Cypher - Terminal Text Editor

Cypher is a lightweight terminal-based text editor written in C.
It runs in the terminal in raw mode.
This README file has been completely written using Cypher.

Features

• File Editing

  • Open and edit text files directly from the terminal.
  • Save changed (Ctrl-S) with overwrite support.
  • Time based Undo (Ctrl-Z) and Redo (Ctrl-Y) functionality.

• Navigation

  • Arrow keys for cursor movement.
  • Home/End keys to jump to start/end of a line.
  • Page Up/Page Down for fast scrolling.
  • Ctrl-ArrowKeys for fast navigation.
  • Ctrl-G to jump to a specific line.

• Mouse Support

  • Mouse Scroll Wheel to scroll viewport up / down.
  • Mouse left click to jump to row and column.
  • Dragging while mouse left click to select text.

• Editing Operations

  • Insert text anywhere.
  • Backspace / Delete characters.
  • Insert new lines (Enter).
  • Automatic tab expansion to spaces.
  • Paste command (Ctrl-V) from clipboard.
  • Copy (Ctrl-C) and Cut (Ctrl-X) commands to clipboard.
  • Move whole rows up (Alt-Up) or down (Alt-Down).

• Search & Replace

  • Incremental search (Ctrl-F) with real time navigation between matches.
  • Works with pre-selected text well.
  • Replace (Ctrl-R) functionality with interactive mode as well as replace all mode.

• Status & Message Bars

  • Displays filename, total lines and cursor line.
  • Temporary message area for prompts, warnings, information.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl-Q	Quit editor
Ctrl-S	Save current file
Ctrl-F	Search in file
Ctrl-R	Find and replace
Ctrl-A	Select all
Ctrl-H	Open keybinds manual
Ctrl-C	Copy selected text
Ctrl-X	Cut selected text
Ctrl-V	Paste from clipboard
Ctrl-G / L	Jump to line
Ctrl-Z	Undo last major change
Ctrl-Y	Redo last major change
Arrow Keys	Move cursor
Home / End	Move to start / end of line
Page Up	Scroll up by one screen
Page Down	Scroll down by one screen
Backspace	Delete character left of cursor
Delete	Delete character under cursor
Enter	Insert new line
Shift-ArrowKeys / Home / End	Select text
Ctrl-Left / Right	Skip words
Ctrl-Up / Down	Scroll up / down
Alt-Up / Down	Move row up / down
Shift-Alt-Up / Down	Copy row up / down

Installation & Compilation

• Requirements:

  • GCC compiler.
  • POSIX-compliant system (Linux, macOS, WSL).

• Compile:

make

• Run:

# for new file
make run

# for existing file
make run FILE={filename}

• Clean:

make clean

Usage

• Clone this repo.

git clone https://github.com/SidoJain/Cypher.git
cd Cypher

• Make the executable file.

make

• In ~/.bashrc

# set user friendly alias
alias cypher='cypher.exe'

# add executable file directory to PATH
export PATH="<directory_path>:$PATH"

• Use cypher to view/edit any file.

cypher file.txt

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.