SyntaxVoid

A community-led, hyper-hackable text editor, forked from Atom, built on Electron.

About

SyntaxVoid is a rebranded codebase focused on the same customizable editor experience with a refreshed identity.

Run SyntaxVoid locally

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you need to set up your development environment. This project relies on Node.js, Yarn, and several native libraries for linux integration.

1. Node.js & Yarn

• Node.js: verified with v22.22.0.
  • To check your version: node -v
• Yarn: The package manager used for this project.
  • Install globally: npm install -g yarn
  • Verify installation: yarn --version

2. Native Build Tools (Linux/Ubuntu/Debian)

You need C++ compilers, Python, and specific libraries to build the native modules (like keyboard mappings and system integration).

Run this command to install all required packages:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential python3 pkg-config libwayland-dev libx11-dev libxkbfile-dev libsecret-1-dev libxkbcommon-dev

What are these?

• build-essential: GCC/G++ compilers for building C++ code.
• python3: Required by node-gyp to build native Node modules.
• pkg-config: Helper tool used during the build to find library paths.
• libwayland-dev: Development files for the Wayland display server protocol.
• libx11-dev: Development files for the X11 windowing system.
• libxkbfile-dev: Library for parsing XKB keyboard description files.
• libsecret-1-dev: Library for accessing the Secret Service API (storing passwords).
• libxkbcommon-dev: Library to handle keyboard descriptions.

One-Step Build & Run (Recommended)

We have provided a helper script that checks for dependencies, installs them, builds the project, and runs it.

chmod +x verified_build.sh
./verified_build.sh

Manual Build Steps

1. Install dependencies:

   yarn install

2. Build the project:

   yarn build

3. Build APM (Atom Package Manager):

   yarn build:apm

4. Start the editor:

   # Use the wrapper script for best results
   ./syntaxvoid.sh
   # Or directly via yarn
   yarn start

Troubleshooting

• Missing wayland-client.h or xkbcommon.h: Ensure you have installed libwayland-dev and libxkbcommon-dev.
• Node Version Warnings: You may see warnings about the Node version. These can typically be ignored if the build completes successfully.

Docs

• Developer docs: docs/README.md
• Build docs: docs/Building.md

License

Licensed under MIT.