A modern terminal-based file viewer with live sharing capabilities
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Syntax Highlighting Powered by syntect, Catport makes your code easier to read and navigate.
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Real-time Live Share Instantly share files via WebSockets using axum. Perfect for walkthroughs, code reviews, or lightweight pair programming.
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File Change Tracking With notify, Catport streams file changes live to connected viewers.
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Terminal-first Experience Simple, intuitive, and fast—just like
cat, but supercharged.
cat– View text files.bat– Adds syntax highlighting and paging.catport– Adds real-time collaborative viewing over the internet.
# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/catport.git
cd catport
# Build with Cargo
cargo build --release
# Run it
./target/release/catport <command> <file>Catport provides three main commands:
View a file locally with syntax highlighting.
catport view src/main.rsShare a file over WebSocket for others to view in real time.
catport share src/lib.rsThis will print a shareable link that others can use to connect.
Connect to a shared file session and track updates live.
catport connect http://localhost:3000/share/<id>- Rust – safe, fast, and concurrent
- Axum – for WebSocket-powered sharing
- Syntect – syntax highlighting
- Notify – file watching
- [✅] Finishing Implementation for Viewing and Syntax Highlighting
- [✅] Finishing Implementations for Sharing
- Finishing Implementation for Connecting via Terminal
- Global Installation Implementation (PATH)
- Two-way collaborative editing
- Role-based permissions for viewers
- Editor/IDE plugins
I'm building Catport as an open-source community project. Contributions are welcome!
- Fork the repo
- Create a feature branch
- Commit your changes
- Push and open a Pull Request
Check out the Issues page for things to work on.
Catport – from viewing, to highlighting, to sharing.