add section NixOS Configuration Editors

[milahu]

this is an import of my nixos wiki article NixOS configuration editors

why?

im working on a config editor with webinterface
see nixos-config-webui

the main problem with all these config editors is:
we have no incremental evaluator for nix

so you cannot really build a hybrid editor
which is both pretty and powerful

thats also why we still have no proper intellisense for nix files
see also nix-community/rnix-lsp#41

we have no incremental evaluator

so currently im working on that in my nix-eval-js

[cyntheticfox]

Still a few to look at.

[milahu]

See also Command-Line Tools

this is only

• nix-editor - Modify Nix files on the command line.

[jtojnar]

I tried the tool and it looks like it allows you to:

• Create Nix flakes
• Manage flake inputs
• Create outputs of the following types:
  • Development shell
  • Home Manager config
  • Home Manager module
  • NixOS config
  • NixOS module
  • Package using nixos-generate to create an image from one of the configurations
• Search for packages from flakes in the flake registry and add them to one of the devShells, configurations or modules
• Search for NixOS options from flakes in the flake registry and add them to one of the configurations or modules
• Commit the current state to create a new version in a rudimentary version control system.
• Download the flake as a tarball

It does not appear to be possible to modify the flake externally and then upload it back to the editor so it pretty much locks you to the on-line editor if you do not want to manually sync your changes.

So I would change the description to something like “Create and manage Nix flakes (including NixOS and home-manager configurations and modules) using an on-line editor. It is not possible to edit the data externally and upload them to the app.”

[milahu]

yepp, its just a config generator, not a config editor

... because parsing arbitrary nix expressions is hard.
probably the internal storage format is not nix, but something static like json.
thats what i mean with "creating graphical nix editors is hard"

[cyntheticfox]

Kinda wonder if we should have a separate section for "NixOS Configuration Editors" now, given how few are currently maintained.

[cyntheticfox]

I'd say it looks good enough now.