candat 0.5.0

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 has a filter box on top: press / while the tree is focused (or click it), type to narrow the tree to files whose path matches, Esc clears it. 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).