A console text editor for Unix systems that you already know how to use.
Dependencies
Dit is designed to be light on dependencies. It is developed on Linux, but it should also be portable to other Unix-like platforms. Everything you need should be already installed by default in a typical Linux system.
- ncurses: preferrably newer versions, with Unicode and mouse support
- libiconv: optional, needed for Unicode
- librt: needed for
clock_gettimeon Linux - bash: used for generating header files at build-time only
- Lua: it bundles Lua 5.3 for scripting so you don't have to worry about this dependency, but it can also use the system-installed Lua if you have one.
Installing
For stable releases, get the latest version at http://hisham.hm/dit/releases/
-- unpack the .tar.gz file, enter its directory then run:
./configure- You may want to customize your installation path using
--prefix
- You may want to customize your installation path using
makesudo make install- If you are installing to a custom path where super-user privileges are not needed, use
sudo make install
- If you are installing to a custom path where super-user privileges are not needed, use
For installing the latest work-in-progress code from the Dit repository, you need Git, Autoconf and Automake. Then you'll be able to build it like this
git clone https://github.com/hishamhm/ditcd dit./autogen.sh./configure- You may want to customize your installation path using
--prefix
- You may want to customize your installation path using
makesudo make install- If you are installing to a custom path where super-user privileges are not needed, use
sudo make install
- If you are installing to a custom path where super-user privileges are not needed, use
Quick reference
- Ctrl+Q or F10 - quit
- Ctrl+S - save
- Ctrl+X - cut
- Ctrl+C - copy
- Ctrl+V - paste
- Ctrl+Z or Ctrl+U - undo
- Ctrl+Y - redo
- Shift-arrows or Alt-arrows - select
- NOTE! Some terminals "capture" shift-arrow movement for other purposes (switching tabs, etc) and Dit never gets the keys, that's why Dit also tries to support Alt-arrows. Try both and see which one works. If Shift-arrows don't work I recommend you reconfigure your terminal (you can do this in Konsole setting "Previous Tab" and "Next Tab" to alt-left and alt-right, for example). RXVT-Unicode and Terminology are some terminals that work well out-of-the-box.
- Ctrl+F or F3 - find. Inside Find:
- Ctrl+C - toggle case sensitive
- Ctrl+W - toggle whole word
- Ctrl+N - next
- Ctrl+P - previous
- Ctrl+R - replace
- Enter - "confirm": exit Find staying where you are
- Esc - "cancel": exit Find returning to where you started
- This is useful for "peeking into another part of the file": just Ctrl+F, type something to look, and then Esc to go back to where you were.
- Ctrl+G - go to...
- ...line number - Type a number to go to a line.
- ...tab - Type text to go to the open tab that matches that substring.
- Ctrl+B - back (to previous location, before last find, go-to-line, tab-switch, etc.)
- You can press Ctrl+B multiple times to go back various levels.
- Tabs of open files:
- Ctrl+J - previous tab
- Ctrl+K - next tab
- Ctrl+W - close tab
- Ctrl+N - word wrap paragraph
- Ctrl+T - toggle tab mode (Tabs, 2, 3, 4 or 8 spaces - it tries to autodetect based on file contents)
This documentation is incomplete... there are more keys! Try around!