Cmd+T is here

So basically, now, instead of having to manually select a file to open from the file explorer, you can just press cmd+t and it opens the file you want in a new tab. I feel like it looks kinda nice, but it still needs some work.

I think next ima work on some animations so that everything feels nice and smooth.

File searching mechanic!

Now, I added a way to look through all the files in the workspace for a certain word or phrase. It uses fuzzy finding to make it actually smart.

I did run into some goofy issues on the way there though. One of them was that whenever I would search for ANYTHING it would look through literally the WHOLE workspace, instead of just the files that I cared about. Turns out, all I had to do was add a .gitignore flag and make it “true”.

Design improvements and MARKDOWN PREVIEW!!!!

I managed to make the app have all of its corners rounded (ts had me crashing out for like a whole hour), but more importantly, I added markdown preview support, which honestly has some bugs, but I have NO CLUE how to fix them.

Changelog

• FEAT: Make a markdown preview and syntax highlighter
• FIX: Make scrolling slower (with one scroll, move 5x less lines than before) for more precision
• FIX: Make sure the syntax highlighting works for python docstring
• STYLES: Try to make the app more arc/apple-like with some updated design choices

Syntax Highlighting

Added custom syntax highlighting to the app. It works in some file types, but in others its kinda ahh. You can see in the example below how rust actually looks good, but python looks dull and grey…

In python files, for some reason, it only highlights the first couple of lines, then js gives up. I’ll have to investigate further, but for now, the editor’s coming along pretty well!

One thing I will have to be sure of, though, is that it doesn’t just become another VS Code clone.

Changelog

• FEAT: Integrate syntax backend into frontend editor (ui component) and make syntax highlighting work
• FIX: Use iced::advanced instead of simple highlighter, since that doesn’t exist anymore,fix typos, and add missing variables… oops
• FEAT: Make the big portion of the syntax highlighting: the actual custom highlighter
• FIX: Fix some syntax errors
• FEAT: Start the custom syntax highlighting section so that it can work with VS Code themes (custom themes)
• STYLES: Add support for vscode-imported themes, such as material gruvbox using a JSON parser. This was done by Claude Code due to it being VERY tedious
• Rebuilt repository after git object corruption

SIDEBAR

I made the sidebar resizeable, even going so far as to make the cursor have that horizontal resize look. Now, you can see your files however large you’d like!

Changelog

• FEAT: Make the sidebar resizeable

The editor is functional!

YAY!!

So what I did to make this editor actually usable is first of all, made it look nice, with tab organization, good looking file and folder icons, and a relatively simple UI (I find).

My goal of not being cluttered has officially been achieved

VS Code has just too many options sometimes… all those little icons that you can find in the sidebar can seem overwhelming, so I’ve solved that through this minimalist approach. It might not be for everyone, but personally, I find it nice!

Changelog

• FEAT: Add save file mechanic so that I can actually start using the IDE normally, and intercept all keys that have the command key before them so that they don’t also print the key that I’m pressing while I’m executing a keyboard shortcut.
• FEAT: Use Fira Code font with ligatures instead of IBM Plex Sans
• FEAT: Add keyboard shortcut to close the active tab (CMD + W)
• FEAT: Add method and keyboard shortcut to fullscreen the window. Not using native fullscreen since it crashes, so this just maximizes the window.
• REFACTOR: Change file structure to be more organized (no more 500 line app.rs file), courtesy of Claude Code by Anthropic

Looks even better! I added file icon support for JSON files following a certain template. You can see this template in the code, but it’s essentially the same one as in VS Code, since I legit just took a VS Code icon pack and put it into this editor… oops…

Credit to jonathanharty.gruvbox-material-icon pack!

Changelog

• FEAT: Add file and folder icons from a premade JSON VS Code extension.

The editor actually looks great and works now! I’ve added a tab system so that the user can have multiple files open at once, and simply switch through tabs. Sadly, I haven’t yet gotten to the keyboard shortcuts such as cmd+w or cmd+t. I’ve also added some more apple-esque styling with rounded corners and the editor sort of “hovering”. The font is also much nicer, I must say, since I’m using IBM Plex Sans. That really pulls it together I find. Any opinions on what’s missing or what could look better?

Changelog

DOCS: Make a small edit to README
FEAT: Start adding icons to files and folders for it to look better
FEAT: Add tab functionality to editor to be able to open and close multiple tabs. Still needs some styling work, but the basic version is functional
STYLE: Add IBM Plex Sans to fonts and use that font throughout editor.
STYLE: Make the editor look better with a status bar, rounded corners, and overall bette r visuals

Made the actual filetree! It is complete, being able to open directories, expand and collapse them, as well as display files in the editor.

P.S. It’s also collapsible with Cmd+R!

Ok, so now, I’ve actually made the “backend” for the filesystem. It doesn’t look the way it should since I haven’t yet integrated it into the actual visuals of the app, it just exists as an unused module for the moment. It is able to detect if an entity is a file or a directory, and act accordingly depending on what it is. It holds data about what’s expanded, it sorts the entities alphabetically, and it even ignores some directories!

Changelog

• FEAT: Make the file tree system with directory/file tracking, scanning, and alphabetical sorting
• DOCS: Add comments to keystroke code
• DOCS: Add comments to keystroke code
• FEAT: Add keyboard commands for deleting a line and word with cmd + backspace and alt + backspace (respectively)
• FEAT: Make a simple multi-line editor in iced

Made a starting base for the code editor, with a simple ahh text editor. The upside: I had to manually code all of the cmd+backspace, alt+backspace, and other stuff like that cause they weren’t working… I also added line and column tracking, so that’s pretty cool

Soooooo I switched from a cocoa infrastructure to iced… I did this because I wanted to have this application be cross-platform, and cocoa is MacOS exclusive, since it works through an Objective-C bridge. However, I was able to get the window back up and running again!!

Started learning Rust x Cocoa for the first time! Right now, it’s at a very early stage in development, with it being only a text-editor (which also barely works :(), but this is just the base of the editor. I have great plans for this one!