yumete

A terminal text editor for CJK users

Helix and vim keys, cursor motions by Chinese word, vertical editing, and the Yume input method built in.

• Written for Chinese w moves by real Chinese words, found with a dictionary rather than spaces. Sentences, clauses and Chinese brackets are things you can select and change.
• Vertical layout Columns run top to bottom and right to left, punctuation turns with them, and the keys follow the column.
• An input method inside the editor The Yume engine is built in, so typing Chinese needs no system input method. In Normal mode every key stays a command, even with Chinese on.
• Tables you can edit as tables Markdown and CSV tables are drawn as grids. Move by cell, sort by a column, and add or drop rows without counting pipes.
• A book of many files Links between chapters, a wiki of the book's people and places, a daily word target, and checks that run over the whole project.
• Code too Tree-sitter highlighting, language servers, and helix's keys, with a vim keymap for vim hands.

Select, then act

yumete works the way helix does. Every move leaves a selection: w walks forward one word and selects the word it walked over, and x selects a line. You see the text you are about to change before you change it, and then d deletes it, c replaces it and y copies it. The character under the cursor is part of the selection, so what the block covers is what d takes.

Where yumete differs from helix, it is mostly for people who write in 漢字. Editors made for English find words by spaces, and Chinese has none, so w here asks a dictionary. English is only written across the page, and Chinese is also written in columns, so the page can turn. And an input method that sits outside the terminal cannot tell Normal mode from Insert mode, so this one is inside the editor. If your fingers know vim rather than helix, see Coming from vim.