cupid - A Minimalist Text Editor for Linux

cupid is a lightweight terminal-based text editor designed for GNU/Linux systems. Built with simplicity in mind, it provides essential editing capabilities while maintaining a small codebase written in pure C. Ideal for quick edits or terminal-based workflows.

Features

• Minimalist Design: Clean interface with line numbers and status information.
• Configurable Keybindings with cupidconf: Dynamically load user-defined keybindings from a config file (default is created if not found).
• Text Selection: Supports selecting text with Shift+Arrow keys.
• Clipboard Integration: Copy selections or paste from a local clipboard buffer (support for OSC 52 can be added based on your terminal).
• File Operations: Save with Ctrl+S, open files via command line.
• Visual Feedback:
  • Line numbers
  • Selection highlighting
  • Status bar with file information
  • Message bar with contextual help

Key Bindings

By default, the editor ships with these bindings, but you can override them in your cupidconf config:

Key Combination	Action
Ctrl+Q	Quit
Ctrl+S	Save file
Ctrl+C	Copy selection to local clipboard
Ctrl+V	Paste from local clipboard
Ctrl+L	Center cursor in viewport
Shift+Arrows	Select text
Backspace	Delete previous character/selection
Tab	Insert 4 spaces
Enter	Insert new line

cupidconf Integration for Keybindings

cupidconf is used to load and parse a user-specific configuration file located at:

~/.config/cupid/keybinds.conf

• If this file doesn’t exist, cupid automatically creates it with sensible default settings for quit, save, copy, paste, and center commands.
• Each line in the config is in the form key = value.
• You can customize these defaults by editing ~/.config/cupid/keybinds.conf.

Sample keybinds.conf:

# Default keybinds for Cupid Editor
quit = ^q
save = ^s
copy = ^c
paste = ^v
center = ^l

• ^q means Ctrl+Q, ^s means Ctrl+S, etc.
• You can also specify arrow keys (e.g., ARROW_UP, ARROW_DOWN), shifted variants (SHIFT_ARROW_UP), or literal characters.

When you run cupid, it will read from this config file and adjust its internal keymap accordingly, allowing you to change the bindings to fit your workflow.

Technical Details

• Written in standard C with POSIX extensions
• Terminal handling with raw mode for direct input processing
• Scrolling with soft margins for better navigation
• Keybindings dynamically loaded via cupidconf from ~/.config/cupid/keybinds.conf
• Optimized for small to medium-sized files

Installation

Requirements

• GNU/Linux environment
• C compiler (gcc or clang)
• POSIX-compliant terminal

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/cupid.git
cd cupid
make  # Build with provided Makefile
sudo cp cupid /usr/local/bin/  # (Optional) Install system-wide

Note: By default, this editor compiles with the cupidconf library (cupidconf.c and cupidconf.h in lib/). Make sure they are included in your build commands or Makefile.

Usage

cupid [filename]  # Open existing file or create a new one

When no filename is provided, cupid starts with a blank buffer.

Limitations

• No syntax highlighting
• No search/replace functionality
• No undo/redo capability
• Terminal’s raw mode is used, which can vary in behavior across environments

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please follow these steps:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Submit a pull request

License

Released under the GNU GPLv3.