Edit: A new command-line text editor in Windows

Christopher Nguyen, a product manager for Windows Terminal at Microsoft, has announced a new command-line text editor in Windows, Edit.

Edit is open source, so you can build the code or install the latest version from GitHub. You will see this CLI text editor to preview in the Windows Insider Program in the coming months. Once stable, it will be a part of Windows 11.

How can I use the Edit command-line text editor?

You can invoke it by running edit in the command line or edit<your-file-name>. With this, you can edit files directly in the command line without a context switch.

What are the features of Edit?

Here are some of the features of this command-line text editor:

• Lightweight: It is very small under 250 KB, which means it doesn’t take up much space and loads quickly.
• Open multiple files: You can work on moe than one file at a time and switch between them seamlessly with Ctrl + P or file list on the screen
• Mouse Mode support: You don’t need to remember the keyboard shortcuts, as you can use your mouse to click through menus and options, making it easier to use.
• WordWrap: You can press Alt +Z to enable the feature and it will stop the long lines of text to run off from the screen.
• Find & Replace: Press Ctrl + R or click Edit >Replace to search and replace text within the CLI. You can filter context using options like match case.

Why would we need this?

We all know that 32-bit versions of Windows come with the MS-DOS editor, but 64-bit versions do not ship with any. The introduction of Edit fulfills the long-overdue gap for for developers and system administrators who rely on CLI tools for quick file editing task.

What do you think about Edit? Share your thoughts in the comments section below