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

by boutell on 9/22/23, 5:23 PM with 91 comments

  • by danielvaughn on 9/22/23, 6:13 PM

    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.

  • by forgotpwd16 on 9/22/23, 7:15 PM

    It's already pretty nice. Very fast, CUA shortcuts (that are also shown at bottom), indeed very few dependencies. Good work.
  • by ripperdoc on 9/22/23, 7:30 PM

    Should run it with bun instead of Node.js for that extra speed!
  • by pepa65 on 9/23/23, 2:29 AM

    I just do not knowingly use anything that has to be installed with npm.
  • by hobo_mark on 9/22/23, 9:11 PM

    All I want is nano with VSCode keybindings for multiple cursors. Does is exist or do I also have to write my own?
  • by 29athrowaway on 9/23/23, 12:43 AM

    Terminal != Command line
  • by worksonmine on 9/22/23, 8:01 PM

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

    Still V8 though.

  • by kesava on 9/22/23, 6:53 PM

    That’s awesome! Can someone point me to a similar minimal web/editableContent implementation? Would love to learn from it.
  • by Solvency on 9/22/23, 11:12 PM

    There is already a Tome. http://tome.app
  • by jbritton on 9/22/23, 10:19 PM

    Does this use a TUI library or does it directly implement the console I/O?
  • by rickydroll on 9/22/23, 8:39 PM

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

    https://github.com/blakemcbride/TECOC

    seriously. try it.

  • by n3storm on 9/22/23, 8:31 PM

    No screenshot, no joy
  • by uwagar on 9/22/23, 7:23 PM

    in go or rust?
  • by Svip on 9/22/23, 8:04 PM

    Given the description, this sounds more TUI than CLI. Honestly, when I saw the title, I thought it was a competitor to ed(1).
  • by Avshalom on 9/22/23, 5:55 PM

    I know this isn't an original nit-pick but a cli editor is like ed, this sounds like a screen editor.
  • by ThouYS on 9/22/23, 6:07 PM

    "written in node.js" - insert squidward packing his chair meme
  • by LispSporks22 on 9/22/23, 6:19 PM

    > 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/

  • by thisismyhna on 9/22/23, 6:29 PM

    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.

  • by jenkstom on 9/22/23, 7:27 PM

    It's pretty easy to say "terminal based" or "text mode" instead of CLI, which is misleading. I was expecting an alternative to sed.
  • by lagniappe on 9/22/23, 6:30 PM

    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!

  • by tuatoru on 9/22/23, 7:09 PM

    > 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/

  • by hackncheese on 9/22/23, 8:18 PM

    The THE lul