2.0.0 - A compiler for syntax highlighting!

[lhecker]

⚠️ If you're a package maintainer, please read the last section at the end.

Syntax Highlighting

Edit v2 adds the Lightweight Syntax Highlighter. It has a ~40kB footprint for a dozen languages plus runtime, barely grows with each language added, and runs at >100MB/s.

The highlighter is based on a simple programming language that combines regular expressions with explicit control flow. It's designed such that the runtime can be easily ported to other languages, including JavaScript.

The list of languages will surely grow over time, and contributions for widely used languages are very welcome.
If you're an experienced compiler developer, we'd greatly appreciate any advice and contributions to the LSH compiler. If you're interested in ports of the runtime, please let us know!

See you in v3, with the introduction of a tiny CSS parser for UI theming.

Changes

• Syntax highlighting (Introduce the LSH compiler #753, Add the LSH runtime #776, Integrate LSH into edit #777, Complete the initial LSH implementation #624, Add Shell, Python and JavaScript highlighting #795)
  The whole LSH stack: compiler, runtime, integration, and initial language definitions. See above.
  For path matching, we've written our own glob matcher (Add a glob matcher #743).
• Preliminary support for settings.json (Add a JSON parser #742, Add rudimentary settings.json support #779)
  For now, this is limited to files.associations, which lets you map file paths and extensions to languages for syntax highlighting. I expect v3 to be centered around configurability.
• Find & Replace now supports capture groups (Add support for captured groups in Find & Replace #222) (thanks @viyic!)
  You can use $1, $2, etc. in the replacement string when regex mode is on.
• You can move lines with Alt+Up/Down (Move lines with Alt+Up/Down #230) (thanks @juemrami!)
• Tab and Shift+Tab indent and unindent multiple lines at once (Support for multiline indentation #245) (thanks @liltrendi!)
• Whitespace inside selections is now visible (Make whitespace inside selections visible #397) (thanks @pheonick!)
• Pressing Ctrl+L selects the entire current line (Add Ctrl+L shortcut to select whole line #541) (thanks @recently-avoid-dyin!)
• Opening a directory via the CLI drops you into the file picker (Allow opening directories via the CLI #577) (thanks @four-poetic-drew!)
• Unsaved work is indicated with a ● in the terminal title (Indicate unsaved work with U+25CF in the terminal title #523) (thanks @adamjoer!)
• The file picker now uses natural sort for filenames (Use natural sort for filenames #763)
  file2.txt sorts before file10.txt, as it should.

Bug Fixes

• Invalid CLI arguments are properly rejected instead of silently ignored (Fix #485: Reject invalid args and allow positional args #503) (thanks @spinualexandru!)
• Fixed random Unicode text input corruption on *nix (Fix UTF-8 buffer prepending in read_stdin #520) (thanks @manitofigh!)
• Fixed a file truncation issue when writing Unicode files (Fix file truncation when writing with ICU #548)
• Fixed undo grouping when backspacing (Fix undo grouping of backspacing #590)
• Fixed the alpha blending formula for colors (Fix alpha blending formula #594)
  We were using srgb_to_linear on premultiplied colors, which is no bueno.
• Scrolling and clicking have gone through a divorce (Separate scrolling from clicking #603, Fix scrolling in modals #812, Further improve xterm mouse decoding #819)
  No more phantom selections when you just wanted to scroll.
• Fixed UI colors with Terminal.app's new "Clear Dark" theme (Fix colors with Terminal.app's Clear Dark theme #728)
• Fixed multiple issues found under Linux (Fix multiple issues found under Linux #706)
  UTF-8 parsing for SGR mouse coordinates, sighandler_t warnings, GDB pretty printing.
• Single-line files will now properly save as CRLF on Windows (Use platform line ending when opening single line files #739) (thanks @UnnaturalTwilight!)
• Fixed horizontal scrolling on macOS touchpads (Handle horizontal scrolling on macOS touchpads #794) (thanks @barkure!)
• You can now replace zero-width regex matches (e.g. $) (Fix zero-width regex replace #815) (thanks @MihneaTeodorStoica!)
• Accidentally pasting multiple lines into a single-line input field will not break the UI anymore (Fix multi-line pastes into single-line fields #818)
• Fixed a crash when sorting directories on Linux without ICU being available (Fix stability of compare_strings_ascii #823)

Smaller Changes

• SIMD support for LoongArch (Add SIMD impls of lines_fwd and lines_bwd for LoongArch #539, Optimize SIMD impl of lines_fwd and lines_bwd #535, Add SIMD impl of memchr2 for LoongArch #551, Add SIMD impl of memset for LoongArch #547, Use unified data types in LoongArch SIMD intrinsics #602, Enable default features for build-std #554) (thanks @heiher!)
• We'll now automatically create parent directories on save (Create parent directories when saving to a non-existent path #738) (thanks @stescobedo92!)
• Printing --help or --version no longer requires a TTY (Fix printing help/version without TTY #556, Fix reading redirected input from stdin #810)
• Fixed Ctrl modifier handling during mouse input (Fix ctrl modifier detection for mouse input #604)
• On Windows, SetConsoleMode failures now show a useful error message (sys/win: display a useful error message when SetConsoleMode fails #639)
• The Windows application manifest compatibility section was fixed (windows: fix the compatibility section of the manifest #635)
• Fixed a bug where the release announcement contained too much flavor
• Toggling buttons in the search/replace dialog will not move focus around anymore (Stop moving focus into the search box #821)

Build & Packaging

• The ICU SONAME is configurable at build time via EDIT_CFG_ICU* (Make the ICU SONAME configurable #495)
  If this interests you, read the section at the end.
• A devcontainer configuration was added (Add initial devcontainer configuration for Rust environment #496) (thanks @luisgizirian!)
• A basic snapcraft.yaml was added for Snap package builds (Add snapcraft.yaml #500) (thanks @aaronprisk!)
• The .desktop file was improved (feat: improve desktop file #560) (thanks @Nukleari!)
• We added our own custom localization system (Compile localizations with build.rs #591)
  All translations live in i18n/edit.toml for now. The system allows us to dynamically add more languages over time.
• A single-line Linux installer script was added (feat(tools): add one-line Linux installer (curl|bash) with ICU symlink shim + docs #628) (thanks @JaredTweed!)
  See our readme for more information.
• clippy::ptr_as_ptr lint was fixed (clippy: fix ptr_as_ptr lint #730) (thanks @xtqqczze!)
• Nightly Rust is no longer required (Remove the majority of nightly features #761, Remove allocator_api #762, BVec::push_encode_utf16, Some micro optimizations #764)
  All nightly features have been replaced with our own, lovingly handcrafted unsafe code.

Localization, Internationalization, Documentation

This release adds 19 new languages, bringing the total to 30 (#596, #629, #634, #655, #663, #669, #688, #693).
Thanks go out to (in no particular order): @viyic, @VenusGirl, @mrFlamel, @MKAbuMattar, @OMouta, @miteigidesu, @bitigchi, @ebraminio, @omegahm, @xTacobaco, @marinac-dev, @marginal23326, @NandeMD, @msoltanov, @TotiTolvukall, @hidden-being, @peterblazejewicz, @schilive, @ioma8, @maikkundev, @webmaster442, @Erithax, @spinualexandru, @ronja-koistinen, and @KarpenkoY!

Other documentation:

• Updated the man page for 1.2.1 (Update man page for edit command to version 1.2.1 #727) (thanks @polluks!)
• Fixed the localization path in CONTRIBUTING.md (Fix CONTRIBUTING.md localization path #601) (thanks @Packingdustry!)
• Copyright year updated (Change copyright to 2026 for draw_menubar.rs #760) (thanks @ajm19826!)

Additional notes to Build & Packaging

To summarize the changes above:

• Microsoft Edit now builds with stable Rust. However, Rust 1.93 or later is required.
• The build system now supports SONAME overrides for ICU (primarily relevant on Linux). You can read more about it at the end of our readme.

For instance, a build on Debian 13 (Trixie) may look like this:

# If permitted by your stability policies
# and with rust-src installed:
export RUSTC_BOOTSTRAP=1
export EDIT_CFG_ICUUC_SONAME=libicuuc.so.76
export EDIT_CFG_ICUI18N_SONAME=libicui18n.so.76
export EDIT_CFG_ICU_RENAMING_VERSION=76
cargo test -- --ignored
cargo build --release --config .cargo/release.toml

# Otherwise:
export EDIT_CFG_ICUUC_SONAME=libicuuc.so.76
export EDIT_CFG_ICUI18N_SONAME=libicui18n.so.76
export EDIT_CFG_ICU_RENAMING_VERSION=76
cargo test -- --ignored
cargo build --release

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This discussion was created from the release 2.0.0 - A compiler for syntax highlighting!.

[ajm19826]

Nice!

[liltrendi]

Awesome work everyone 👏🏾🚀

[KyleKorndoerfer]

I've done winget update Microsoft.Edit without error and winget show Microsoft.Edit shows v2.0 but when I launch it and go to Help > About, it still shows v1.2.1, no syntax highlighting, etc. Is there something else I need to do (surely not a reboot)?

[barkure]

Hey, the issue you're seeing (the old version still running after updating via winget) is actually the same as the one discussed in Issue #829. That issue is specifically about the winget installation path including a version number, which causes PATH conflicts and breaks updates. You can check out the discussion there — it might help you find a solution.

Link: #829