UniWorld - Unicode Text Tools for VS Code
Correct Unicode text handling in your editor. Grapheme-aware cursor and delete, bidi visualization, display width, line break decorations, normalization, and Unicode inspection -- all powered by a conformance-tested Rust/WASM core.
UniWorld is more than an extension. It is a complete Unicode text-handling ecosystem: a Rust library with bindings for Python, JavaScript/WASM, C, and Go, a PowerShell module, and this VS Code extension. Visit uniworld.world for the full project, documentation, integration guides, and other tools.
The problems this extension solves
These are problems every VS Code user encounters, whether working in English, Arabic, Chinese, or any other language:
- Emoji splitting: Your cursor lands inside ZWJ sequences (family, skin-tone, flag emoji), splitting what should be a single character. Backspace removes only part of an emoji. UniWorld treats each emoji as one grapheme cluster.
- Combining mark orphaning: Backspace after an accented character (French, German, Vietnamese, or any language with diacritics) removes just the accent and leaves the base character. UniWorld deletes the full cluster: base + marks together.
- Indic conjunct breaking: Cursor movement in Devanagari, Bengali, Tamil, and other Indic scripts lands inside ligatures, breaking visual characters. UniWorld respects conjunct boundaries.
- CJK/emoji column miscount: The status bar reports wrong column numbers for lines containing CJK ideographs or emoji, because it counts characters instead of display columns. UniWorld shows true column width (CJK=2, emoji=2).
- No normalization tools: Pasted text may mix NFC and NFD invisibly, causing string comparisons to fail silently. UniWorld provides NFC/NFD/NFKC/NFKD normalization commands.
- No Unicode inspection: When you encounter an unexpected character, there's no built-in way to see what codepoints you're looking at. UniWorld shows codepoint, category, and display width on hover.
- RTL cursor confusion: In Arabic and Hebrew text, the Left arrow key moves the cursor visually to the right. UniWorld's visual bidi cursor makes Left go left on screen.
- Thai/Lao/Khmer/Myanmar line wrapping: These scripts have no spaces between words, so the editor wraps at arbitrary positions. UniWorld provides dictionary-based line break decorations.
Features
On by default
| Feature |
Description |
| Grapheme-aware cursor |
Left/Right arrow keys skip over entire grapheme clusters (emoji, Indic conjuncts, combining marks). |
| Grapheme-aware delete |
Backspace/Delete remove an entire grapheme cluster in one keypress. |
| Unicode hover inspector |
Hover over any character to see its codepoints, grapheme cluster boundaries, and display width. |
| Display width in status bar |
Shows true display columns and grapheme cluster count for the current line or selection. |
Opt-in (toggle in Settings)
| Feature |
Setting |
Description |
| Visual bidi cursor |
uniworld.enableBidiVisualCursor |
Left/Right follow visual direction in Arabic/Hebrew text. |
| Script-aware word selection |
uniworld.enableGraphemeWordSelect |
Double-click and Ctrl+D use script-specific word boundaries. |
| Line break decorations |
uniworld.showLineBreakOpportunities |
Subtle markers at UAX #14 line-break positions, including dictionary-based Thai/Lao/Khmer/Myanmar. |
| Bidi run highlighting |
uniworld.showBidiVisualization |
LTR runs highlighted blue, RTL runs orange, so you can see bidi structure at a glance. |
Commands (Command Palette)
| Command |
Description |
UniWorld: Inspect Selection |
Full breakdown: codepoints, grapheme clusters, word and sentence boundaries. |
UniWorld: Truncate to Display Width |
Truncate selection to N display columns without breaking clusters. |
UniWorld: Normalize NFC |
Normalize selection to NFC (canonical composition). |
UniWorld: Normalize NFD |
Normalize selection to NFD (canonical decomposition). |
UniWorld: Normalize NFKC |
Normalize selection to NFKC (compatibility composition). |
UniWorld: Normalize NFKD |
Normalize selection to NFKD (compatibility decomposition). |
UniWorld: Select Word at Cursor |
Script-aware word selection. |
UniWorld: Toggle Line Break Opportunity Decorations |
Toggle line-break markers on/off. |
Settings
All settings are under UniWorld in VS Code Settings (Ctrl+,).
| Setting |
Type |
Default |
Description |
uniworld.enableGraphemeCursor |
boolean |
true |
Left/Right arrow keys use grapheme-aware movement. |
uniworld.enableGraphemeDelete |
boolean |
true |
Backspace/Delete use grapheme-aware deletion. |
uniworld.enableHoverInspector |
boolean |
true |
Show Unicode codepoint and width info when hovering over text. |
uniworld.enableBidiVisualCursor |
boolean |
false |
Left/Right follow visual direction in RTL text. |
uniworld.enableGraphemeWordSelect |
boolean |
false |
Double-click and Ctrl+D use UniWorld word boundaries. |
uniworld.showLineBreakOpportunities |
boolean |
false |
Show line-break opportunity decorations. |
uniworld.showBidiVisualization |
boolean |
false |
Highlight LTR and RTL bidi runs in the editor. |
Architecture
- TypeScript extension running in the VS Code extension host
- Loads the UniWorld WASM module (built from the same Rust core as the library)
- WASM is loaded lazily on activation; falls back gracefully if unavailable
- No native dependencies; cross-platform via WASM
- Unicode 17.0 conformant: passes UAX #29 (grapheme/word/sentence), UAX #14 (line break), UAX #9 (bidi), UAX #15 (normalization) conformance test suites (UCD 17.0.0)
Development
From the repo root, build the WASM module:
# Build WASM
wasm-pack build --target nodejs --features wasm --no-default-features
# Copy to extension
Copy-Item pkg\uniworld.js extensions\vscode\wasm\
Copy-Item pkg\uniworld.d.ts extensions\vscode\wasm\
Copy-Item pkg\uniworld_bg.wasm extensions\vscode\wasm\
Copy-Item pkg\uniworld_bg.wasm.d.ts extensions\vscode\wasm\
Then build and test the extension:
cd extensions/vscode
npm install
npm run compile
Press F5 in VS Code to launch the Extension Development Host for testing.
About
UniWorld is an A Guy With AI project by Sean MacNutt. Built using HAIMU, MacNutt's AI development methodology -- HAIMU generated the insight leading to UniWorld when prompting for the highest-impact neglected technical projects, and the library was largely built within 14 hours of idea generation. "Move fast and fix things." Development funded by Grand Beta.
License
MIT. See LICENSE for details.
Unicode Character Database data is used under the Unicode License. ICU dictionary data is used under the ICU License.
