dvim is a terminal text editor inspired by the functionality of vim and neovim. dvim is designed to target iTerm2, but can be run on any Linux/macOS terminal.
dvim will automatically detect if iTerm2 is being used at runtime.
To render symbols properly, install your favorite font from NerdFonts.
make
If you don't have NerdFonts installed, compile as:
make MODE=-DNONF
Alternatively, for ASCII-only mode, compile as:
make MODE=-DASCIIONLY
dvim started off as a passion project because my friend's Neovim setup looked better than my Vim setup. It's by no means anywhere close to being as good as Vim/Neovim/Emacs/etc., but if you'd like to fork dvim, feel free to! Similarly, if you would like to contribute towards dvim with a pull request, you're welcome to do so.
dvim is split up into two key parts: dcurses (ncurses with iTerm2 image support) and dvim (the editor logic).
dcurses is a ncurses-inspired library to handle all TUI rendering.
It has two main classes: Window and WindowManager.
Window is an abstraction for a single TUI window. It contains the logic for
displaying both text and images in windows. To optimize rendering, Window also
contains a cache for when only text is being rendered. This design, inspired by
ncurses, means that only changes to the screen will be displayed, rather than
clearing the entire window and re-rendering the entire window.
WindowManager is an abstraction for the main controller of the entire dcurses
framework. WindowManager keeps track of all the windows visible in the TUI at
the current time, giving the ability to add and remove windows as well as render
them in the correct z-order.
dvim contains the main editor logic. The overall design of dvim was inspired by
Vim's design. The overall editor utilizes a four-state state machine, going
between PREVIEW, EDITOR, PREVIEWCOMMAND, and EDITORCOMMAND states.
In all modes, a file tree and usage hint panel will be displayed. The file tree (implemented in FileTree.hpp and FileTreeView.hpp) displays all files starting in the directory that dvim was invoked from. Subdirectories can be expanded or collapsed to show or hide their trees.
Additionally, a usage hint panel is shown. This updates in different modes to show the various actions that the user can perform. This was inspired by Spacemacs, which provides a similar panel that improves usability significantly.
In PREVIEW mode, a preview window is displayed. In this window, the contents
of the currently selected file are shown. If the selected file is a text file,
the text contents will be displayed. If the selected file is an image, the image
will be displayed (when running in iTerm2), or a placeholder message will be
shown (for non-iTerm2 terminals).
From here, the user can enter EDITOR mode by selecting a file in the file tree
using j, k, and SPACE to navigate, then pressing ENTER to open the file.
In EDITOR mode, the user is able to edit the selected file. Within EDITOR
mode, the user can switch between four different modes: NORMAL, INSERT,
COMMAND, and VISUAL mode. Additional modes are specified when displaying
windows, such as REG SHOW to show all register contents.
The editor (Editor.hpp) consists of two key parts: the text contents and the registers.
The text contents represent the contents of the active file. In code, it is
represented as a linked list of linked lists of characters
(std::list<std::list<char>>), to support fast arbitrary insertion of both
characters and lines. The current cursor position is tracked by a pair of
iterators (line and column), as well as two integer values which track the row
and column indexes. The iterators are used by the code to handle editing, while
the integer values are primarily used for display purposes.
The registers represent areas which can be used to save strings of copied text.
There are ten registers total (named 0 through 9), with one register being
marked as "active" at any time. The "active" register is the register that will
be used for copying and pasting. (Note that this is a key difference from Vim,
where using a different register has to be specified before each operation)
NORMAL mode is used to navigate the cursor across the file, giving the ability
to move the cursor up (k), down (j), left (h), and right (l). The full
list of navigation commands is:
h: move the cursor left.j: move the cursor down.k: move the cursor up.l: move the cursor right.w: move the cursor to the beginning of the next worde: move the cursor to the end of the next wordb: move the cursor to the beginning of the previous word^: move the cursor to the first character of the line.$: move the cursor to the last character of the line.
To switch to INSERT mode, the following commands can be used:
i: enterINSERTmode at the current cursor location.a: enterINSERTmode at the position after the current cursor location (append to the current location).o: insert a new line on the line after the current cursor location, and enterINSERTmode on that new line.O: insert a new line on the line before the current cursor location, and enterINSERTmode on that new line.
Additionally, some editing can be performed directly from NORMAL mode. The
following commands can be used:
x: delete the character at the current cursor location. Saves the character into the active register.dfollowed by a navigation command: delete a certain range. The possible ranges are:dh: delete the previous characterdl: delete the current characterdj: delete the current line and the line belowdk: delete the current line and the line abovedw: delete until the end of the current word, including the trailing spacede: delete until the end of the current word, not including the trailing spacedb: delete until the beginning of the current word, not including the preceding space
All the previous commands can be repeated by typing a number before the command.
For example, 5x performs 5 iterations of the x command, thus deleting 5
characters.
To switch to COMMAND mode, the following command can be used:
:: entersCOMMANDmode.
To switch to VISUAL mode, the following command can be used:
v: entersVISUALmode at the current cursor location.V: entersVISUALmode with the current line selected.
INSERT mode is used to edit the file directly. The following commands can be
used in INSERT mode:
ESC: exitINSERTmode, switching back toNORMALmode.
COMMAND mode is used to issue commands to dvim. The following commands are
available:
ESC: exitCOMMANDmode, switching back toNORMALmode.w: write to the file, saving it.q: quit the editor for the current file.reg show: show the contents of all registers. The active register is marked with a*.reg select <x>: select the provided register as the active register.<x>is an integer between 0 and 9.
To submit a command, press ENTER; to cancel, press ESC.
Single-letter commands can be placed sequentially; ex. wq saves the file and
exits the editor.
VISUAL mode is used to select areas of text for modification. In VISUAL
mode, the following commands are available:
ESC: exitVISUALmode, switching back toNORMALmode.h: move the cursor left.j: move the cursor down.k: move the cursor up.l: move the cursor right.y: copies the current selection into the active register, and switches back toNORMALmode.
Much of the functionality of dvim is inspired by vim, neovim, and ncurses. No source code has been directly taken from these projects, but the functionality of these tools has significantly shaped the development of nvim.
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