2025-07-26 11:52:10 -04:00
2025-07-05 14:42:45 -04:00
2025-07-28 17:22:48 -04:00

ced - candle's Editor

There is a disturbing lack of simple GUI text editors available on Linux natively. The world of TUI editors is flourishing, but regular people don't 'yank to system register' when they want to move text from one file to another. In the world of GUI text editors you have a few options, all with their own caveats:
gedit -> Good for the GNOME Desktop, but uses GTK-4.0 so it stands out anywhere else.
Kate -> If you're not on KDE already, it comes with tons of overhead (52 packages on Arch Linux for an application to write text).
Emacs -> Requires a degree in understanding its documentation.

(c)andle's (Ed)itor aims to be a single hopefully small binary for that one purpose.

Features

  • Sane text editing with standard keybindings (Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C, etc.).
  • Choose between a fresh start each time you open, or maintaining a consistent state.
  • Separate UI zoom that doesn't affect font size (Ctrl+Shift + +/-).
  • Ricers rejoice, your pywal colors will be used!
  • Weirdly smooth typing experience.

Build and Install

Requirements

git, rust/rustup/cargo

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S git rust

Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt install git rust

Install

git clone https://code.lampnet.io/candle/ced
cd ced && cargo build --release
sudo mv target/release/ced /usr/local/bin/
sudo install -Dm644 ced.desktop /usr/share/applications/ced.desktop

ced should now appear as 'Text Editor' in your application launcher. You can remove the cloned directory at this point.

Configuration

ced will look for, and create if needed, a configuration file at: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ced/config.toml.

Here is an example config.toml:

state_cache = true
auto_hide_toolbar = false
show_line_numbers = false
word_wrap = false
theme = "System"
line_side = false
font_family = "Monospace"
font_size = 16.0
syntax_highlighting = true

Options

Option Default Description
state_cache false If true, opened files will remain opened with their unsaved changes when running the application again.
auto_hide_toolbar false If true, the menu bar at the top will be hidden. Move your mouse to the top of the window to reveal it.
hide_tab_bar 'true' If false, a separate tab bar will be drawn below the toolbar.
show_line_numbers false If true, line numbers will be displayed on the side specified by line_side.
syntax_highlighting false If true, text will be highlighted based on detected language.
line_side false If false, line numbers are on the left. If true, they are on the right.
word_wrap false If true, lines will wrap when they reach the edge of the window.
font_family "Proportional" The font family used for the editor text.
font_size 14.0 8.0-32.0 The font size for text editing.
theme "System" The color scheme for the application. Options: "System" (attempts to use colors from $XDG_CACHE_HOME/wal/colors if present, otherwise uses system's light/dark mode preference), "Light", or "Dark" (manually specify a theme).

Future Plans

In order of importance.

Feature Info
LSP: Looking at allowing you to use/attach your own tools for this.
Choose Font More than just Monospace/Proportional.
Vim Mode: It's in-escapable.
CLI Mode: 💀
IDE MODE: 🤡

I use Helix, btw.

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v0.1.3 Latest
2025-07-28 21:30:13 +00:00
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