candat 0.4.0

A terminal IDE with emacs keybindings, built on Textual — editor, file tree, markdown preview, and a real PTY terminal

candat

A terminal IDE with emacs keybindings, built on Textual.

Install

From PyPI, as a standalone tool (recommended — gives you a global candat command in its own isolated environment):

uv tool install candat
# or, with pipx (needs Python >= 3.10):
pipx install candat

Or with plain pip into the environment of your choice: pip install candat. To try it once without installing anything permanently: uvx candat.

The development version installs straight from GitHub:

uv tool install git+https://github.com/kavonrtep/candat

Requires Python >= 3.10 and Linux.

Run

candat [FILE|DIR ...]

Passing a directory sets the file-tree root; files are opened in buffers.

Keys (so far)

Key	Action
C-x C-f	find file (opens new file if it doesn't exist)
C-x C-s	save buffer
C-x C-w	write buffer to another file
C-x C-q	toggle read-only (status bar shows %%)
C-x C-r	open a file read-only
C-x k	kill buffer
C-x b	buffer list (Enter switches; next buffer preselected)
C-x o	switch focus between tree and editor
C-x C-c	quit (confirms if unsaved buffers)
C-x C-x	exchange point and mark
C-x h	mark whole buffer
C-x u, C-/, C-z	undo
C-f C-b C-n C-p C-a C-e	char/line movement
M-f M-b	word movement
C-v M-v	page down / up
M-< M->	beginning / end of buffer
C-space	set mark (movement extends region)
C-k	kill line (consecutive kills accumulate)
C-w / M-w	kill / copy region
C-y / M-y	yank / yank-pop
M-d / M-backspace	kill word forward / backward
M-up / M-down	move current line (or marked block) up / down
C-s / C-r	incremental search (smart case, wraps)
M-%	query-replace (y/n/!/q)
C-x g	project-wide regex search (results list, Enter jumps)
M-;	toggle line comment
C-c C-c	send region or current line to the terminal REPL
C-x t	toggle terminal panel (keys pass through raw; only C-x is reserved)
Shift+PgUp/PgDn	terminal scrollback (typing snaps back)
C-c C-v	cycle markdown preview: split / preview-only / off
M-x, Ctrl+Shift+P	command palette
C-g / Esc	cancel chord / prompt / search / mark

ESC acts as the Meta prefix, so ESC w == M-w, ESC x == M-x, etc. Tab completes paths in the find-file and write-file prompts.

Open files are watched for external changes: clean buffers reload automatically; buffers with local edits ask before discarding them.

.csv and .tsv files open in a table viewer (inspired by csvlens): a sticky header, row cursor, and original file line numbers in the gutter. Large files stream in as you scroll rather than loading whole. In the table: / (or C-s) searches, n repeats, & filters rows by regex, g/G jump to top/bottom. C-c C-v switches between the table and the raw text. The table is read-only.

The file tree opens files on selection. The default theme is candat-light (high-contrast dark-on-white). The markdown preview is linked: it follows the editor's scroll position.

Development

uv run pytest

Roadmap

1. Skeleton: tree / tabs / status bar / C-x chords / open & save
2. Emacs editing: kill ring, C-s/C-r isearch, mark & region, M-x palette
3. Markdown mode: side-by-side live preview (debounced)
4. Terminal panel (full PTY: forkpty + pyte)
5. Polish: terminal scrollback, dirty-line rendering, path completion in prompts, buffer list, scroll-synced preview, R/xml/html highlighting

Syntax highlighting covers python, markdown, json, yaml, bash, html, xml, css, toml, js, sql, go, rust, java, and R (via tree-sitter-language-pack).