Kakoune(French: [kakun]) is a modal screen-based text editor program created in 2011 by French programmer Maxime Coste. The editor is heavily inspired by the classic vi by Bill Joy, as well as its successor Vim by Bram Moolenaar.[2][3]

Kakoune
Original author(s)Maxime Coste
Initial release2 September 2011; 13 years ago (2 September 2011)
Stable release
2024.05.18[1] Edit this on Wikidata / 18 May 2024; 6 months ago (18 May 2024)
Repositorygithub.com/mawww/kakoune
Written inC++, KakouneScript
Operating systemUnix-like, macOS
TypeText editor
LicenseUnlicense
Websitekakoune.org

The primary focus of the Kakoune editor is efficiency, which it achieves by making heavy use of a multi-cursor workflows. By default a user always has one selection, which can be widened or shortened through the use of commands and regular expressions. This allows Kakoune to behave like a structured editor despite having no knowledge of the semantics of the underlying programming language.[4] The editor also features a modal workflow with a insert and a normal mode reminiscent of other editors based on vi.[3] The insert mode allows for the insertion of text into the document, whereas in the normal text input is interpreted as commands.[2][5] A digital assistant represented as an ASCII art of a paper clip is also integrated into the editor which helps guide users through the keybindings, features and workflows provided by the editor.[5]

The editor is primarily written in C++ and makes heavy use of templates and classes which results in a discrepancy in the number of lines of code and the instructions generated for the project using LLVM.[6]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Release Kakoune 2024.05.18 · mawww/kakoune". Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  2. ^ a b "kakoune/README.asciidoc at master · mawww/kakoune". GitHub. Archived from the original on 17 June 2024. Retrieved 17 June 2024.
  3. ^ a b Rougier, Nicolas P. (3 September 2020). "On the design of text editors". arXiv:2008.06030 [cs.HC].
  4. ^ Voinov, Philippe; Rigger, Manuel; Su, Zhendong (1 December 2022). "Forest: Structural Code Editing with Multiple Cursors". Proceedings of the 2022 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software. Onward! 2022. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. p. 148. doi:10.1145/3563835.3567663. ISBN 978-1-4503-9909-8.
  5. ^ a b Kenlon, Seth (7 February 2022). "Try Kakoune for a modern Vi". RedHat. Archived from the original on 17 June 2024. Retrieved 17 June 2024.
  6. ^ Barbar, Mohamad (2022). Data Structures for Points-To Analysis (PhD thesis). University of Technology Sydney (Australia). Archived from the original on 17 June 2024. Retrieved 17 June 2024.