Show HN: Tome, aka Tom's Editor – a new command-line text editor

danielvaughn

Honestly I really want to make one. Mostly because I want to stay in my terminal as much as possible, but I'm super fast with VSCode's keybindings and I can't handle the velocity drop during the learning curve.

Alternatively, if it's possible to emulate VSCode's keybindings in an existing editor, I'd be happy to go that route. I just don't know the space very well.

forgotpwd16

It's already pretty nice. Very fast, CUA shortcuts (that are also shown at bottom), indeed very few dependencies. Good work.

ripperdoc

Should run it with bun instead of Node.js for that extra speed!

pepa65

I just do not knowingly use anything that has to be installed with npm.

hobo_mark

All I want is nano with VSCode keybindings for multiple cursors. Does is exist or do I also have to write my own?

29athrowaway

Terminal != Command line

worksonmine

> Written in Node.js with practically no libraries (certainly no Electron)

Still V8 though.

kesava

That’s awesome! Can someone point me to a similar minimal web/editableContent implementation? Would love to learn from it.

Solvency

There is already a Tome. http://tome.app

jbritton

Does this use a TUI library or does it directly implement the console I/O?

rickydroll

why?? TECO (now TECOC Type Every Character Over Constantly) is perfection as a cli editor

https://github.com/blakemcbride/TECOC

seriously. try it.

n3storm

No screenshot, no joy

uwagar

in go or rust?

Svip

Given the description, this sounds more TUI than CLI. Honestly, when I saw the title, I thought it was a competitor to ed(1).

Avshalom

I know this isn't an original nit-pick but a cli editor is like ed, this sounds like a screen editor.

ThouYS

"written in node.js" - insert squidward packing his chair meme

LispSporks22

> const tabSpaces = 2;

Shots fired.

Building your own editor is a fun project for sure. Curious with node whether you can build it into a single executable that you can, for example, conveniently scp around to host:.local/bin/

thisismyhna

Made my own CLI text editor as well this year using rust following this: https://www.flenker.blog/hecto/

Building tools like this is great practice for learning new languages.

jenkstom

It's pretty easy to say "terminal based" or "text mode" instead of CLI, which is misleading. I was expecting an alternative to sed.

lagniappe

Yes! We need more "because I can" and "because I wanted to" in this. More art, less ... idk what to say here ... less formality. Some of the most fun projects I've done were ones that I knew already existed but I just had to -know- what it'd be like to write one.

Good work Tom :) I'll give it a shot BECAUSE I CAN!

tuatoru

> Maybe should be THE (Tom's Hubristic Editor).

A TUI editor called THE already exists: The Hessling Editor, a work-alike of xedit.

1. https://hessling-editor.sourceforge.net/

hackncheese

The THE lul