textli¶
A lightweight text editor with focused writing and reading in mind.
textli puts one warm, paper-toned column of text on screen and nothing else.
It opens ready to type — vim NORMAL mode, autosave on — and one keystroke
(⌘R) flips the Markdown source into a rendered reading view built for
proof-reading and review.
What it does¶
- Focused writing — a distraction-free, full-window surface with vim keybindings (NORMAL / INSERT / VISUAL), section focus that dims everything but the paragraph you're in, and an Easymotion-style word-jump overlay.
- A real reading view — the rendered document, navigated with the same
vim motions, with a headings outline (
gh) one key away. - Inline review — leave comments on any span, or propose suggestions
(track changes) that the author steps through and accepts or rejects with
single keys. A changes overview (
gc) lists every mark; a clean preview (p) shows the prose as if everything were accepted. - No sidecar files — comments and suggestions are stored inline as CriticMarkup, so they travel with the Markdown and diff cleanly in git. Made for humans and AI agents reviewing each other's prose.
- Embeddable — the editor is a plain PySide6 widget. Host it in your own app; grafli, the keyboard-driven diagram tool it grew up in, does exactly that.
Quick start¶
Type. Esc saves and closes. F1 shows the complete key reference at any
time — the same help whether textli runs standalone or embedded.
Where to go next¶
- Install — install options and the CLI.
- Writing — the write view: vim, focus, layout.
- Reading & review — the reading view, comments, and suggestions.
- Keybindings — the full reference.
- Embedding — using the editor widgets in your own PySide6 app.