Microsoft’s open-source CLI text editor adds syntax highlighting

Originally open-sourced by Microsoft last year, Edit was developed as a lightweight, cross-platform text editor tailored for developers and system administrators who require a straightforward tool directly within their terminal environments. It features familiar Visual Studio Code-style keybindings, robust mouse support, seamless handling of both LF and CRLF line endings, and the ability to open multiple files simultaneously. Wrapped in a clean, intuitive terminal user interface, the tool is designed to be exceptionally accessible, lowering the barrier of entry for users who want modern editing conveniences without diving into complex modal paradigms.

Although the v2.0.0 release of Edit initially debuted earlier in the year, the unofficial Linux snap package, known as msedit and maintained by Canonical’s Aaron Prisk, received its update in mid-September. This package refresh brought the latest improvements to Linux environments, offering a stable and supported build configuration following the inclusion of a dedicated snapcraft.yaml file in the official GitHub repository. In addition to package enhancements, the underlying codebase now builds smoothly with Rust v1.93 or later, moving away from the previous requirement for a nightly compiler build and easing compilation for developers wanting to build from source.

Edit’s Nimble Syntax Highlighting

The standout feature of the Edit v2.0.0 release is undoubtedly the introduction of syntax highlighting. Addressing what was arguably one of the most glaring omissions for a modern text editor, the development team built a custom, lightweight syntax highlighter from scratch. Remarkably, this addition adds a mere 40 kilobytes to the overall binary size while providing robust coverage for over a dozen popular programming languages, spanning major web development, scripting, and systems languages like JavaScript, Ruby, and many others.

According to the official release notes, the highlighter is engineered for exceptional performance, processing text at speeds exceeding 100 megabytes per second. This rapid execution ensures that developers working with extensive source files or log data will not experience lag or stuttering within their terminal interfaces, maintaining the nippy, responsive feel that lightweight terminal tools demand.

Beyond syntax highlighting, the new version delivers several practical improvements detailed in the project’s changelog. These include better, more reliable regular expression handling within the Find and Replace dialogs, allowing for more precise text searching and manipulation across large documents. A series of new editing shortcuts have also been integrated to accelerate everyday coding and text modification tasks, reducing friction for users transitioning from graphical interfaces to the command line.

Another notable addition is the introduction of initial support for a settings.json configuration file, fulfilling a long-standing user request for customization capabilities. While implementation in this release remains somewhat limited and focuses primarily on files.associations, it establishes a solid architectural foundation for future configuration options. Alongside these feature additions, numerous underlying bugs were addressed to improve overall stability across supported operating systems.

Positioning in the Terminal Ecosystem

While Edit does not seek to outgun venerable powerhouses like Vim or Emacs—as it intentionally lacks the profound depth, macro systems, and infinite extensibility of those legendary tools—it serves a distinct and valuable purpose. It is explicitly aimed at individuals who need to view or modify files quickly within a terminal context, perform light development or server administration tasks, but are unfamiliar with modal editing models and have no desire to learn them.

This philosophy explains its broad appeal for everyday terminal tasks where speed and simplicity are paramount. The original lack of syntax highlighting made coding and script editing challenging for prolonged sessions, a hurdle that the v2.0.0 release successfully clears.

Linux users looking to try out the updated editor can install Microsoft Edit on Ubuntu and other distributions supporting Snap packages by executing a simple command in their terminal. By running sudo snap install msedit --classic, the system retrieves the newly updated package from the Snap Store. Once the installation is complete, the editor can be launched instantly from anywhere in the terminal by typing the msedit command.