A text editor with syntax highlighting for GNUstep (Linux) and macOS. Uses SmallStepLib for app lifecycle, menus, window style, and file dialogs.
Syntax highlighting is applied automatically from the file extension when you open or save a file.
- Top languages: C, C++, Java, C#, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, PHP, Ruby, Swift, Go
- Additional: Objective-C, Makefile, Scala, Raku, Lua, Godot Script (.gd), Assembly (.s, .asm, .as)
- Kotlin + next top 10: Kotlin (.kt, .kts), Rust (.rs), Dart (.dart), R (.r), Perl (.pl, .pm), Haskell (.hs), Julia (.jl), Elixir (.ex, .exs), Clojure (.clj, .cljs, .cljc), F# (.fs, .fsi, .fsx), Zig (.zig)
- Build and install SmallStepLib:
cd ../SmallStepLib && make && make install
- Build the app:
cd ../SmallAdvancedTextEditor && make
Run with openapp SmallAdvancedTextEditor (GNUstep) or run the app bundle on macOS.
- New – new untitled document
- Open… – open a file (language detected from extension)
- Save / Save As… – save as UTF-8
- Theme menu – switch editor theme: Dark, High Contrast, Sepia, Classic, or Customize… to manage custom themes.
Highlighting uses fixed-width font, with colors for keywords, strings, comments, numbers, and (for C/C++/ObjC) preprocessor directives. The editor background and text colors follow the selected theme.
- Built-in: Dark, High Contrast, Sepia, Classic.
- Customize… opens a panel where you can: Apply the selected theme, Duplicate (copy a theme to customize), Delete (custom themes only), New from current (save the current theme as a new custom theme). Custom themes are stored in Application Support and persist across launches.