Editora

A keyboard-driven, cross-platform programmer's text editor built with JDK 25, JavaFX 27, RichTextFX and Maven. Every action is a registered command, reachable from an Emacs-style keymap or a fuzzy command palette.

🌐 editora-project.dev — features, user docs, screenshots, every command, keybindings, plugins, what's new, roadmap and the blog. The site's source is adriandeleon/editora-website.

Editora is built with the help of AI coding tools.

Highlights

Each link opens the feature's page on the website; the user docs have the full reference.

• Every action is a command. Bind it to a key or run it from the fuzzy palette; menus, toolbar and keymaps all dispatch through the same registry. (command-driven core)
• Five keymaps. Emacs by default, with chord sequences, the kill ring, rectangles, narrowing and a prefix argument; CUA, Sublime Text, VS Code and IntelliJ IDEA too. Switch live, rebind anything. (keymaps, Emacs heritage)
• Navigation that keeps your place. Search Everywhere over commands, files and symbols; a server-free symbol index for 16 languages; back/forward, recent locations, peek definition, sticky scroll and preview tabs. (Search Everywhere, code navigation)
• Code intelligence. Language servers for 23 languages, auto-detected on PATH: diagnostics, go-to, rename, code actions, Java refactorings and code generation, inlay hints and code lenses. Debug Java, Python and Node over DAP; run files and project main classes with saved configurations. (LSP, debugging, run configurations)
• Git and GitHub through your own CLIs. Gutter change bars with hunk stage and revert, a Commit window, a Git Log with graph and history search, blame, stashes, patches, branches, remotes and worktrees; pull requests, reviews and CI runs through gh. (Git, GitHub)
• Diff and merge. Side-by-side or unified with word-level highlights, directory compare, a three-way resolver for conflicts, and a standalone mode. ()

Install

Download the package for your platform from GitHub Releases, or use the OS-detected button on the home page.

• macOS — .dmg for Apple Silicon (macos-arm64) or Intel (macos-x64).
• Windows — .msi (x64).
• Linux — .deb, .rpm or .AppImage (x64), or a portable .tar.gz with an install.sh (x64 and arm64). The .deb and the tarball add an editora command and a menu entry.
• Any OS with a JDK 25 — a per-platform fat jar, run with java -jar.

The native packages bundle their own Java runtime. Installers are currently unsigned, so macOS Gatekeeper and Windows SmartScreen stop the first launch until you allow it; the Getting Started and Troubleshooting pages in the user docs walk through it.

On startup Editora checks GitHub at most once a day for a newer release and shows an "Update: X.Y.Z" indicator in the status bar when there is one. The check sends no data and can be switched off under Settings → Workspace → Updates.

Build from source

Requires JDK 25 or newer. The Maven wrapper is included (mvnw.cmd on Windows); plain mvn works too.

./mvnw javafx:run                 # run the app
./mvnw test                       # run the tests
./mvnw -Pfatjar package           # runnable jar: java -jar target/Editora-<version>.jar
./mvnw clean -Pdist package       # native installer under target/dist/ (DMG, MSI, DEB + RPM)

Keep the clean in a dist build. The fat jar bundles JavaFX for the build host's platform only, and prints a harmless Unsupported JavaFX configuration warning on startup because it runs from the classpath. The AOT cache, the Linux tarball, the AppImage and the opt-in native-image experiment are covered in docs/building-and-packaging.md and docs/native-image-staticfx.md.

Command line

editora [options] [FILE[:LINE[:COLUMN]] ...]
editora --diff-ui LEFT RIGHT

  --config-dir <path>   Use <path> as the config directory (or set EDITORA_CONFIG_DIR)
  --dev                 Dev mode: use ~/.editora-dev (separate from production config)
  --project[=]<dir>     Open <dir> as a project (only when Projects are enabled)
  --new-file[=name]     Open a new buffer instead of the Welcome page (optionally named)
  --single-window[=project]  Open just one window (the named project, else the no-project window)
                        instead of restoring all windows; doesn't change the saved layout
  --no-session          Open only the files given here; don't restore the saved session
  --new-instance        Start a separate editor process instead of handing this launch
                        to the one already running with the same config directory
  --diff-ui LEFT RIGHT  Compare two files or directories in a standalone diff window
  --zen                 Start in Zen (distraction-free) mode (session only)
  --expert              Start in Expert mode: like Zen, but keeps the editor view (session only)
  --simple              Start in Simple UI mode (minimal chrome; session only)
  --disable-plugins     Start with every plugin switched off (session only)
  --report              Write a redacted problem report to the current folder and open a GitHub issue for it
  --version, -V         Print the version and exit
  --help, -h            Print help and exit

File and --project arguments are additive: the previous session restores, then the given files open on top and the caret jumps to any LINE:COLUMN. A second launch hands its files to the running instance unless --new-instance is given. When something goes wrong, Help → Report a Problem… (or editora --report when Editora will not start) prepares the debug log for a bug report. The command-line page in the user docs has the details and the launcher's location per package.

Configuration

Preferences live in ~/.editora/settings.json; session state, recent files, bookmarks, breakpoints, personal notes, saved SFTP connections and macros are JSON files beside it. Choose another folder with --config-dir <path> or EDITORA_CONFIG_DIR, or pass --dev to run a development instance on ~/.editora-dev/ alongside your everyday editor. The configuration page in the user docs lists every file and setting.

Plugins

A curated, signed registry of ready-to-install plugins lives at adriandeleon/editora-plugins; the plugins page lists them. Enable plugins in Settings → Plugins, then Browse plugins…. Plugins run with full trust (no sandbox), so install only ones you trust. To write your own, start with docs/plugins.md and examples/example-plugin/.

Contributing

CONTRIBUTING.md has the workflow and the conventions a change must follow; the developer documentation in docs/ covers architecture, performance rules, an extension cookbook and the build, test and release guides. Coding agents start at AGENTS.md. Run ./mvnw spotless:apply before committing and ./mvnw verify before pushing. A feature-organized sample corpus for manual testing is under samples/.

User-facing documentation lives in the website repository, not here.

Releases

A pushed vX.Y.Z tag builds native installers and fat jars for Linux (x64, arm64), macOS (x64, arm64) and Windows (x64) on a GitHub Actions matrix and publishes them with JReleaser; a -rcN suffix publishes a pre-release. The steps are in docs/release.md.

License

MIT © 2026 Adrián Arturo De León Saldivar

Editora bundles third-party libraries, fonts, snippets and TextMate grammars under their own licenses. See NOTICE for attributions.