edit — minimal file browser & text editor

A native desktop app for browsing and editing text files. Built with Tauri 2.0, Rust, and vanilla HTML/CSS/JS.

Features

• Dual-mode view — Browse files, click to open in fullscreen editor
• Read-only by default — Click a file to view, press Enter or click Unlock to edit
• Auto-save — Every keystroke is saved automatically (200ms debounce)
• Keyboard-first navigation — Arrow keys, Enter, Escape, Backspace
• Fuzzy search — Just start typing in the file browser to filter files
• New files — Press Shift+N to create a new file (unlocked from start)
• Zoom — Ctrl+Plus / Ctrl+Minus
• Auto-refresh — When viewing a locked file, it polls for external changes
• External files — Non-text files (images, audio, etc.) open with the OS default app
• CLI support — edit or edit ~/some/directory
• NixOS-friendly — Nix shell and package expression included

Usage

edit                  # start in ~/.dotfiles
edit ~/projects       # start in a specific directory
edit /some/path       # any path

Keybindings

Key	Context	Action
↓↑	Browser	Navigate list
Enter	Browser	Open highlighted file/dir
Escape	Browser	Go up a directory
Backspace	Browser	Go up a directory
Right click	Browser (list)	Go up a directory
N keys	Browser	Fuzzy search files
Shift+N	Browser	Create new file
Escape	Editor	Close file
Backspace	Editor (locked)	Close file
Enter	Editor (locked)	Unlock for editing
Ctrl+E	Editor (locked)	Unlock for editing
Ctrl+Plus/Minus	Anywhere	Zoom in/out

Development

git clone <repo>
cd edit
npm install
nix-shell shell.nix --run "npx tauri dev"

Frontend changes are instant (Vite HMR). Rust changes recompile incrementally (~seconds).

Building for production

npx vite build
cd src-tauri && cargo build --release

Or use npx tauri build to create a proper bundle with embedded frontend.

NixOS

A default.nix is included. The edit shell script handles environment variables for NVIDIA/WebKit compatibility.