Ki Editor for Visual Studio Code

⚠️ BETA VERSION: This extension is currently in beta and definitely contains bugs and incomplete features. Use with caution.

This extension integrates the Ki Editor with Visual Studio Code, providing a powerful and efficient editing experience. The extension includes statically linked binaries for all major platforms (Windows, macOS, and Linux), so you don't need to install anything separately.

Why?

Ki as a standalone editor is quite barebones. Although it has basic LSP support and syntax highlighting, it lacks important IDE features such as AI coding assistance, Git integrations, debuggers, extensive plugin ecosystems, and all the other goodies that make modern development productive.

On the other hand, VS Code's default editing experience can feel sluggish.

Using Ki within VS Code gives you the best of both worlds: you get access to the vast ecosystem of VS Code extensions and features, while enjoying Ki's fluid and efficient text editing motions.

Features

• 🚀 Most Ki Editor functionality in VSCode.
• See the Ki Editor documentation to learn about Ki's innovative editing model.
• Static binaries for most platforms included, no need to install anything

Mapped functionalities

1. Diagnostics
2. Marks
3. Git Hunks
4. Text movements
5. Text operations (e.g. Delete, Swap etc)
6. LSP operations (e.g. Go to Definition)
7. Change keyboard layout (via space t)
8. Global operations (e.g. Global Search, Global Marks, Global Diagnostics)
9. Info (e.g. Keymap Legend, Diagnostic Message, etc.)

Unmapped functionalities

Almost all unmapped functionalities are related to UIs.

1. Alt-keys operations (e.g. change tab, swap pane, scrolling etc.)
2. Keymap Legend (hint)

Quick Start

1. Installation

   # Install from VS Code Marketplace
   code --install-extension ki-editor.ki-editor-vscode
   
   # Or install from a local VSIX file
   code --install-extension ki-editor-vscode-0.0.3.vsix
   

   The extension includes statically linked binaries for all major platforms (Windows, macOS, and Linux), so you don't need to install the Ki editor separately.

2. Basic Usage

   • Open a file in VSCode
   • Press Esc to enter Normal mode
   • Use Ki commands and keybindings
   • Press u to return to Insert mode
   • Press space m to see help

Extension Settings

• ki.backendPath: Optional path to the Ki editor backend executable. If not specified, the bundled platform-specific binary will be used.
• ki.enableDebugLogging: Enable debug logging (default: false)
• ki.maxFileSize: Maximum file size to process in bytes (default: 2MB)

Known Issues

See our issue tracker for current issues and planned features.

Development Setup

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v16 or later)
• npm (v8 or later)
• Bun (v1.0.30 or later) - for bundling the extension
• Visual Studio Code
• Nix package manager (for building the Ki binaries)
• Just

Development instructions

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/ki-editor/ki-editor.git
cd ki-editor

2. Install dependencies for the VSCode extension:

cd ki-vscode
npm install

3. Build Ki's bridge:

just watch-build

4. Running the extension
   • Open this repository in VS Code
   • Then, press F5 in VSCode to launch a new window with the extension loaded

Building Ki Binaries

The extension includes statically linked binaries for all major platforms. To build these binaries:

1. Make sure you have Nix installed:

   # On macOS/Linux
   sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install) --daemon
   
   # On Windows, follow the instructions at https://nixos.org/download.html
   

2. Run this command at the repository root (not ki-vscode):

   just vscode-package
   

   This command will:

   • Build the Ki editor for all supported platforms using Nix
   • Copy the binaries to ki-vscode/dist/bin with platform-specific names
   • Make the binaries executable
   • Package the extension into a .vsix package under the ki-vscode directory

3. The following binaries will be generated:

   • ki-darwin-arm64: macOS ARM64 (Apple Silicon)
   • ki-darwin-x64: macOS x86_64 (Intel)
   • ki-linux-x64: Linux x86_64
   • ki-linux-arm64: Linux ARM64
   • ki-win32-x64.exe: Windows x86_64

Packaging

Create a VSIX package with the extension and all platform binaries:

npm run package:full

This will build the binaries for all platforms and package them with the extension.

Bundling

The extension uses Bun to bundle all dependencies, ensuring they're available when the extension is installed from the marketplace:

npm run bundle

This creates a single bundle file that includes all dependencies, including the 'ws' module used for WebSocket communication. The bundling script also ensures that binary files have the correct executable permissions on Unix-like systems.

The bundling process is automatically run as part of the vscode:prepublish script when packaging the extension.

License

MPL 2.0