✒️ nib

A small, fast, distraction-free text editor for the terminal, in the spirit of nano.

Open a file, type, press Ctrl+S. Forgot a key? Press Ctrl+P and the command palette lists every command with its keys.

✨ Features

• 🛡️ Safe saves: every save is atomic. A file is never left half-written.
• 💾 Crash recovery: unsaved changes are kept in a recovery file and offered back after a crash.
• 🔒 One writer per file: a second nib on the same file opens it read-only.
• 🎯 Command palette: Ctrl+P finds any command by name, with fuzzy search.
• 🎨 Markdown and JSON highlighting in your terminal's own colours.
• ⌨️ Familiar keys: Ctrl+S, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+Z… and every key can be changed.
• 🖱️ Mouse: click, drag to select, double-click a word, scroll.
• 📋 Clipboard everywhere: system clipboard, or your terminal's (OSC 52) over SSH.
• 📝 Keeps your file's format: line endings, BOM and final newline stay as they were.
• 🪶 Tiny: one small binary with no runtime.

🎯 Command palette	🎨 Syntax highlighting (Markdown and JSON)

📦 Install

Supported: 🐧 Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora (x86_64) · 🪟 Windows 10 / 11 (x64).

🐧 Linux

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StrandedDev/nib/main/install.sh | sh

Installs the .deb (Debian, Ubuntu) or .rpm (Fedora). Add -s -- --user after sh to install into ~/.local/bin without root. Uninstall with sudo apt remove nib / sudo dnf remove nib, or sh -s -- --uninstall for a user install.

🪟 Windows (PowerShell)

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StrandedDev/nib/main/install.ps1 | iex

Installs the .msi and adds nib to PATH. Uninstall from Settings → Apps.

To update, run the same command again. Open a new terminal after installing.

📥 By hand: the releases page has a .deb, .rpm, Linux .tar.gz, Windows .msi and portable .zip, plus SHA256SUMS.

Note

Windows builds are not code-signed. If SmartScreen shows Windows protected your PC, click More info, then Run anyway.

🔧 Build from source

Needs Rust 1.85 or later.

cargo install --git https://github.com/StrandedDev/nib

Or clone and build:

git clone https://github.com/StrandedDev/nib
cd nib
cargo build --release

The binary is target/release/nib (target\release\nib.exe on Windows), inside the repo folder.

🚀 Usage

nib                 empty buffer; the first save asks for a name
nib todo.md         open todo.md, or create it on first save
nib app.log:42      open app.log at line 42
nib --help          options, main keys and where your config lives

Key	Does
Ctrl+P	Command palette (every command)
Ctrl+S / Ctrl+Q	Save / Quit
Ctrl+F / Ctrl+R	Find / Replace
Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y	Undo / Redo
Ctrl+G	Go to line

⚙️ Configuration

Optional. One TOML file: ~/.config/nib/config.toml on Linux, %APPDATA%\nib\config.toml on Windows.

wrap = true            # soft-wrap long lines
line_numbers = false
tab_width = 4          # 1 to 8; overrides the detected indent width
line_ending = "lf"     # "lf" or "crlf", for new files

[keys]
save_as = "ctrl+shift+s"
redo = ["ctrl+y", "ctrl+shift+z"]

A key is modifiers (ctrl, alt, shift) joined with + to one key, such as ctrl+shift+s or f2. An empty list (find = []) leaves a command palette-only. A mistake in the file makes nib use all defaults and show Config error: ….

All [keys] names

palette, save, save_as, open, quit, find, find_next, find_prev, replace, goto_line, undo, redo, copy, cut, paste, select_all, toggle_wrap, toggle_line_numbers, left, right, up, down, word_left, word_right, home, end, page_up, page_down, file_start, file_end, sel_left, sel_right, sel_up, sel_down, sel_word_left, sel_word_right, sel_home, sel_end, backspace, delete, delete_word_back, delete_word_fwd, newline, tab

📚 More

• How nib works inside
• Full specification
• Changelog

📄 License

MIT