lite-xl/changelog.md

This files document the changes done in Lite XL for each release.

2.1

Upgraded Lua to 5.4, which should improve performance, and provide useful extra functionality. It should also be more available out of the box with most modern linux/unix-based package managers.

Removed dmon, and implemented independent backends for dirmonitoring. Also more cleanly split out dirmonitoring into its own class in lua, from core.init. We should now support FreeBSD; and any other system that uses kqueue as their dirmonitoring library. We also have a dummy-backend, which reverts transparnetly to scanning if there is some issue with applying OS-level watches (such as system limits).

Removed libagg and the font renderer; compacted all font rendering into a single renderer.c file which uses libfreetype directly. Now allows for ad-hoc bolding, italics, and underlining of fonts.

Removed reproc and replaced this with a simple POSIX/Windows implementation in process.c. This allows for greater tweakability (i.e. we can now break for debugging purposes), performance (startup time of subprocesses is noticeably shorter), and simplicity (we no longer have to link reproc, or winsock, on windows).

Split out Node and EmptyView into their own lua files, for plugin extensibility reasons.

Revamped StatusView API, so that plugins can more easily coexist with each other.

Removed cp_replace, and replaced this with a core plugin, drawwhitespace.lua.

Made distinction between line and block comments, and added all appropriate functionality to the commenting/uncommenting lines.

Added in line paste mode, if you copy without a selection.

May improvements to treeview, including keyboard navigation of treeview, and ability to specify single vs. double-click behavior.

Added in soft line wrapping as core plugin, under linewrapping.lua, with an F10 to activate.

Bumped plugin mod-version number, as the rendering interface for docviews has changed.

Added in meson wraps for freetype, pcre2, and SDL2 which target public, rather than lite-xl maintained repos.

Added in the ability to set up font fallback groups in the font renderer, if a token doesn't have a corresponding glyph.

Added in a native plugin interface that allows for C-level interfacing with a statically-linked lite-xl. The implementation of this may change in future.

Improved fuzzy_matching to probably give you something closer to what you're looking for.

Improved handling of alternate keyboard layouts.

Improved ability for plugins to be loaded at a given time, by making the convention of defining a config for the plugin use common.merge to merge existing hashes together, rather than overwriting.

Added in the ability to specify mouseclicks in the keymap, allowing for easy binds of ctrl+lclick, and the like.

Changed interface for keyhandling; now, all components should return true if they've handled the event.

Added in a default keymap for core:restart, ctrl+shift+r.

Many, many, many more changes that are too numerous to list.

2.0.5

Revamp the project's user module so that modifications are immediately applied.

Add a mechanism to ignore files or directory based on their project's path. The new mechanism is backward compatible.*

Essentially there are two mechanisms:

• if a '/' or a '/$' appear at the end of the pattern it will match only directories
• if a '/' appears anywhere in the pattern except at the end the pattern will be applied to the path

In the first case, when the pattern corresponds to a directory, a '/' will be appended to the name of each directory before checking the pattern.

In the second case, when the pattern corresponds to a path, the complete path of the file or directory will be used with an initial '/' added to the path.

Fix several problems with the directory monitoring library. Now the application should no longer assert when some related system call fails and we fallback to rescan when an error happens. On linux no longer use the recursive monitoring which was a source of problem.

Directory monitoring is now aware of symlinks and treat them appropriately.

Fix problem when encountering special files type on linux.

Improve directory monitoring so that the related thread actually waits without using any CPU time when there are no events.

Improve the suggestion when changing project folder or opening a new one. Now the previously used directory are suggested but if the path is changed the actual existing directories that match the pattern are suggested. In addition always use the text entered in the command view even if a suggested entry is highlighted.

The NagView warning window now no longer moves the document content.

2.0.4

Fix some bugs related to newly introduced directory monitoring using the dmon library.

Fix a problem with plain text search using Lua patterns by error.

Fix a problem with visualization of UTF-8 characters that caused garbage characters visualization.

Other fixes and improvements contributed by @Guldoman.

2.0.3

Replace periodic rescan of project folder with a notification based system using the dmon library. Improves performance especially for large project folders since the application no longer needs to rescan. The application also reports immediatly any change in the project directory even when the application is unfocused.

Improved find-replace reverse and forward search.

Fixed a bug in incremental syntax highlighting affecting documents with multiple-lines comments or strings.

The application now always shows the tabs in the documents' view even when a single document is opened. Can be changed with the option config.always_show_tabs.

Fix problem with numeric keypad function keys not properly working.

Fix problem with pixel not correctly drawn at the window's right edge.

Treat correctly and open network paths on Windows.

Add some improvements for very slow network filesystems.

Fix problem with python syntax highliting, contributed by @dflock.

2.0.2

Fix problem project directory when starting the application from Launcher on macOS.

Improved LogView. Entries can now be expanded and there is a context menu to copy the item's content.

Change the behavior of ctrl+d to add a multi-cursor selection to the next occurrence. The old behavior to move the selection to the next occurrence is now done using the shortcut ctrl+f3.

Added a command to create a multi-cursor with all the occurrences of the current selection. Activated with the shortcut ctrl+shift+l.

Fix problem when trying to close an unsaved new document.

No longer shows an error for the -psn argument passed to the application on macOS.

Fix treeview:open-in-system command on Windows.

Fix rename command to update name of document if opened.

Improve the find and replace dialog so that previously used expressions can be recalled using "up" and "down" keys.

Build package script rewrite with many improvements.

Use bigger fonts by default.

Other minor improvements and fixes.

With many thanks to the contributors: @adamharrison, @takase1121, @Guldoman, @redtide, @Timofffee, @boppyt, @Jan200101.

2.0.1

Fix a few bugs and we mandate the mod-version 2 for plugins. This means that users should ensure they have up-to-date plugins for Lite XL 2.0.

Here some details about the bug fixes:

• fix a bug that created a fatal error when using the command to change project folder or when closing all the active documents
• add a limit to avoid scaling fonts too much and fix a related invalid memory access for very small fonts
• fix focus problem with NagView when switching project directory
• fix error that prevented the verification of plugins versions
• fix error on X11 that caused a bug window event on exit

2.0

The 2.0 version of lite contains breaking changes to lite, in terms of how plugin settings are structured; any custom plugins may need to be adjusted accordingly (see note below about plugin namespacing).

Contains the following new features:

Full PCRE (regex) support for find and replace, as well as in language syntax definitions. Can be accessed programatically via the lua regex module.

A full, finalized subprocess API, using libreproc. Subprocess can be started and interacted with using Process.new.

Support for multi-cursor editing. Cursors can be created by either ctrl+clicking on the screen, or by using the keyboard shortcuts ctrl+shift+up/down to create an additional cursor on the previous/next line.

All build systems other than meson removed.

A more organized directory structure has been implemented; in particular a docs folder which contains C api documentation, and a resource folder which houses all build resources.

Plugin config namespacing has been implemented. This means that instead of using config.myplugin.a, to read settings, and config.myplugin = false to disable plugins, this has been changed to config.plugins.myplugin.a, and config.plugins.myplugin = false repsectively. This may require changes to your user plugin, or to any custom plugins you have.

A context menu on right click has been added.

Changes to how we deal with indentation have been implemented; in particular, hitting home no longer brings you to the start of a line, it'll bring you to the start of indentation, which is more in line with other editors.

Lineguide, and scale plugins moved into the core, and removed from lite-plugins. This may also require you to adjust your personal plugin folder to remove these if they're present.

In addition, there have been many other small fixes and improvements, too numerous to list here.

1.16.11

When opening directories with too many files lite-xl now keep diplaying files and directories in the treeview. The application remains functional and the directories can be explored without using too much memory. In this operating mode the files of the project are not indexed so the command "Core: Find File" will act as the "Core: Open File" command. The "Project Search: Find" will work by searching all the files present in the project directory even if they are not indexed.

Implemented changing fonts per syntax group by @liquidev.

Example user module snippet that makes all comments italic:

local style = require "core.style"

-- italic.ttf must be provided by the user
local italic = renderer.font.load("italic.ttf", 14)
style.syntax_fonts["comment"] = italic

Improved indentation behavior by @adamharrison.

Fix bug with close button not working in borderless window mode.

Fix problem with normalization of filename for opened documents.

1.16.10

Improved syntax highlight system thanks to @liquidev and @adamharrison. Thanks to the new system we provide more a accurate syntax highlighting for Lua, C and C++. Other syntax improvements contributed by @vincens2005.

Move to JetBrains Mono and Fira Sans fonts for code and UI respectively. Thet are provided under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1. See doc/licenses.md for license details.

Fixed bug with fonts and rencache module. Under very specific situations the application was crashing due to invalid memory access.

Add documentation for keymap binding, thanks to @Janis-Leuenberger.

Added a contributors page in doc/contributors.md.

1.16.9

Fix a bug related to nested panes resizing.

Fix problem preventing creating a new file.

1.16.8

Fix application crash when using the command core:restart.

Improve application startup to reduce "flashing".

Move to new plugins versioning using tag mod-version:1. The mod-version is a single digit version that tracks the plugins compatibility version independently from the lite-xl version.

For backward compatibility the tag -- lite-xl 1.16 is considered equivalent to mod-version:1 so users don't need to update their plugins.

Both kind of tags can appear in new plugins in the form:

-- mod-version:1 -- lite-xl 1.16

where the old tag needs to appear at the end for compatibility.

1.16.7

Add support for retina displays on Mac OS X.

Fix a few problems related to file paths.

1.16.6

Implement a system to check the compatibility of plugins by checking a release tag. Plugins that don't have the release tag will not be loaded.

Improve and extend the NagView with keyboard commands. Special thanks to @takase1121 for the implementation and @liquidev for proposing and discussing the enhancements.

Add support to build on Mac OS X and create an application bundle. Special thanks to @mathewmariani for his lite-macos fork, the Mac OS specific resources and his support.

Add hook function DocView.on_text_change so that plugin can accurately react on document changes. Thanks to @vincens2005 for the suggestion and testing the implementation.

Enable borderless window mode using the config.borderless variable. If enable the system window's bar will be replaced by a title bar provided by lite-xl itself.

Fix a drawing engine bug that caused increased CPU usage for drawing operations.

Add system.set_window_opacity function.

Add codepoint replacement API to support natively the "draw whitespaces" option. It supersedes the drawwhitespace plugin. If can be configured using the config.draw_whitespace boolean variable and enabled and disables using the commands draw-whitespace:toggle, draw-whitespace:enable, draw-whitespace:disable.

Improve the NagView to accept keyboard commands and introduce dialog commands.

Add hook function Doc:on_text_change called on document changes, to be used by plugins.

1.16.5

Hotfix for Github's issue https://github.com/franko/lite-xl/issues/122

1.16.4

Add tooltips to show full file names from the tree-view.

Introduce NagView to show warning dialog about unsaved files.

Detect High-DPI displays on Linux using Xft.dpi entry from xrdb's output.

Made animations independent of framerate, and added a config setting config.animation_rate for customizing the speed of animations.

Made borders between tabs look cleaner.

Fix problem with files using hard tabs.

1.16.2

Implement close button for tabs.

Make the command view list of suggestion scrollable to see all the items.

Improve update/resize behavior of treeview and toolbar.

1.16.1

Improve behavior of commands to move, delete and duplicate multiple lines: no longer include the last line if it does not contain any selection.

Fix graphical artefacts when rendering some fonts like FiraSans.

Introduce the config.transitions boolean variable. When false the transitions will be disabled and changes will be done immediately. Very useful for remote sessions where visual transitions doesn't work well.

Fix many small problems related to the new toolbar and the tooptips. Fix problem with spacing in treeview when using monospace fonts.

1.16

Implement a toolbar shown in the bottom part of the tree-view. The toolbar is especially meant for new users to give an easy, visual, access to the more important commands.

Make the treeview actually resizable and shows the resize cursor only when panes are actually resizable.

Add config mechanism to disable a plugin by setting config.<plugin-name> = false.

Improve the "detect indent" plugin to take into account the syntax and exclude comments for much accurate results.

Add command root:close-all to close all the documents currently opened.

Show the full path filename of the active document in the window's title.

Fix problem with user's module reload not always enabled.

1.15

Project directories

Extend your project by adding more directories using the command core:add-directory. To remove them use the corresponding command core:remove-directory.

Workspaces

The workspace plugin from rxi/lite-plugins is now part of Lite XL. In addition to the functionalities of the original plugin the extended version will also remember the window size and position and the additonal project directories. To not interfere with the project's files the workspace file is saved in the personal Lite's configuration folder. On unix-like systems it will be in: $HOME/.config/lite-xl/ws.

Scrolling the Tree View

It is now possible to scroll the tree view when there are too many visible items.

Recognize ~ for the home directory

As in the unix shell ~ is now used to identify the home directory.

Files and Directories

Add command to create a new empty directory within the project using the command files:create-directory. In addition a control-click on a project directory will prompt the user to create a new directory inside the directory pointed.

New welcome screen

Show 'Lite XL' instead of 'lite' and the version number.

Various fixes and improvements

A few quirks previously with some of the new features have been fixed for a better user experience.

1.14

Project Management

Add a new command, Core: Change Project Folder, to change project directory by staying on the same window. All the current opened documents will be closed. The new command is associated with the keyboard combination ctrl+shit+c.

A similar command is also added, Core: Open Project Folder, with key binding ctrl+shift+o. It will open the chosen folder in a new window.

In addition Lite XL will now remember the recently used projects across different sessions. When invoked without arguments it will now open the project more recently used. If a directory is specified it will behave like before and open the directory indicated as an argument.

Restart command

A Core: Restart command is added to restart the editor without leaving the current window. Very convenient when modifying the Lua code for the editor itself.

User's setting auto-reload

When saving the user configuration, the user's module, the changes will be automatically applied to the current instance.

Bundle community provided colors schemes

Included now in the release files the colors schemes from github.com/rxi/lite-colors.

Usability improvements

Improve left and right scrolling of text to behave like other editors and improves text selection with mouse.

Fixes

Correct font's rendering for full hinting mode when using subpixel antialiasing.

1.13

Rendering options for fonts

When loading fonts with the function renderer.font.load some rendering options can be optionally specified:

• antialiasing: grayscale or subpixel
• hinting: none, slight or full

See data/core/style.lua for the details about its utilisation.

The default remains antialiasing subpixel and hinting slight to reproduce the behavior of previous versions. The option grayscale with full hinting is specially interesting for crisp font rendering without color artifacts.

Unix-like install directories

Use unix-like install directories for the executable and for the data directory. The executable will be placed under $prefix/bin and the data folder will be $prefix/share/lite-xl. The folder $prefix is not hard-coded in the binary but is determined at runtime as the directory such as the executable is inside $prefix/bin. If no such $prefix exist it will fall back to the old behavior and use the "data" folder from the executable directory.

In addtion to the EXEDIR global variable an additional variable is exposed, DATADIR, to point to the data directory.

The old behavior using the "data" directory can be still selected at compile time using the "portable" option. The released Windows package will use the "data" directory as before.

Configuration stored into the user's home directory

Now the Lite XL user's configuration will be stored in the user's home directory under ".config/lite-xl". The home directory is determined using the "HOME" environment variable except on Windows wher "USERPROFILE" is used instead.

A new global variable USERDIR is exposed to point to the user's directory.

1.11

• include changes from rxi's Lite 1.11
• fix behavior of tab to indent multiple lines
• disable auto-complete on very big files to limit memory usage
• limit project scan to a maximum number of files to limit memory usage
• list recently visited files when using "Find File" command

1.08

• Subpixel font rendering, removed gamma correction
• Avoid using CPU when the editor is idle

1.06

• subpixel font rendering with gamma correction