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Microsoft releases Edit: an open source command-line text editor for Windows

Microsoft has announced a new text editor for Windows, called Edit. But it's not like Notepad, Edit is a command-line text editor.

The app was unveiled at the Microsoft Build conference, and while it may appear as it has been designed for developers, it remains accessible for users who are unfamiliar with terminals. The interface looks modern, with controls similar to those in Visual Studio Code. Microsoft says it was motivated to bring a CLI text editor in 64-bit versions of Windows, as an alternative to MS-DOS, which was included in 32-bit versions of its operating system.

Edit is a lightweight text editor, and is less than 250kB in size. It supports mouse mode, to allow users to click on options in the menu, and to highlight text. However, there is no right-click menu in the app. But like traditional CLI apps, Edit supports various keyboard shortcuts including commonly used options like Ctrl Z, Ctrl V, Ctrl R for find and replace text, etc. It supports Word Wrap, which can be toggled with Alt + Z.  In addition to this, there are some advanced options such as Match Case and Regular Expression support. While it may look like it supports tabbed-browsing, Edit is simply running in the Windows Terminal. But there is a way to open multiple files, either by using the Ctrl + P hotkey, or from the file list.

Microsoft Edit

Microsoft has released Edit's source code under the MIT license. The command-line text editor is written in the Rust programming language. Microsoft's official announcement says that Edit will be rolling out to the Windows Insider Program in the coming months, which means it will take longer for the app to be available in the stable channel of Windows 11.

However, users can simply download Microsoft Edit from the project's GitHub page. It is a portable app, so you can simply extract its contents to a folder and run edit.exe to start using Edit.

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