FileX

A Bangla-first terminal text editor — safe, keyboard-driven, Unicode-correct.

বাংলায় পড়ুন · Documentation · Contributing · Changelog

FileX is a small, keyboard-driven editor for the terminal with a Bangla interface by default (English is one flag away). It is built for quick edits — config files over SSH, notes, scripts — and treats two things as non-negotiable: your file is never left half-written, and Bangla text behaves correctly: conjuncts like ক্ষ, vowel signs like কি and emoji are always moved over, deleted and highlighted as whole characters.

┌─ ফাইলএক্স ─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ফাইল: src/index.ts                      পরিবর্তিত [*] │
│────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│
│  1 const message = "হ্যালো বিশ্ব";                       │
│  2 console.log(message); // নতুন                       │
│  3                                                     │
│  4 // যুক্তাক্ষর: ক্ষ ত্র জ্ঞ                                │
│────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│
│ Ctrl+S সংরক্ষণ  Ctrl+O ফাইল খুলুন  Ctrl+F খুঁজুন  লাইন 2, কলাম 29 │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

[!NOTE] FileX is in early development (0.x): usable today, but expect rough edges and breaking changes before 1.0. See the roadmap.

Features

Editing

• Undo/redo with grouped typing, selection with Shift, copy / cut / paste (also to the system clipboard over OSC 52, including through SSH)
• Incremental search, step-through or replace-all, go to line (accepts 12 or ১২)
• Line numbers, horizontal and vertical scrolling, bracketed paste, F1 shortcut reference

Bangla and Unicode

• Grapheme-aware cursor and deletion — never splits a conjunct, vowel sign or ZWJ emoji
• Layout measured in terminal cells, not string length, so Bangla text aligns
• Bangla UI by default; --lang en or FILEX_LANG=en for English

File safety

• Atomic saves: write to a temp file, fsync, then rename over the original
• Preserves file mode, symlinks, hard links, CRLF line endings and UTF-8 BOM
• Detects changes made by other programs and asks before overwriting
• Private backup (0600) of the original before the first save of each session
• Asks before discarding unsaved changes; refuses binary, non-UTF-8 and oversized files

Scriptable

• read, create, append, insert and replace commands for shell scripts
• Content on stdout, messages on stderr, meaningful exit codes

Installation

Requirements: Bun 1.3.14 or newer, a UTF-8 terminal, and a font with Bangla glyphs (for example Noto Sans Bengali). Developed and tested on Linux; macOS and Windows are untested.

bun add -g filex-editor      # or: npm install -g filex-editor
filex --version

The package is published as filex-editor; the command it installs is filex. FileX runs on Bun even when installed with npm, so Bun must be on your PATH.

git clone https://github.com/dev-sajid007/filex.git
cd filex
bun install
bun link          # puts `filex` on your PATH (~/.bun/bin)

Or run it without installing: bun run start [path].

Usage

filex                 # untitled buffer — Ctrl+S asks where to save
filex notes.md        # open a file (created on first save if it does not exist)
filex --lang en a.ts  # English interface
filex --help          # all commands and options

Keyboard shortcuts

| Key | Action | Key | Action | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Ctrl+S | Save | Ctrl+Z | Undo | | Ctrl+O | Open file | Ctrl+Y | Redo | | Ctrl+F | Find (Enter/↓ next, ↑ previous) | Ctrl+A | Select all | | Ctrl+R | Replace (y / n / a all) | Ctrl+C / Ctrl+X / Ctrl+V | Copy / Cut / Paste | | Ctrl+G | Go to line | Shift + arrows | Select | | F1 | Show all shortcuts | Ctrl+Q | Quit (asks if there are unsaved changes) |

Ctrl+C copies — it does not quit. Replace is Ctrl+R because most terminals send Ctrl+H as Backspace. Full reference: docs/keyboard-shortcuts.md.

Command line

filex read config.json                       # print the file to stdout
filex create notes.md                        # create an empty file (fails if it exists)
filex append notes.md "নতুন লাইন"            # add a line at the end
filex insert notes.md 1 "# শিরোনাম"          # insert at a 1-based line number
filex replace app.conf 8080 9090 --dry-run   # preview, then run without --dry-run

Every command that writes uses the same atomic save and backup as the editor, and keeps the file's line endings and final newline. Details: docs/commands.md.

Exit codes

| Code | Meaning | | --- | --- | | 0 | Success | | 1 | General error; replace found no matches | | 2 | Invalid command or arguments | | 3 | File or path error (missing, directory, binary, not UTF-8, too large, already exists) | | 4 | Permission denied | | 5 | Write failed (disk full, I/O error, file changed during save) | | 6 | No terminal available for the editor |

How it works

argv ─► CLI (cli.ts) ─┬─► commands/ ───────────────┐
                      └─► TUI (app.tsx, OpenTUI) ──┤
                               │                   ▼
                          editor core ──────► file engine ──► filesystem
                    (buffer, undo, search)   (validation, atomic save, backup)
                               ▲
                     i18n (bn / en) — every user-facing string

The editor core is a set of pure functions over an immutable state, which keeps undo cheap and makes it testable without a terminal. Architecture notes: docs/architecture.md. File-safety guarantees and their limits: docs/security.md.

Documentation

| Document | Contents | | --- | --- | | docs/commands.md | CLI commands, options, behaviour and exit codes | | docs/keyboard-shortcuts.md | Every shortcut, prompts, search rules, terminal quirks | | docs/architecture.md | Layers, state model, Unicode handling, save flow | | docs/security.md | Save procedure, backups, permissions, platform notes | | docs/development.md | Local setup, scripts, testing | | filex-project-documentation.md | Full project specification |

The detailed documents are written in Bangla.

Roadmap

| Milestone | Scope | Status | | --- | --- | --- | | M0 | Foundation | ✅ | | M1 | TUI shell | ✅ | | M2 | Basic editing | ✅ | | M3 | File operations and safe save | ✅ | | M4 | Search/replace, undo/redo, selection | ✅ | | M5 | Command-line interface | ✅ | | M6 | Unicode and quality hardening | Next | | M7 | Release (CI, npm) | ✅ |

Known limitations

• Terminals and fonts differ in how wide they draw some Bangla conjuncts; alignment depends on your terminal.
• Tab characters are not rendered yet — pasted tabs become spaces.
• Files with mixed line endings are saved with a single style.
• filex diff and a configuration file are not implemented yet; backups cannot be disabled.
• Ctrl+V pastes FileX's own clipboard; use your terminal's paste (usually Ctrl+Shift+V) for text copied elsewhere.

Contributing

Bug reports, Bangla rendering reports from different terminals, and pull requests are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md and the Code of Conduct. Report security issues privately as described in SECURITY.md.

bun install
bun run typecheck
bun test

License

MIT © dev-sajid007

Acknowledgements

Built with Bun, OpenTUI and React.