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Terminal text editor + file manager

A modal text editor (inspired by helix) and file browser (inspired by yazi) in one binary. Written in Zig 0.16.0 using libvaxis.

Features

• Modal editing — normal, insert, select, replace modes with vim-like bindings
• File browser — 3-panel layout (parent / cwd / preview), open files into the editor
• Rope-based text storage — binary-tree rope with insert/delete mutation
• Unicode-correct rendering — grapheme clusters via vaxis.unicode.graphemeIterator, terminal-column tracking via vaxis.gwidth.gwidth (CJK, emoji ZWJ, combining marks)
• Column-aware cursor — cursor position tracks display columns, not codepoints
• File I/O — owns an Io.File handle per buffer, :w / :w <path> write via writeStreamingAll (no re-open on save)
• Command mode — :q (quit), :w (write), :w <path> (save-as)
• Status bar — mode label, filename, cursor row:col

Quick start

zig build
./zig-out/bin/breditor              # start in file browser
./zig-out/bin/breditor src/main.zig  # open file directly

Default keybindings

see breditor -h

Overview

File	Responsibility
main.zig	Entry point, event loop; re-exports for zigdoc
types.zig	Shared types (Event, AppMode, EditorMode, FileEntry)
RopeNode.zig	Binary-tree rope with mutation (insertAt, deleteAt)
EditorState.zig	Cursor, scroll, grapheme-based render, position helpers
BrowserState.zig	File-browser listing, preview helpers
App.zig	App state, key routing, mode dispatch, rendering, file I/O

Documentation

Document	Covers
docs/DESIGN.md	Overview, module table, key decisions
docs/ARCHITECTURE.md	Event loop, mode dispatch, keybindings
docs/ROPE.md	RopeNode, Unicode handling, cursor
docs/IO.md	File ownership, reading/writing, browser, command mode
docs/FUTURE.md	Planned features, polish items