z

A Plan 9 Acme-inspired text editor written in Scala. It follows the Acme mouse-chording model: right-click executes or navigates, middle-click-drag selects and runs — keeping your hands on the mouse and out of modal menus. There is no command palette, no sidebar, and no plugin system; just text, tag lines, and commands.

Built with Scala 3.8.2, sbt 1.10.7, and Java 17+.

Installation

Pre-built packages for Linux, macOS, and Windows are available on the Releases page.

Platform	Package	Notes
Linux	z-editor_X.X.X_amd64.deb or ZIP	ZIP includes install.sh
macOS	z-X.X.X.dmg or ZIP	Unsigned — right-click → Open to bypass Gatekeeper
Windows	z-X.X.X.msi or ZIP	Unsigned — choose "More info → Run anyway" in SmartScreen

All native packages (.deb, .dmg, .msi) bundle a JRE — no separate Java installation required. The ZIP packages require Java 17+ and include an install script.

Build from Source

sbt assembly
mkdir -p ~/.local/lib/z
cp target/scala-3.8.2/z.jar ~/.local/lib/z/z.jar

Then create a launcher script at ~/bin/z (or anywhere on your $PATH):

#!/bin/sh
exec java \
    -Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=on \
    -Dswing.aatext=true \
    -jar "${HOME}/.local/lib/z/z.jar" \
    "$@"

Make it executable:

chmod +x ~/bin/z

To run the tests:

sbt test

Features

• Acme-style mouse chording — B3 (right-click) to look/navigate/execute, B2-drag to execute selected text; keyboard capture mode (Ctrl+Enter) lets you type a command with the keyboard, see it highlighted as you go, then execute as a command (Ctrl+Enter) or look/navigate (Ctrl+F)
• Syntax highlighting — powered by RSyntaxTextArea; auto-enabled on Get for any file with a known extension (no manual command needed); use Hilite [lang] to override, Hilite off to disable, Theme [name] to switch colour themes
  • Markdown typography — Markdown files get per-level heading fonts (Vera Serif Bold at 18/15/14pt for H1/H2/H3), distinct bold/italic/bold-italic rendering, Hack monospace for inline and fenced code, italic blockquotes, and underlined link text — all overlaid on top of whatever colour theme is active; use MdFont <elem> '<family>' <size> (app tag line) to restyle any element (h1 h2 h3 bold em bolditalic code quote); settings persist across sessions in ~/.z/settings as md.font.*
• Language Server Protocol (LSP) — use Lsp to start a language server for the current file:
  • Squiggly underlines for errors and warnings
  • Hover tooltips with type information and documentation
  • Code completion popup via Complete or Ctrl+Space
  • Diagnostics listed in a +Diagnostics scratch window
  • Configure servers in ~/.z/lsp.conf (one langId = command per line):

    go     = gopls
    python = pylsp
    scala  = metals
    

• Split status bar — the bottom status bar has two lanes: the left shows live window state (line/col, font, wrap/indent/scroll, LSP) updated on mouse hover; the right shows a timestamped echo of the last command run ([HH:mm:ss] cmd), updated only when a command actually executes — the two never overwrite each other
• Command history — History (app tag line) opens a +History scratch buffer listing every command run during the session with timestamp, level (app/col/wnd), and source. Plain text, so you can search, filter with > grep, or B3-click any line to re-run it. The ring buffer size defaults to 500 and is configurable via history.limit in ~/.z/settings
• Session persistence — Dump / Load save and restore the full editor layout
• Configurable tag line defaults — set tag.app, tag.col, tag.wnd, and tag.cmd in ~/.z/settings to customise the commands pre-loaded into each tag line at startup
• Property inspection — Props opens a +Props scratch window listing the current properties of the app, column, or window (depending on where it is run from)
• Scratch buffers — filenames containing + are never written to disk (e.g. +scratch, +Results)
• Rotatable layout — RotateView toggles window stacking within a column between top-to-bottom and side-by-side; from the app tag line it also rotates the column layout itself. Rotation state is persisted across sessions
• Batch commands — X 'regexp' cmd / Y 'regexp' cmd run a command across matching/non-matching windows
• Interactive processes — Input mode lets you send text line-by-line to a running process
• Brace matching — Ctrl+B1 selects the region between matching {} [] () <> or any delimiter pair
• Line numbers — toggle with Ln
• Path expansion — tag lines and commands support ~, ./, and ../ prefixes
• Relative path style preservation — when a window has a relative path, B3 navigation (directory listings, body text, tag path segments) opens new windows with relative tags rather than absolute paths, keeping the project-relative style consistent
• Root directory control — Dir <path> changes where relative paths resolve, where external commands run, and the LSP workspace root; works from window, column, or app tag line
• User scripts — place executable scripts in .z/scripts/ (project-local) or ~/.z/scripts/ (global) and invoke them from any tag line with a comma prefix: ,Build, ,Format, ,Deploy. Use ,,cmd to run on every open window. Additional directories can be configured in ~/.z/scripts.conf
• Plumbing rules — user-configurable dispatch rules in ~/.z/plumbing that intercept B3 actions before normal look/execute logic. Rules follow Plan 9 Acme's block format: blank-line-separated blocks with condition verbs (data matches, arg isfile, arg isdir, wdir matches, src is) and action verbs (data set, attr add, plumb to edit|exec, plumb start). Built-in rules open URLs in the browser and navigate to file:line(:col) compiler output (guarded by arg isfile so only existing files trigger navigation). Reload rules at any time with Plumb
• Fuzzy file picker (Ctrl+P) — keyboard-driven file search that replaces the system file dialog. Type to fuzzy-filter files under the current root; prefix with /, ~/, ./, or ../ to re-root the search interactively. Results are scored by consecutive runs, filename matches, and segment-start matches. When invoked from a tag line the chosen file opens immediately as a new window; when invoked from the body the path is inserted as text
• Font control — Font/FONT set the variable/fixed-width body font; TagFont sets the tag line font. All three cascade from the app tag line (sets editor-wide default), column tag line (that column), or window tag line (that window only)
• Keyboard shortcuts for navigation, selection, editing, and tools — see the help screen for the full list

Documentation

• Tutorial — start here if you are new to z
• Command Reference — full command listing