slap
A Sublime-like terminal-based text editor with mouse support, syntax highlighting, and extensive customization.
What is slap?
slap is a terminal-based text editor designed to make editing from the command line easier and more intuitive. It combines the power of terminal editors with a modern, feature-rich interface inspired by Sublime Text, offering a smooth editing experience even over SSH connections.
Developers and system administrators who work extensively in the terminal, especially those who need a more user-friendly alternative to traditional terminal editors like nano, vim, or emacs, and those who edit files over SSH.
Developers choose slap for its unique blend of Sublime Text-like features—such as a file sidebar, mouse support, and configurable keybindings—within a terminal environment, making it particularly valuable for remote editing over SSH without sacrificing modern editor conveniences.
Overview
Sublime-like terminal-based text editor
Use Cases
Best For
- Editing files over SSH connections with full mouse support and a graphical-like interface.
- Developers transitioning from GUI editors like Sublime Text to terminal-based workflows.
- Managing projects directly in the terminal with a built-in file browser sidebar.
- Users who prefer customizable, Sublime-like keybindings in a terminal editor.
- Writing code in over 100 programming languages with built-in syntax highlighting.
- Extending editor functionality through JavaScript plugins for heavy customization.
Not Ideal For
- Windows users relying on terminal emulators other than PuTTY, due to limited mouse support and potential crashes in Cygwin.
- Performance-sensitive environments on low-power hardware like Raspberry Pi, where slap may run slowly without configuration tweaks.
- Developers deeply invested in modal editing workflows or extensive plugin ecosystems of vim or emacs.
Pros & Cons
Pros
Enables full mouse interaction including selection and navigation in remote sessions, making it feel like a local GUI editor, as highlighted in the README's feature list.
Offers a file sidebar and configurable keybindings similar to Sublime Text, easing the transition for users familiar with modern editors, as stated in the philosophy section.
Provides syntax highlighting for over 100 programming languages using highlight.js, improving code readability across diverse projects, as noted in the key features.
Allows heavy customization via JavaScript plugins, with examples like slap-clipboard-plugin for extending functionality, detailed in the plugins section.
Cons
Some keybindings and mouse events don't work in all terminals, requiring specific setups or profiles, as noted in the README's 'Some keys don't work!' section.
Can be slow on single-core devices like Raspberry Pi, often needing to disable syntax highlighting for better performance, as admitted in the troubleshooting section.
Poor compatibility on Windows; most terminals lack mouse support, and it crashes in Cygwin due to known Node.js issues, limiting its usability as per the OS support notes.
Open Source Alternative To
slap is an open-source alternative to the following products:
Frequently Asked Questions
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