitty_mod ctrl+alt
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```
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For Ghostty each conflicting binding has to be reconfigured individually.
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# Features
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- fast TUI interface. no user interaction should take longer than one frame (6ms) (even debug builds)
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- tree sitter based syntax highlighting
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- linting (diagnostics) and code navigation (goto definition) via language server
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- multi cursor editing support
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- first class mouse support (yes, even with a scrollbar that actually works properly!) (no mouse support on Windows yet)
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- vscode compatible keybindings (thanks to kitty keyboard protocol)
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- vim compatible keybindings (the standard vimtutor bindings, more on request)
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- excellent unicode support including 2027 mode
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- hybrid rope/piece-table buffer for fast loading, saving and editing with hundreds of cursors
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- theme support (compatible with vscode themes via the flow-themes project)
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- infinite undo/redo (at least until you run out of ram)
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- stuff I've forgotten to mention...
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# Features in progress (aka, the road to 1.0)
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- completion UI/LSP support for completion
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- find in files
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- command palette
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- persistent undo/redo
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- file watcher for auto reload
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# Features planned for the future
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- multi tty support (shared editor sessions across multiple ttys)
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- multi host editing
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- multi user editing
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# Community
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Join our [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/4wvteUPphx) server or use the discussions section here on GitHub
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to meet with other Flow users!
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