videre

videre is a fast, modal terminal editor with a vi-first workflow and minimal runtime dependencies.

It is built for keyboard-driven editing, quick startup, and a clean full-screen terminal UI.
The current codebase is a Go rewrite focused on parity with the original C behavior.

Why videre

• Modal editing that stays close to muscle memory
• Tight terminal feedback with a low-friction UI
• Single-binary workflow with simple build/run/install paths
• Practical feature set: motions, visual selections, search, marks, yoinks, paste, and command mode

Features

• Modes: Normal, Insert, Visual, Visual Line, and : command entry
• Navigation: hjkl, arrows, word motions, paragraph motions, %, gg, G, {n}G
• Editing: i a I A o O, x, d, y, c (including operator+motion forms and count prefixes)
• Search: /, n, N, f/F/t/T, ;, ,
• Commands: :w, :q, :q!, :qa!, :wq, :e <file>, :{number}, :help
• Extras: mouse support, context menu, clipboard integration, syntax highlighting, status line

Build

COMMIT_SHA="$(git rev-parse --short HEAD 2>/dev/null || echo unknown)"
go build -ldflags "-X main.Version=${COMMIT_SHA}" -o videre ./cmd/videre

Run

./videre path/to/file

or:

COMMIT_SHA="$(git rev-parse --short HEAD 2>/dev/null || echo unknown)"
go run -ldflags "-X main.Version=${COMMIT_SHA}" ./cmd/videre -- path/to/file

Install

COMMIT_SHA="$(git rev-parse --short HEAD 2>/dev/null || echo unknown)"
go install -ldflags "-X main.Version=${COMMIT_SHA}" ./cmd/videre

Uninstall

rm -f "${GOBIN:-$(go env GOPATH)/bin}/videre"

Benchmarking

Performance is measured using Go's built-in benchmarking tool:

go test -bench . -benchmem ./cmd/videre

This tests core operations including file loading, text insertion, cursor movement, and screen rendering.

Project Layout

• cmd/videre/main.go: editor implementation and entrypoint
• videre.1: man page
• help.txt: in-editor help buffer content

Notes

• Linux/macOS terminals are the primary target.
• On crash/hard-kill, restore terminal state with reset or stty sane.

License

GPLv3. See LICENSE.