Act Editor

A terminal-based text editor built in Javascript/Node.js.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/ferhadquluzade/act
cd act
npm install
npm install -g

Usage

act file.txt

Note: You can also use act to get started.

Project Structure

act-editor/
├── index.js                    # Entry point
├── package.json               # Dependencies and config
└── src/
    ├── ActEditor.js           # Main editor class (orchestrator)
    ├── components/            # UI and data components
    │   ├── Tab.js            # Tab model (data structure)
    │   ├── UIManager.js      # Blessed screen & UI elements
    │   └── Renderer.js       # Rendering logic for editor/welcome page
    ├── handlers/              # Operation handlers
    │   ├── EditingOperations.js    # Insert, delete, selection
    │   ├── CursorMovement.js       # Navigation and scrolling
    │   └── ClipboardOperations.js  # Copy, cut, paste
    └── utils/                 # Utilities
        ├── themes.js         # Theme definitions
        └── session.js        # Session save/load

Component Responsibilities

Main Components

• ActEditor.js: Main orchestrator that coordinates all components

  • Manages tabs and active tab state
  • Handles keyboard input routing
  • Coordinates rendering
  • Manages file operations and session

• Tab.js: Data model for a single tab

  • Stores file content (lines)
  • Cursor position and scroll offset
  • Undo/redo stacks
  • Selection state
  • Modified/read-only flags

• UIManager.js: Manages blessed screen and UI elements

  • Creates and configures blessed components
  • Status bar, content box, background
  • Theme color updates
  • Provides viewport height calculation

• Renderer.js: Rendering logic

  • Renders welcome page
  • Renders editor with line numbers and cursor
  • Renders status bar with tabs/time
  • Handles text selection highlighting

Handlers

• EditingOperations.js: Text editing operations

  • Insert/delete characters
  • Insert newlines and tabs
  • Selection deletion
  • State management for undo

• CursorMovement.js: Cursor navigation

  • Arrow key movement
  • Page up/down
  • Home/end
  • Selection with Shift

• ClipboardOperations.js: Clipboard functionality

  • Copy selected text
  • Cut (copy + delete)
  • Paste with multi-line support

Utilities

• themes.js: Theme color definitions (11 themes)
• session.js: Save/restore editor state to ~/.act-session.json

Key Features

• Modular Design: Each component has a single responsibility
• Clean Separation: UI, data, and operations are separate
• Easy to Extend: Add new features by creating new handlers
• Session Persistence: Auto-saves state every 5 seconds
• Theme Support: 11 color themes with live switching