🤖 Note: This README was written by Claude AI, because the dev (me) was too lazy to write one myself. The code, however, is 100% hand-written — except for the giant list of C keywords/types/functions used for syntax highlighting, which Claude also helped generate because who's memorizing stdc_leading_zeros for fun.

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What is this?

CLIDE is a lightweight library based C editor with syntax highlighting, line numbers, auto-indent, and a one-key "compile and run" workflow using gcc. No bloat, no plugins, no 400 MB Electron shell — just a tkinter window that gets out of your way.

Built mostly as a personal project / learning exercise, not (yet) a serious rival to VS Code.

Changelog

• Proper syntax highlighting.
• Now only C files are allowed to be edited

Features

• 🎨 Syntax highlighting for C — keywords, types, functions, strings, char literals, comments (single-line and block), numbers, and preprocessor directives
• 🔢 Line numbers that track scrolling and zoom
• 🔍 Zoom in/out with Ctrl + Mouse Wheel
• ⏎ Auto-indent — adds/removes indentation automatically after {, }, and :
• ▶️ Run with F5 — compiles your file with gcc and runs it in a new console window
• 💾 Open / Save / Save As from the File menu or Ctrl+O / Ctrl+S
• 📋 Paste-aware highlighting — pasted multi-line code gets highlighted properly, not just the current line
• 🎨 Style Configurator — change background, foreground colour and also fonts
• 🖱️ Undo/redo support (unlimited undo history)

Requirements

• Python 3.x with tkinter (usually bundled with Python on Windows)
• gcc installed and available on your system PATH (for the Run feature)
• Windows — the "Run" feature and maximized window launch currently rely on Windows-specific behavior (see Limitations below)

Getting Started

Install the latest version:

pip install clide-editor

Or install this specific version:

pip install clide-editor==0.1.1

Run CLIDE:

python -m clide

Open a .c file with Ctrl+O, write some code, hit F5 to compile and run it.

Version

v0.1.1 — early days, starting to get on the track. Things work, but expect rough edges.

Limitations

• Windows-only for now. The maximized-window launch and the F5 run command (cmd /k gcc ...) both assume Windows. Running this on Linux/macOS will likely misbehave or crash on the run step.
• Single-line-focused highlighting. Typing re-highlights the line you're on; large structural edits elsewhere in the file (outside of paste) aren't automatically re-scanned.
• No project/workspace support — it's a single-file editor, not a full IDE. No multi-file tabs yet.
• No build configuration — compilation is a hardcoded gcc file.c -o file.exe, no custom flags, no Makefile support.
• No autocomplete, linting, or error highlighting — you find out about bugs when gcc yells at you.
• No find & replace yet.

To Be Featured (Roadmap)

• Cross-platform support (Linux/macOS build + run)
• Find & Replace
• Multiple tabs / multi-file projects
• Custom compiler flags / build settings
• Bracket matching + auto-close brackets
• Inline error markers from gcc output
• Proper packaging (so you don't need Python installed to run it)

Contributing

This is a small personal project, but if you spot a bug or have an idea, feel free to open an issue or PR.

License

See LICENSE for details.