# turbo-go

A Turbo C-style editor for Go, written in Go.

Built on **[turbo-core](https://rickub.com/turbo-editors/turbo-core)**, the library every Turbo editor shares. What is in this repository is the command, the profile that says this editor is for Go, and the Go scanner — about four hundred lines. Everything else lives in the library.

A full-screen terminal IDE with the Borland furniture - a menu bar with hot keys, movable windows that cast shadows, modal dialogs, a clickable status bar — and the things a Go editor needs today: syntax colouring from the compiler's own tokeniser, loadable colour themes, completion from `gopls`, shell windows, per-project settings, a project tree, snippets, and the go toolchain a menu away.

```
 File  Edit  Search  Run  Options  Window  Help
╔═[x]═════════════════════════════ greeter.go ══════════════════════════════1═[■]╗
║ 1 package main                                                                ▲║
║ 2                                                                             ▓║
║ 3 import "fmt"                                                                ░║
║ 4                                                                             ░║
║ 5 // Greeter says hello to whoever asks.                                      ░║
║ 6 type Greeter struct {                                                       ░║
║ 7         Name  string                                                        ░║
║ 8         Count int                                                           ░║
║ 9 }                                                                           ▼║
║◄▓░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░►║
╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
 F1 Describe  F2 Save  F3 Open  F6 Window  F7 Next  F10 Menu          1:1  LSP: ready
```

## Getting started

```bash
make install
```

That builds the editor, puts it where your shell looks for commands, and reports what it found — the Go version, where the binary went, whether that directory is on your `PATH`, and whether `gopls` is installed. Then, from any Go project:

```bash
turbo-go main.go
```

To build without installing, `make build` leaves the binary in `bin/turbo-go`. From the module proxy instead of a checkout: `go install rickub.com/turbo-editors/turbo-go@latest`.

For completion, install the Go language server as well — the editor works without it, and says so on the status bar:

```bash
go install golang.org/x/tools/gopls@latest
```

The [tutorial](docs/en/tutorials/getting-started.md) walks through a first session in about ten minutes.

## Features

- **Every build knows what it is** — `turbo-go -version` and **Help ▸ About** name the version, the commit and the build date, stamped in by the linker from `git describe` rather than read from a constant somebody forgot to bump
- **Turbo Vision interface** — menu bar with `Alt`-letter hot keys, overlapping movable and resizable windows, modal dialogs, mouse support throughout
- **Syntax colouring for nine languages** — Go through `go/scanner`, so it is exactly as right as the compiler, plus TOML, Markdown, JavaScript, HTML and shell scripts from turbo-core, each with a small scanner of its own
- **Themes** in TOML, eleven embedded — Borland navy, dark grey, paper white, espresso, Catppuccin Frappé and Latte, cobalt, Darcula and IntelliJ Light, and a hueless monochrome in both polarities — and any number of your own, with inheritance between files and between style keys. Every shipped theme is held to its contrast by tests
- **Per-project settings** in `.turbo-go/settings.toml` — pin a theme, turn on automatic saving — created from a menu item and never by itself
- **Completion, hover and go-to-definition** from `gopls`, entirely optional
- **Terminal windows** — `F8` opens a real shell in a window, with its own VT/ANSI emulator, scrollback and job control (Linux, macOS and Windows)
- **Project tree** — `F9` shows the project's files in a window; walk it with the arrows and press Enter to open one
- **Snippets** — a `Snippets` menu built from `.turbo-go/snippets.toml`, grouped into submenus and filtered by the file you are in; the chosen text is inserted at the cursor, re-indented to match
- **The go toolchain a menu away** — `Alt-G` runs format, vet, build, test and run from `.turbo-go/tools.toml`, each showing its output where the tool asked: a popup that fills in as it goes, a terminal window, or an editing window to search. Files the command rewrote are re-read for you, and a tool naming a `menu` of its own gets that menu on the bar
- **Editing** with word movement, block indent, a shared clipboard, and undo that merges a run of typing into one step
- **Faithful files** — line endings and the trailing newline are preserved, and saving is atomic
- **Automatic saving**, off by default, writing a short while after you stop typing

## Commands

| Command | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| `make install` | Build and install onto your `PATH` |
| `make build` | Compile into `bin/turbo-go` |
| `make test` | Run the whole test suite |
| `make check` | `fmt`, `vet`, then the tests — what a commit should pass |
| `make run FILE=x.go` | Build and start the editor on a file |
| `make help` | List every target |

```bash
turbo-go [-theme name] [-no-lsp] [file...]
turbo-go -list-themes
```

## Documentation

Full documentation in **[English](docs/en/)** and **[French](docs/fr/)**, organised by the [Diátaxis](https://diataxis.fr) method:

| | |
| --- | --- |
| **Tutorial** | [Your first file in Turbo Go](docs/en/tutorials/getting-started.md) |
| **How-to** | [install](docs/en/how-to/install.md) · [run the tests](docs/en/how-to/run-the-tests.md) · [enable completion](docs/en/how-to/enable-completion.md) · [write a theme](docs/en/how-to/write-a-theme.md) · [move around a file](docs/en/how-to/navigate-code.md) · [use a terminal](docs/en/how-to/use-a-terminal.md) · [configure a project](docs/en/how-to/configure-a-project.md) · [browse a project](docs/en/how-to/browse-a-project.md) · [use snippets](docs/en/how-to/use-snippets.md) · [run go commands](docs/en/how-to/run-go-commands.md) · [make a release](docs/en/how-to/make-a-release.md) |
| **Reference** | [command line](docs/en/reference/cli.md) · [keyboard](docs/en/reference/keyboard.md) · [menus](docs/en/reference/menus.md) · [theme format](docs/en/reference/themes.md) · [terminal windows](docs/en/reference/terminal.md) · [project settings](docs/en/reference/project-settings.md) · [project tree](docs/en/reference/project-tree.md) · [languages](docs/en/reference/languages.md) · [snippets](docs/en/reference/snippets.md) · [go tools](docs/en/reference/go-tools.md) · [the version number](docs/en/reference/versioning.md) |
| **Explanation** | [architecture](docs/en/explanation/architecture.md) · [design decisions](docs/en/explanation/design-decisions.md) · [colouring and completion](docs/en/explanation/colouring-and-completion.md) · [terminal windows](docs/en/explanation/terminal-windows.md) · [project settings](docs/en/explanation/project-settings.md) · [project tree](docs/en/explanation/project-tree.md) · [snippets](docs/en/explanation/snippets.md) · [go tools](docs/en/explanation/go-tools.md) |

The library's packages each carry their own `README.md` beside the code, in [turbo-core](https://rickub.com/turbo-editors/turbo-core).

## Where the code is

| | |
| --- | --- |
| `main.go` | flags, the terminal, the wiring |
| `internal/golang` | the profile, the Go scanner, the three starter files |
| everything else | [turbo-core](https://rickub.com/turbo-editors/turbo-core) |

The dependency graph is drawn in [`docs/diagrams/packages.drawio`](docs/diagrams/packages.drawio), checked against `go list`.

## Design in one line

Two dependencies — `tcell/v2` and `BurntSushi/toml` — and everything else from the standard library, including the tokeniser and the Language Server Protocol client. Both come through turbo-core; this repository adds none of its own. The [design decisions](docs/en/explanation/design-decisions.md) page explains why.

## Requirements

Go 1.26 or later. A terminal with mouse reporting, which is all of them. `gopls` is optional.

## Licence

See [LICENSE](LICENSE).