Termleaf

A distraction-free terminal text editor built for focused writing. Termleaf keeps files, shortcuts, and the writing surface close while leaving the rest of the desktop out of the way.

Just you, your words, and the terminal.

Status: v0.3 — a working foundation. Rendering is ANSI-only (via crossterm) so it runs on virtually any terminal.

Why

General-purpose editors are excellent at managing code and complex projects, but their panels, modes, and notifications can compete with the act of writing. Termleaf is deliberately narrower: open a plain-text document, focus on the words, and save without leaving the terminal.

Features

• Focus mode — hides all chrome so only your words remain.
• Readable page width — optionally centers writing in an 80-column page on wide terminals.
• Non-destructive soft wrapping — long paragraphs wrap at the screen or page edge without adding newline characters to the saved document.
• Relaxed line spacing — defaults to a comfortable one-row gap and cycles through three persisted spacing levels.
• Open and save in-app — choose a filename on first save, reopen another document, or save under a new name without leaving Termleaf.
• Save & autosave — plain-text documents (.md by default), with time-based autosave.
• Big pixel font zone — a short cursor-side phrase is drawn with Galmuri9 pixels, including complete Hangul and distinct Latin uppercase/lowercase glyphs.
• Optional live Hangul composition — press F2 to make one enlarged character slot evolve in place as ㅎ → 하 → 한, matching normal Hangul, including complex vowels (ㅘ, ㅢ …), double tails (ㄳ, ㄺ …), and the ghost rule (닭 + ㅏ → 달가).
• Themes — paper, true-black night, phosphor-green xt, and amber.
• English or Korean UI — guidance defaults to English and toggles in-app; the last language, theme, sound, and display choices are restored on launch.
• Built-in guidance — the startup guide explains OS vs. Live Korean input; its “Don’t show again” checkbox is optional, and F1 always reopens the full shortcut reference.
• Optional writing ambience — choose classic, deep, or soft key sounds, with independently configurable delete and return effects. Audio can be disabled completely.
• Small footprint — direct dependencies are crossterm and rodio.

Install

macOS and Linux (recommended)

The installer detects Apple Silicon, Intel macOS, x86_64 Linux, or 32-bit x86 Linux (i686), verifies the release archive, and installs termleaf into Cargo's conventional binary directory:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf \
  https://github.com/andy5090/termleaf/releases/latest/download/termleaf-installer.sh | sh

Open a new terminal if the installer updates your PATH, then run:

termleaf
termleaf memo.md
termleaf --help

Prebuilt archives and checksums are also available from the latest GitHub release. Release history is maintained in the changelog.

Update or uninstall

Existing curl installations can always be updated by running the installation command again. The installer also includes an updater that compares the latest release with the version reported by the installed Termleaf executable:

termleaf-update

To repair an incomplete installation or reinstall the current release:

termleaf-update --force

To uninstall a curl installation, first print the exact installed paths:

command -v termleaf
command -v termleaf-update

Remove only the files printed by those commands. The default paths are $HOME/.cargo/bin/termleaf and $HOME/.cargo/bin/termleaf-update. Keep Cargo's shared env/env.fish files and the directory's PATH entry if other Cargo tools are installed there.

Package-manager installations should be managed by the same package manager:

# Future Homebrew package
brew upgrade termleaf
brew uninstall termleaf

# Cargo installation
cargo install termleaf --locked
cargo uninstall termleaf

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/andy5090/termleaf.git
cd termleaf
cargo install --path . --locked

Linux source builds require the ALSA development package, commonly libasound2-dev on Debian and Ubuntu. Homebrew and native Linux packages are planned as additional installation paths; they will reuse the same GitHub release artifacts.

Keybindings

Key	Action
typing	insert text from the operating-system input method
F1	open the help and startup-guide settings
F2	toggle Termleaf's optional Live Korean composer
F3	toggle focus mode
F4	toggle the big-font zone
F5	toggle the centered page-width (paper) mode
F6	cycle paper / night / xt / amber theme
F7 / F8	decrease / increase big-font size across five effective levels
Alt+L	cycle document line spacing through levels 1–3
Alt+P	alternate page-width shortcut where the terminal preserves Alt
F9	toggle English / Korean interface guidance
F10	open sound settings (typing / delete / return / key style)
F11	cycle classic / deep / soft typewriter sound
Ctrl+O	open a file (a missing path starts a new file there)
Ctrl+S	save; the first save asks for a filename
F12	save as (reliable in terminals)
Ctrl+Shift+S	save as when the terminal preserves the Shift modifier
Ctrl+Q / Ctrl+C	quit
arrows / Home / End / Backspace / Delete / Enter	usual editing

Enter plays a typewriter margin bell and carriage-return effect. In the F10 panel, use ↑/↓ to select an option, Space or ←/→ to change it, and Enter/Esc to close.

When saving, a filename without an extension defaults to Markdown: memo becomes memo.md. An explicit extension is preserved, so memo.txt remains memo.txt.

The open prompt lists document files (.txt, .md, .markdown, .rst, .adoc, .asciidoc, .org, and .tex) and subdirectories beside the current document. Use ↑/↓ to select, Tab to complete the highlighted path, and Enter to open the document or enter a directory. Typing filters the list by filename.

Typing Korean

By default the status bar shows IME:OS; use the normal Linux/desktop 한/영 shortcut and Termleaf accepts the committed Korean text from that IME. No Termleaf shortcut is required.

F2 toggles the optional Live Korean (IME:LIVE) practice mode; it is not the operating system's 한/영 switch. In this mode Termleaf maps raw English-layout keys using standard 두벌식, e.g. g k s → 한. The big zone updates one character slot in place as ㅎ → 하 → 한, and Backspace disassembles that same cluster one step at a time. Set the OS keyboard to English while using IME:LIVE, since Termleaf needs the raw Latin key events to expose each intermediate step.

You can also open a document directly from the shell:

termleaf memo.txt

An existing path is loaded; a missing path becomes a new document that will be created there on save.

Configuration

Settings live at ~/.config/termleaf/config (a simple key = value file), written on exit and editable by hand:

live_composition = false
focus_mode = false
sound = true
backspace_sound = true
return_sound = true
sound_profile = classic
big_font = true
font_size = 2
line_spacing = 2
page_width = false
# theme: paper, night, xt, or amber
theme = paper
language = en
show_welcome = true
autosave_secs = 30

These values are updated on normal exit, so the next run restores the last interface language, theme, audio choices, input mode, and display settings.

Architecture

src/
├── main.rs        # event loop, action dispatch, autosave
├── input/
│   ├── korean.rs  # 두벌식 composition automaton (well tested)
│   └── events.rs  # key → Action mapping
├── editor/        # text buffer, cursor, composer integration, save
├── renderer/
│   ├── font.rs    # embedded Galmuri9 ASCII + complete Hangul bitmap subset
│   └── terminal.rs# ANSI painting + RAII terminal guard
├── ui/            # layout regions, themes, char widths
└── config/        # settings load/save

v0.2 scope notes

• The big-font view follows up to 12 characters around the cursor and trims the oldest characters to fit the current terminal width.
• The built-in typewriter PCM is mixed through one persistent, low-latency Rodio audio stream; no player process is started for individual keystrokes.

License

Licensed under either of

• MIT License (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)

at your option.

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in this project by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

The embedded Galmuri9 font subset is separately licensed under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. See THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md.