vis
A modal, vi-like terminal text editor built around Plan 9's structural regular expressions.
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1 more ways to get vis
Package managers
- Homebrew
brew install vis
About vis
vis is a terminal text editor that combines vi-style modal editing with the structural regular expressions of Plan 9's sam editor. Familiar vi motions and text objects handle everyday editing, while sam's command language lets you select and transform text by pattern, including working on many selections at once.
The editor is written in C with Lua for configuration and extension, and the repository includes a test suite and man pages. It suits people who like vi but want a smaller codebase and a more powerful way to express multi-part edits.
Strengths
- Vi-style modal editing with sam structural regular expressions
- Multiple selections for editing several places at once
- Lua scripting for configuration and extensions
- Small C codebase
Limitations
- Not fully compatible with Vim commands or plugins
- Smaller ecosystem than Vim or Neovim
- Terminal only
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source.
- License
- Open source, license not stated
- Developer
- The vis contributors
- Platforms
- Linux, Command line
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Vi users who want sam-style structural editing in the terminal
- Categories
- Code editors, CLI tools
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 1 sources on file.
Alternatives to vis
Compare allSoftware that can replace vis for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
Kakoune
A modal terminal code editor where multiple selections are the main way of editing.
Kakoune is a terminal editor built around multiple selections with selection-first commands, but its keybindings differ from vi and it lacks structural regular expressions.
Vim
The editor that is already on every server, with a graphical build for Windows and a licence that asks you to donate to Ugandan children.
Vim offers classic vi modal editing with decades of plugins and runs on many more platforms, but uses Vimscript rather than Lua and lacks sam-style structural regexes.
Neovim
A modern rewrite of Vim with a built-in language server client, Lua configuration and an embeddable API.
Neovim adds a built-in LSP client, tree-sitter and Lua configuration across Windows, macOS and Linux, with a far larger plugin ecosystem than vis.
Helix
A modal terminal editor with language servers and multiple selections built in, and no plugins to install.
Helix is a selection-first modal terminal editor with built-in language servers and tree-sitter, but has no plugin system and keys that differ from vi.
Textadept
A fast, minimalist programmer's text editor that can be scripted and extended with Lua.
Textadept keeps Lua scripting and a terminal interface but drops modal vi editing, and also offers a graphical interface on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
micro
A terminal editor with the keybindings you already know: Ctrl-S to save, Ctrl-C to copy, Ctrl-Z to undo.
GNU nano
Small terminal text editor with the shortcuts printed on screen.
Serpl
A terminal interface for searching and replacing text across a whole project folder.
Lem
A general-purpose editor and IDE written in and extensible with Common Lisp, with Emacs and Vim keybindings.
