Projects, windows & files

Projects

A project is a VS Code-style single-folder workspace: a root folder plus its own saved session (open files with carets and pins, the active tab, folds, and tool-window layout). Projects are off by default; enable them in Settings.

The Project tool window shows the folder tree with keyboard navigation, a filter that runs a bounded project-wide filename search, per-file-type icons, and right-click actions: new file, new folder, new from template, rename, reveal, open terminal, local history, and Git stage/revert. The project root has its own menu too (with rename omitted so you can’t move the whole project). Bookmarks and notes are scoped per project. Closing a project returns you to the global, no-project session.

It also works like a mini file manager: multi-select files and folders with Ctrl/Cmd- and Shift-click, then drag them onto a folder (or the root) to move them, with open tabs following to the new path; a name conflict is skipped rather than overwritten, and a folder can’t be moved into its own subtree. Delete acts on the whole selection at once.

With no project open, the Project tool window doesn’t sit empty: it becomes a Current Folder explorer rooted at the active file’s parent directory, and follows the focused tab as you switch files.

Multiple windows

When projects are enabled, each project opens in its own window, with its own tabs, tool windows, and session. The window’s project picker acts as a window switcher: choosing a project focuses or opens that window. The set of open windows is remembered and restored on the next launch. With projects disabled, Editora stays a single window.

Tabs and splits

Tabs are draggable to reorder and can be pinned. The tab strip, the switcher, and the Open Files picker all show the same unsaved-file marker. Close the last tab and the editor is left empty (it doesn’t recreate an Untitled buffer).

Split the editor into two panes:

The Welcome page

With no session to restore, Editora opens a Welcome page (a real tab) with New / Open / Open Folder / Clone actions (each labeled with its shortcut), your recent files, and version and license info. Reopen it with view.welcome.

Focus modes

• Zen mode hides the chrome for distraction-free writing, with a small floating “Z” to exit. Toggle it from the palette or start with the --zen flag.
• Expert mode is a lighter focus mode than Zen: it strips only the window chrome (toolbar, tab bar, breadcrumb, tool stripes, whitespace guides) but keeps the full editor view, line numbers, status bar, minimap, column ruler, and current-line highlight, so you stay oriented. Toggle it from the palette (view.toggleExpert), C-c C-e, Settings → Interface → Modes, the floating “E” button, or the --expert flag. Expert and Zen are mutually exclusive, and like Zen it’s per-window and never changes your saved settings.
• Simple UI mode strips the editor to the essentials: it hides the extra toolbar groups, the tool-window stripe, the breadcrumb, the gutter, and the minimap, and turns off the heavier features (LSP, debugging, Git, multiple cursors) for a calm surface. Toggle it from Settings, the toolbar, the palette (view.toggleSimpleMode), or the --simple flag (session-only). Toggling off restores everything.

You can also hide the toolbar, the tool stripe, the breadcrumb, and the minimap individually in Settings.

Local file history

Editora snapshots your local files over time, independent of any version control, so you have a safety net even outside Git. A snapshot is taken on save, on auto-save, and before a file is reloaded after an external change.

The File History tool window (M-g l) lists each revision with its date, the reason it was taken, and its size (the latest tagged Current). Double-click a revision for a diff against the current file, then restore the whole revision or use the apply-chevrons to copy individual fragments back in (undoable).

It mirrors more of IntelliJ’s Local History:

• Named snapshots with Put Label (history.putLabel), shown bold in the list even when the content is unchanged.
• A filter over the revision list, plus a project-wide Recent Changes picker (history.recentChanges).
• A folder view: right-click a folder in the Project tree to list every file under it that has history, with deleted files badged; restore a revision to recreate the file. Deleting a file in Editora snapshots it first, so an accidental delete is recoverable (for files Editora had opened or edited).

Snapshots are deduped by content and stored gzip-compressed in your config folder, pruned by configurable limits. It’s on by default, local-only, and off in Simple UI mode.

External-change detection

When a file changes on disk under you, Editora notices on window focus and tab switch and prompts to reload or keep your version. The Project tree also re-scans on focus so files added or removed outside the editor show up, keeping your expanded folders and selection.

Trusted folders

A repository can ship its own build wrapper, ./mvnw or ./gradlew, and those scripts live in the repository rather than on your machine. Triggering a Maven or Gradle build runs one with your privileges, so a repository you merely cloned and opened could execute its own code on the first build.

Editora asks first. The first time you build in a folder it hasn’t been told to trust, it shows what would run and waits. Trust is remembered per folder and inherited by subfolders, so a multi-module repository asks once, and the default is always untrusted, including when the trust file can’t be read.

Declining means no build, not a quieter one. Falling back to the mvn or gradle on your PATH would not be safer: a hostile pom.xml or build.gradle executes code through those too, since build plugins and Gradle scripts run in-process.

Only the wrapper case is gated. Every other build tool (npm, Cargo, Go) launches your own toolchain, and Run and Debug always invoke a PATH interpreter, so none of them prompt.

Review or revoke trust in Settings → Workspace → Trusted Folders, or from the palette with workspace.manageTrust and workspace.revokeTrust. Revoking a folder that is still covered by a trusted parent tells you so, rather than claiming a revoke that the parent would override.