Microsoft’s CLI text editor now does syntax highlighting

Originally open-sourced by Microsoft last year, Edit was conceptualized as a lightweight, cross-platform text editor that bridges the gap between traditional graphical development environments and the minimalist nature of terminal tools. It incorporates familiar elements for modern developers, such as Visual Studio Code-style keybindings, robust mouse support, and seamless handling of both LF and CRLF line endings. Furthermore, the application allows users to open multiple files simultaneously within a clean and intuitive terminal user interface, or TUI, making it remarkably straightforward for developers who prefer staying inside the command line without navigating complex modal editing architectures.

Although the Edit v2.0.0 release debuted earlier this year on GitHub, the unofficial Linux snap package, distributed under the package name msedit and maintained by Canonical’s Aaron Prisk, recently caught up with the official source tree following its rollout on the Snap Store. This update brings the latest improvements to Linux users across distributions like Ubuntu, ensuring they can take advantage of the refined codebase and performance boosts.

Edit’s Nimble Syntax Highlighting

The standout feature of the Edit v2.0.0 release is undoubtedly the inclusion of native syntax highlighting. Recognizing that reading plain, unstyled text inside a terminal can quickly become tiring during extended coding sessions, the development team engineered a custom, lightweight syntax highlighter specifically tailored for the editor.

Rather than relying on massive external libraries that would bloat the application footprint, this bespoke highlighter adds a mere 40 kilobytes to the overall binary size. Despite its minimal footprint, it provides comprehensive language coverage for over a dozen popular programming languages, including essential systems and scripting languages such as C, Rust, and JavaScript.

According to the official project release notes, the highlighter is engineered to process text at speeds exceeding 100 megabytes per second. This performance threshold ensures that developers working with exceptionally long files or extensive source code documents will not experience input lag or stuttering, maintaining the snappy, responsive feel that defines the tool.

Alongside visual styling, the update addresses several functional aspects of the editor. Among the enhancements noted in the official changelog are improvements to the regular expression engine used within the Find & Replace dialogue, making pattern matching and text refactoring significantly more reliable and predictable across various document types. Additionally, the development team introduced a new set of editing shortcuts designed to streamline daily text manipulation tasks.

User customization, which has been a primary request from the community since the tool’s initial open-source debut, finally makes its first appearance in this release. Version 2.0.0 introduces foundational support for a settings.json configuration file. While implementation remains intentionally limited in scope for this iteration, it successfully lays the groundwork for future personalization by enabling files.associations configuration out of the box.

Under the hood, the project has undergone significant engineering cleanups. Developers have resolved numerous bugs and streamlined the compilation process. The package now builds natively using Rust version 1.93 or later, eliminating the previous requirement for a nightly Rust build chain and lowering the barrier to entry for contributors. Moreover, a dedicated snapcraft.yaml configuration file has been formally added to the main GitHub repository. This inclusion provides the unofficial Snap package with an officially supported build configuration, ensuring smoother maintenance and distribution pipelines for Linux maintainers.

While Edit does not seek to compete with venerable heavyweights like Vim or Emacs—as it intentionally lacks the profound depth, extensibility, and steep learning curves associated with those traditional editors—it fills a distinct and valuable niche. The tool is purposefully crafted for developers and casual users who need to inspect, modify, or create files within a terminal environment without wanting to commit to, or learn, modal editing paradigms.

This design philosophy is precisely what makes the application attractive to users who value immediate, apparent usability over complex configuration. The historical absence of syntax highlighting was widely regarded as a notable omission given the intended use-case of the software, making its introduction in version 2.0.0 a welcome and logical evolution for the project.

For users running Ubuntu and other compatible Linux distributions, accessing the latest version is straightforward through the Snap ecosystem. The updated package is currently live on the Snap Store, allowing users to install or upgrade the editor by executing a standard command in their terminal interface. Once the installation process completes, the editor can be launched instantly by invoking its binary name directly from the command line.