A small and easy to use console text editor.

Features

• Multiple buffers/tabs
• Unlimited undo/redo
• Regex search and replace
• Syntax highlighting
• Customizable color schemes
• Customizable key bindings
• Support for all xterm Ctrl/Alt/Shift key codes
• Command language with auto-completion
• Unicode 12.1 compatible text rendering
• Support for multiple encodings (using iconv)
• Jump to definition (using ctags)
• Jump to compiler error
• EditorConfig support

Screenshot

Installing

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

Building

To build from source, first install the following dependencies:

• GCC 4.6+ or Clang
• GNU Make 3.81+
• terminfo library (may be provided by ncurses, depending on OS)
• iconv library (may be included in libc, depending on OS)
• POSIX-compatible sh and awk

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

curl -LO https://craigbarnes.gitlab.io/dist/dte/dte-1.9.1.tar.gz
tar -xzf dte-1.9.1.tar.gz
cd dte-1.9.1

...and compile and install:

make -j8 && sudo make install

Documentation

After installing, you can access the documentation in man page format via man 1 dte, man 5 dterc and man 5 dte-syntax.

Default Key Bindings

Editor

Alt+x

Enter command mode (see dterc for available commands)

Ctrl+q

Quit editor (use quit -f in command mode to quit with unsaved buffers)

Alt+z

Suspend editor (resume by running fg in the shell)

Buffer

Ctrl+n, Ctrl+t

Open new, empty buffer

Ctrl+o

Open file (prompt)

Ctrl+s

Save current buffer

Ctrl+w

Close current buffer

Alt+1, Alt+2 ... Alt+9

Switch to buffer 1 (or 2, 3, 4, etc.)

Alt+0

Switch to last buffer

Alt+,

Switch to previous buffer

Alt+.

Switch to next buffer

Navigation

Alt+b

Move cursor to beginning of file

Alt+e

Move cursor to end of file

Ctrl+l

Go to line (prompt)

Ctrl+f, Alt+/

Find text (prompt)

Ctrl+g, F3

Find next

F4

Find previous

Alt+f

Find next occurence of word under cursor

Alt+Shift+f

Find previous occurence of word under cursor

Selection

Shift+left, Shift+right

Select one character left/right

Ctrl+Shift+left, Ctrl+Shift+right

Select one word left/right

Shift+up, Shift+down

Select to column above/below cursor

Ctrl+Shift+up, Ctrl+Shift+down

Select one whole line up/down

Alt+Shift+left, Shift+Home

Select from cursor to beginning of line

Alt+Shift+right, Shift+End

Select from cursor to end of line

Shift+Page Up, Alt+Shift+up

Select one page above cursor

Shift+Page Down, Alt+Shift+down

Select one page below cursor

Ctrl+Shift+Page Up, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+up

Select whole lines one page up

Ctrl+Shift+Page Down, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+down

Select whole lines one page down

Tab, Shift+Tab

Increase/decrease indentation level of selected (whole) lines

Editing

Ctrl+c

Copy selection (or line)

Ctrl+x

Cut selection (or line)

Ctrl+v

Paste previously copied or cut text

Ctrl+z

Undo last action

Ctrl+y

Redo last undone action

Alt+j

Wrap paragraph under cursor to value of text-width option (72 by default)

Alt+t

Insert a tab character (useful when using the expand-tab option)

Alt+-

Decrease indent level of selection (or line)

Alt+=

Increase indent level of selection (or line)