FOSSPicks

Code Edito

Kakoune

Vim, the text editor, is seriously powerful. It's the tool many of us prefer to use on a day-to-day basis for both text work and code. The lexicon of its keyboard shortcuts has become a universal language, and its philosophy has spread far and wide. The same can also be said of Emacs, of course, and like Emacs, there are Vim plugins that can do almost anything. But as soon as you start installing and customizing these plugins for your own use, you tread further away from the common path.

Kakoune is a code editor that takes plenty of inspiration from Vim but is forging it own popular path. It has the same movement, the same Normal and Insert modes, and a very similar appearance. It also adds some excellent well thought-out features, and some you can't easily replicate in Vim. At the top of this list is the idea of a selection. To Kakoune, a selection is "an inclusive, directed range of characters with two ends, the anchor and the cursor." The reason this is important is because you can have more than one selection at a time and then process those selections easily, whether that's aligning columns or splitting words. It's a little like a regex search in Vim, except it feels much more natural. The autocompletion and hinting are well implemented, showing the possible options for a command when you start typing, and it makes you realize just how little feedback or help Vim gives you. If you're a beginner, Kakoune is easier to learn than Vim, but it's Vim users who will most appreciate the excellent selection options and feedback

Project Website

http://kakoune.org/

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