Repository navigation
What testing on fresh Windows, Ubuntu and Mac machines found, installers and uninstalling
everywhere, several folders in one window, and a new license.
Windows, from its first tests
- The window's minimise, maximise and close buttons work, and so do dragging, double-clicking
and snap layouts. - Ctrl+O opens a folder; File › Close Folder (also in Ctrl+K) leaves the window empty.
- Started from a shortcut, Null opens the last project; a file opened from the terminal goes
to the window that holds it. - Git, Node, Python and other tools are found in their usual Windows folders, and a missing
Git is said as such, not as "not a repository". - The welcome asks where AI answers come from on a step of its own, once AI is wanted.
- Shortcuts work on every keyboard: on digits and symbols they follow the key's place on
the keyboard (on a French AZERTY: Ctrl+ù terminal, Ctrl+: comment, Ctrl+& first tab), and
Ctrl+J shows and hides the terminal (Join Lines moves to Ctrl+Shift+J). On Linux an
AZERTY's digit row works without Shift.
Everywhere
- Several folders in one window: Add Folder to Window…, folders dropped on the files, or
null api web. Each folder is a heading in the files; ⌘P, search, symbols and git's marks
cover them all; each gets its own language servers; git follows the file you're in, with a
picker of the folders' repositories in the Git panel. The window remembers its folders. - Null is now under the GNU General Public License 3.0 (0.1.0 stays MIT or Apache 2.0).
- Quick settings: − + and ← → are buttons; the ≡ button lists every command.
- Committing a file ends the changes shown in it.
From testing on fresh Windows and Ubuntu machines
- Windows: Null starts on a fresh Windows (it needed Microsoft's Visual C++ runtime,
VCRUNTIME140.dll, which only comes with other software). - Linux: with no file dialog on the system (no desktop portal, as on a bare window manager),
Open, Open Folder and Add Folder let you type the path, listing what's in each folder. null --versionandnull --helpanswer in the terminal; on Linux without a display,
Null says so instead of waiting.- Typing
cartin Ctrl+P finds cart.rs before Cargo.toml: letters typed together come
first. - Ctrl+P puts a source file before what's built from it: test_cart.py before
pycache/test_cart.cpython-312.pyc. - Running the test at the cursor (and a file's, or all of them) uses unittest, which comes
with Python, when the project shows no sign of pytest; each test's result is read from it. - Windows and Linux: Ctrl+Shift shortcuts (Ctrl+Shift+G the changes, Ctrl+Shift+P commands)
work from the terminal too; plain Ctrl keys stay the shell's. - Ctrl+K: a theme typed by its name ("paper") is offered as itself, not the row that steps
through themes. - Go to Line leaves the keys in the code, even when a list (the Git panel's branches) had
them before. - With no folder open, the status bar doesn't show Null's own scratch folder.
- Linux: keys the desktop doesn't take for itself. The test at the cursor is
Ctrl+Shift+F10 (Ctrl+Alt+T opened a terminal), a cursor above or below Ctrl+Shift+↑/↓
(Ctrl+Alt+↑/↓ switched workspaces). - Windows and Linux: Ctrl+P and Ctrl+N in the search results and the suggestion list are
Go to File and a new file again (they moved through the list, as on the Mac). - The welcome keeps the keys while it shows: typing could reach a file reopened behind it.
- Linux: a project's window reopened at start is drawn at once (over remote desktop on
GNOME it stayed blank until a key was pressed). - Ctrl+K offers to install the file's missing language server ("Install Python Language
Server"), as the status bar does. - The Windows installer doesn't ask about an existing folder when installing again.
- After Close Folder the title and the files say no folder is open.
- AI is off until you turn it on: the welcome's AI step starts on Off (if you already use
AI, it stays on). - Linux: an API key is saved even where the system has no keyring yet (as after an xrdp
login): Null asks for one to be made. The key can also come from its environment
variable, asNVIDIA_API_KEY. - A hosted AI service that hasn't started answering after a minute is said as such (with a
hint to try another model), instead of "Writing…" forever: NVIDIA's free models can keep a
request waiting for minutes. - NVIDIA: the suggested models are ones its free tier answers today: Nemotron 3 Super, Nemotron
3.5 Lightning (also for suggestions while typing) and GLM 5.3. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash never
answered and the code models were gone; a saved one gives way to the default.
Installers
- Windows: an installer, for you alone (no administrator): the Start menu,
nullon the
PATH, "Open with Null" on folders and files, an uninstaller. The .zip stays. - Ubuntu and Debian: a .deb,
nullin /usr/bin for every terminal at once. - Linux's install.sh adds ~/.local/bin to your shell's PATH when it isn't there (zsh never
had it). - Uninstalling, everywhere: the Windows uninstaller and Linux's new uninstall.sh (kept in
~/.local/share/null) ask whether your settings, saved API keys, history and language
servers go too; on the Mac, ⌘K › Uninstall Null… quits, moves Null to the Trash and removes
thenullcommand. The guide has a section on it.