Nix Workspace Manager (Racket Edition)

The Nix Workspace Manager is a GUI tool built in Racket designed to interactively create, manage, and generate Nix configuration files. It provides a modern, user-friendly interface to manage Nix expressions, simplifying the process for both beginners and experts.

Project Goals

1. GUI-Driven Management: Manage Nix configuration files (default.nix, flake.nix, etc.) primarily through a Graphical User Interface.
2. Beginner Accessibility: Abstract away complex syntax and provide a guided editing environment.
3. Advanced Search: Built-in search feature for nixpkgs packages and NixOS options.
4. Interactive "Structured" Editing: An edit view that allows manual editing while keeping the graphical AST structure perfectly in sync.

The Nix Editor GUI

The Nix Editor provides a comprehensive environment for managing Nix expressions:

• Action Toolbar: A streamlined command center for global actions:
  • Undo: Quickly revert the last change.
  • Path Display: Shows the currently selected node's path.
  • Search Toggle: Show or hide the advanced search panel.
• Structure Tree (Left Pane): A text-based interactive tree view with a powerful context menu.
  • Context Menu (Right-Click): Access structural manipulations directly on nodes:
    • Add Child: Add new Sets, Lists, or Scalar values.
    • Update: Rename keys or modify values.
    • Wrap/Unwrap Scope: Manage let ... in blocks.
    • Wrap Lambda: Wrap expressions in functions.
    • Comment & Delete: Metadata management and node removal.
  • Visualizes the hierarchy and supports folding/unfolding.
  • Synchronizes instantly with the code editors.* Whole Source View (Right Top): A full-featured dark-mode code editor.
  • Displays the complete compiled Nix file.
  • Supports manual editing with automatic background parsing and tree updates.
  • Real-time synchronization: clicking or moving the cursor in the code automatically selects the corresponding node in the tree.
• Node Source View (Right Bottom): A focused, read-only preview of the Nix code for the currently selected tree node.

Prerequisites

• Racket: Ensure it is installed and available in your PATH.
• Nix (Optional): For a reproducible development environment and package management.

Development Environment (Nix)

To enable arrow key navigation and history for the CLI component, this project utilizes the readline library (specifically libedit). We provide a Nix environment that sets this up automatically.

Using Nix Flakes (Recommended):

nix develop

Using Legacy Nix:

nix-shell

Getting Started

Running the GUI

The main way to use the application is through the GUI:

racket gui.rkt

Running the CLI

For a terminal-based structured editing experience:

racket interpreter.rkt

Architecture

• gui.rkt: Main window initialization and layout management.
• manager.rkt: Core state engine and AST traversal.
• compiler.rkt: Nix code generation with source-mapping support.
• parser.rkt: Recursive-descent parser for real-time manual edit support.
• actions.rkt: Toolbar handlers and UI synchronization logic.
• theme.rkt: Centralized styling and dark mode configuration.
• interpreter.rkt: Legacy CLI entry point; implements the REPL and parses user commands.

CLI Usage

If using the interpreter.rkt CLI, the following commands are available:

Navigation

• ls: List children.
• cat: Print Nix source of current node.
• cd <path>: Navigate into a key/index.
• back / ..: Go up.
• top / /: Go to root.

Editing

• mkset <key>: Create a Set.
• mklist <key>: Create a List.
• mklet [key]: Create let ... in.
• set <key> <value>: Set value (e.g., set foo "bar").
• push <value>: Append to list.
• rm <key>: Delete key/index.
• comment <text>: Add comment.

File Management

• edit <filename>: Open/create buffer.
• save: Save buffer.
• ls files: List buffers.