Nib
A small Windows rip off of 'nano'
I have always wanted a CLI text editor like 'nano' for Windows - and yes, I know there is nano for Windows - but I figured, what's the fun in that? Also, isn't impersonation the purest form of flattery?
So, I put on my vide-coding shoes and got to work on a super minimal text editor for the CLI in Windows. Mostly I just wanted an editor to edit config files and not open Notepad++ or VS Code - it's too much overhead. I also wanted nano and Windows (CUA) key bindings. Some days I feel like Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V and other days I mix it up with Ctrl+K and Ctrl+U. Nib will honor Ctrl+X to quit - but only if there is no active selection. You can also quit with Ctrl+Q.
Behold, Nib - your lightweight, fast, CLI editor for Windows:
[SCREENSHOT]
The only other nice features it has is syntax highlighting for about a dozen file formats.
Highlighting covers 16 languages using real VS Code grammars — JSON, YAML, TOML, INI, XML, Markdown, SQL, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, TSX, Rust, Go, Bash, PowerShell and Batch. Language is detected from the extension, the filename, or a shebang.
Other than that - you can scroll, edit, select, copy/cut & paste to your hearts content. I will add in other features as I use it each day. If you have any suggestions, drop a line, or open a pull request. Cheers!
| Keys | |
|---|---|
| Arrows / Home / End / PgUp / PgDn | Move |
| Ctrl+arrows | Move by word |
| Shift+move | Select |
| Esc | Clear the selection |
| Ctrl+A | Select all |
| Ctrl+C / Ctrl+X / Ctrl+V | Copy / cut / paste |
| Ctrl+K / Ctrl+U | Cut line / paste line |
| Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y | Undo / redo |
| Ctrl+S or Ctrl+O | Save |
| Ctrl+Q | Quit |
| Ctrl+X | Cut, or quit with no selection |
| Ctrl+G | Go to line |
| Ctrl+H | Help |
| Alt+T | Cycle theme |
| Alt+N | Toggle line numbers |
You can find the code and release here: GitHub