Amoxcalli

A terminal-based text editor written in Rust, inspired by Vim.

Amoxcalli (from Nahuatl: āmoxtli "book" + calli "house") means "house of books" or "library" in the Aztec language. In pre-Columbian Mexico, the amoxcalli was the place where codices were stored and knowledge was preserved. This editor carries that spirit — a simple tool for writing and preserving text.

About

This is a personal project built to learn Rust while creating something useful. It's a clone-style editor flavored by my own needs and preferences, implementing vim-like modal editing with a focus on simplicity and learning.

Features

• Modal Editing — Normal and Insert modes, just like Vim
• Vim-style Commands — :w, :q, :wq, :q!, and more
• Unicode Support — Proper handling of multi-width and special characters
• Minimal Dependencies — Only what's necessary
• Cross-platform — Works on Linux, macOS, and Windows

Roadmap

• Vim controls style
• File explorer built in
• Code syntax highlighting
• Themes

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/AbrhamSayd/amoxcalli-editor.git
cd amoxcalli-editor

# Build release version
cargo build --release

# The binary will be at ./target/release/amoxcalli

Usage

# Open a new empty document
./target/release/amoxcalli

# Open an existing file
./target/release/amoxcalli path/to/file.txt

Keybindings

Key	Mode	Action
i	Normal	Enter Insert mode
I	Normal	Enter Insert mode at line start
Esc	Insert	Return to Normal mode
Arrow keys	Any	Navigate
Home / End	Any	Jump to line start/end
Page Up / Page Down	Any	Scroll viewport
Backspace	Insert	Delete character before cursor
Delete	Insert	Delete character at cursor

Commands

Press : in Normal mode to enter command mode:

Command	Action
:w	Save file
:w <filename>	Save as
:q	Quit (fails if unsaved changes)
:q!	Force quit without saving
:wq or :x	Save and quit
:help	Show help

Project Structure

src/
├── main.rs              # Entry point
└── editor/
    ├── mod.rs           # Main Editor logic
    ├── mode.rs          # Normal/Insert modes
    ├── command.rs       # Command definitions
    ├── commandparser.rs # Vim-style command parsing
    ├── commandbar.rs    # Command input UI
    ├── messagebar.rs    # Status messages
    ├── statusbar.rs     # File info display
    ├── terminal.rs      # Terminal I/O
    ├── view.rs          # Main editing buffer
    ├── line.rs          # Line/text handling
    └── ...

Dependencies

• crossterm — Cross-platform terminal manipulation
• unicode-segmentation — Grapheme cluster handling
• unicode-width — Character width calculation

Learning Goals

This project is primarily a learning exercise. Through building it, I'm exploring:

• Rust ownership and borrowing
• Terminal raw mode and escape sequences
• Building a TUI from scratch
• Vim's modal editing philosophy
• Unicode text handling complexities

License

MIT

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