dte

A small and easy to use terminal text editor.

Features

Multiple buffers/tabs
Unlimited undo/redo
Regex search and replace
Syntax highlighting
Customizable color schemes
Customizable key bindings
Command language with command-line auto-completion
Macro recording
Unicode 16 compatible text rendering
Support for multiple encodings (using iconv)
Jump to definition (using ctags)
Jump to compiler error
EditorConfig support
Extensible via external commands and stdio
Fast startup (~10ms)
Minimal run-time dependencies (just libc on most systems)
Minimal build-time dependencies (GNU Make and a C99 compiler)
Portable to any POSIX 2008 operating system
Modern terminal support:
- Dynamic feature queries (no terminfo database or curses library needed)
- 24-bit RGB colors
- OSC 52 clipboard copy (works over SSH)
- Kitty keyboard protocol (more key combos available for binding)
- xterm's modifyOtherKeys keyboard protocol
- "synchronized updates" (helps eliminate screen tearing)

Installing

dte can be installed via package manager on the following platforms:

OS	Install command
Debian	`apt-get install dte`
Ubuntu	`apt-get install dte`
Arch Linux (AUR)	`$AUR_HELPER -S dte`
Void Linux	`xbps-install -S dte`
Slackware (SlackBuilds)	See: SlackBuild Usage HOWTO
FreeBSD	`pkg install dte`
DragonFly BSD (DPorts)	`pkg install dte`
OpenBSD	`pkg_add dte`
NetBSD (pkgsrc)	`pkg_add dte`
Android (Termux)	`pkg install dte`

Building

To build from source, first ensure the following dependencies are installed:

GCC 4.8+ or Clang
GNU Make 4.0+
iconv library (usually provided by libc on Linux/FreeBSD)

...then download and unpack the latest release tarball:

curl -LO https://craigbarnes.gitlab.io/dist/dte/dte-1.11.1.tar.gz
tar -xzf dte-1.11.1.tar.gz
cd dte-1.11.1

...and compile and install:

make && sudo make install

If you're using macOS, it may be necessary to install a more recent version of GNU Make (e.g. with brew) and then use gmake in place of make. For example:

brew install make
gmake && sudo gmake install

Requirements

In addition to the build dependencies mentioned above, the following are also needed for a correctly/fully functioning editor:

POSIX 2008 conforming operating system
ECMA-48 compatible terminal (supporting at least the CUP and EL control functions)
UTF-8 locale

Documentation

After installing, you can access the documentation in man page format:

Contact

Questions and patches may be sent by email, to the address printed by:

echo ofmisnmfbqgzdfchcbamilkoca | tr zka-hm-t @.m-ta-h

...although GitLab issue reports and merge requests are preferred, when possible.

For general discussion, we also have a #dte channel on the Libera.Chat IRC network.

Donations

Donations can be made via Liberapay. All support is very much appreciated and allows me to spend more time working on dte.

License

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2, as published by the Free Software Foundation.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License version 2 for more details.

Source Code

The primary git repository and issue tracker is hosted at https://gitlab.com/craigbarnes/dte.

The project is also on various other code hosting sites, but these are only secondary mirrors and may occasionally lag behind GitLab by a few hours.