Kilo Text Editor

This is my implementation of the Kilo Text Editor, made as final project for the CS50x 2023.

Demo video

Summary

• Description
• Usage
• Screenshots
• Movements

Description

These are the improvements I made over the Build Your Own Text Editor tutorial:

• A new colorscheme, based on the Catppuccin mocha pallete (AKA best colorscheme ever)
• Braces and quotes autocomplete
• Improved syntax highlighting
• Improved keyword search engine
• Improved cursor vertical movement
• Improved scrolling
• Improved overall code readability
• Improved status bar design
• Relative line numbers
• Basic vim motions (Normal and Insert modes)
• Division of the project into multiple files

Possible future improvements (which I will probably never implement):

• Config file
• Undo/Redo feature
• Copy/Paste feature
• Support for multiple buffers
• Responsive design
• Unicode support
• Mouse support (yes, I know it is useless)
• Improve vim setup
  • Add more vim motions
  • Visual and Visual Line modes
  • Support macros
• Add syntax highlighting for languages other than C

Screenshots

Usage

Clone the repo and enter the project folder

git clone https://gitlab.com/ilovebooks/cs50x/kilo-text-editor.git
cd kilo-text-editor

Compile the project

make

Run the Kilo Text Editor

bin/kilo [filename]

If you want to delete the files generated by the compilation, run:

make clean

If you want use this text editor as you may one (which I doubt you will), put the bin file in your PATH.

Movements

Basic commands

Command / key	Description
Ctrl-Q	Quit
Ctrl-F	Find words
Ctrl-S	Save file
⬅ / ⬇ / ⬆ / ⮕	Move cursor
Home key	Move to the start of line
End key	Move to the end of line
Page up	Scroll up by one screen
Page down	Scroll down by one screen

Vim motions

Command	Description
Esc / Ctrl-C	Exit insert mode
i	Insert before the cursor
I	Insert at the beggining of the line
a	Insert (append) after the cursor
A	Insert (append) at the end of the line
o	Append (open) a new line below the current line
O	Append (open) a new line above the current line
x	Delete character
s	Delete character and substitute text
C / c$	Change (replace) to the end of the line
cc / S	Change (replace) entire line
D / d$	Delete (cut) to the end of the line
dd	Delete (cut) a line
h / Backspace	Move cursor left
j / Return	Move cursor down
k	Move cursor up
l / Space	Move cursor right
w	Jump forwards to the start of a word
W	Jump forwards to the start of a word (words can contain punctuation)
e	Jump forwards to the end of a word
E	Jump forwards to the end of a word (words can contain punctuation)
ge	Jump backwards to the end of a word
gE	Jump backwards to the end of a word (words can contain punctuation)
b	Jump backwards to the start of a word
B	Jump backwards to the start of a word (words can contain punctuation)
0	Move to the start of line
$	Move to the end of line
{	Jump to previous paragraph
}	Jump to next paragraph
gg	Go to the first line of the document
G	Go to the last line of the document
J	Join line below to the current one with one space in between
gJ	Join line below to the current one without space in between
zz	Center cursor on screen
zt	Position cursor on top of the screen
zb	Position cursor on bottom of the screen
[num]gg / [num]G	Go to line "num" (num is a abitrary number)
[num]k	Move "num" lines up (num is a abitrary number)
[num]j	Move "num" lines down (num is a abitrary number)