Feature Request: Make This Lightwehight App (Slightly) Good for Code Editing Please!

[retro-dwsz]

So I’ve been trying out Microsoft Edit for sometime, and honestly… it feels refreshing to finally have a terminal-based editor with common keybindings.

We know terminal based code editors, like Vim, NeoVim, AstroVim, Vim, Emacs, etc etc. But, they have kinda wierd keybindings, and I found this "Microsoft Edit" a terminal based and have common keybindings! So I’d love to suggest adding a few coding-friendly features to make it a viable lightweight code editor, such as:

• Syntax highlighting for common programming languages, like C, C++, C#(?), Python, etc.
• Basic LSP integration if feasible, like open linked file, jump-to-definition, diagnostics, hover info, etc. (maybe like Clangd)
• Maybe optional auto-indent, line numbers, bracket matching, etc.

Not asking for a full IDE, but small things that would make Edit slightly better for quick coding, quick debugging, or doing something with text file quickly.
Thanks for considering this!

[lhecker]

Yep, I'm on board with that. Worth pointing out tho, that the features you mention are anything but small things (particularly LSP). 😅 Editors like neovim or helix receive so many contributions that it's easy to underestimate how many decades of combined dev work has gone into them.

The big problem for this project is that if I merged all of the contributions that we receive, it would quickly stop being lightweight which would defeat one of its main purposes. This is one of the reasons why adding syntax highlighting is taking so long. (I've been working on this since summer on and off).

[Consolatis]

On that note, I am curious as to why you decided to implement most of the regex state machine yourself rather than using libicu. Please don't take this the wrong way, I am really just curious and interested to learn about your motivation.

[lhecker]

libicu isn't always available and I'd like for there to be fallback functionality for some core features, like search or syntax highlighting. libicu also wouldn't make this as much easier than you may think. If you read the textmate grammars for markdown, etc., you'll find that they're thousands upon thousands of lines long (just for that one language).

[hluica]

Perhaps a minimal set of syntax highlighting features could be built-in first. Things like indentation guides, bracket matching, and basic string coloring may be very lightweight.
Users needing full, complex highlighting could install plugins, but this would necessitate plugin support?

[Kazmirchuk]

I came here while looking for actively developed alternatives to "micro", and really excited about finding a project with official backing from MS! I hope its future will be as bright as MS Terminal! I don't want a full IDE (we have VS Code for this), just a "micro with menus" that works well over SSH and I can install on headless Linux VMs or containers to patch config files (conf/toml/yaml/json) 🙏