Tree-sitter, a language server client, git signs, multiple cursors and a file tree are built in, not plugins you assemble — and it edits more than text: your game's data as a form, tile sheets, curves and colours as pictures over the code they live in.
Twenty grammars compiled in. Highlighting is only the start: S selects by structure, ]] walks the parse tree, :symbols lists what is declared, and a closing brace tells you what it closes.
Diagnostics on the text, completion as you type, hover, go to definition, references in a pane, code actions and formatting. rust-analyzer, gopls, clangd, pyright and friends are already configured.
Vim has none, so the keys are bi’s own. Every command runs at every cursor — motions, operators, . — and the whole edit is one undo step.
s, a few characters, a letter: you are there. The labels sit between the characters instead of over them, so nothing you aim at is hidden.
Every yank, delete and change lands in a 4096-deep ring. The decision moves to paste time, where "p opens a picker with a preview.
:find searches the project into a pane you can prune. :replace shows every rewrite before any happens, and applies into buffers, never straight to disk.
A file tree that is a pane, a fuzzy file picker, a buffer switcher, and ga to hop between lstring.c and lstring.h — or a test and its implementation.
:sort, :align, :case, base64, JSON and uuids as : commands on a selection or range. :! runs a job into a buffer while you keep editing; a range makes it a filter.
One TOML file laid over compiled-in defaults, so new defaults keep arriving. :reload without restarting, sixteen themes, and .bi.toml per project.
A .bischema gives your data types; a .bidata opens as a form — sliders, checks, enums, refs — edited with the keys you already use. :bi rename rewrites every data file of the schema.
Open a png and it draws. :tool tileset moves tiles, :tool image crops, blurs and converts, :zoom scales, and a normal map generator puts its result beside the height map.
bi gen struct writes a schema and its instances as C, C++, Go, Rust, C3 or Lua — types, defaults, ids and a find(id) — steered by a .bimapping.
Press s and the screen dims. Type a couple of letters of where you are looking; every match grows a label. One more key and you are there — no Enter, no n n n.
Ctrl-N adds a cursor at the next occurrence, Ctrl-X skips one you do not want. Then edit normally: it happens everywhere, and one u takes it all back.
Every yank and delete lands in a ring. "p opens it with a preview, so the line you deleted five edits ago is a search away, not five undos.
A .bidata file opens as one row per field — sliders, checks, enums, refs — laid out the way its schema says. It is still the file: :w, u and the modified marker are the buffer’s.
:set editor curve draws the point list under your cursor as a curve, with a form at the edge. Moving a point rewrites the numbers in the file — the picture is a view of the code, not a copy.
rust-analyzer starts when the file opens. Type . and the menu is there; type ( and the signature floats above, the parameter you are on underlined. Diagnostics, gd, gr and K come with it.
Everything below is a plugin you would choose, install, configure and keep compatible in Neovim. In bi it ships in the binary and is on by default.
Good defaults stayed — counts, operators, text objects, ., :s, :g. A few keys were spent better.
s Scl and cc, spelled shorters jumps to a match on screen; S selects a tree-sitter scoperegisters"pga gAgf gb:sp :vsTabCtrl-Ih j k lleft, down, up, right — j k keep a goal columnw b e genext / previous word start, next / previous word endW B E gEthe same over WORDs — foo.bar is onef F t Tonto / just before a character, within the line; ,repeat the last find, or reverse it0 ^ g_ $column zero, first non-blank, last non-blank, end of line%the bracket matching the one at or after the cursor{ }previous / next blank linegg Gfirst line, last line — or line {n}Ctrl-D Ctrl-Uhalf a window down / up, cursor alongCtrl-E Ctrl-Ythe window one line down / upCtrl-O Ctrl-Iback / forward through the jump list, across files'' ``toggle to the position before the latest jumps{chars}{label}every match on screen gets a letter; press it to go thereS{label}a letter at both ends of every scope around the cursor; press one to select it]] [[next / previous tree-sitter boundary — blocks and arguments:tsshow every boundary until :ts againCtrl-W fa letter in the middle of every windowd c ydelete, change, yank over a motion — dd cc yy for lines> < =indent, outdent, reindent by bracketsgc gcccomment / uncomment, language-awaregq gqqreflow to textwidth, comment leaders keptD C Yd$, c$, yyx Xdelete the character under / before the cursorr{c} ~ Joverwrite, flip case, join linesi a I A o Oenter insert mode before, after, at line start, end, below, aboveRreplace mode — Backspace restores what was overwrittenShift-↓ Shift-↑move the line or selected block one row.repeat the last change — at every cursoru Ctrl-Rundo, redo — one command is one stepiw aw iW aWword, WORDi" i' i`inside quotes; a" takes them tooi( i[ i{ i<inside brackets; b B alias ( {ip apparagraphys{motion}{c}wrap what the motion covers — ysiw"yss{c}wrap the whole lineds{c}delete the nearest paircs{old}{new}change one pair into anotherS{c}in visual mode: wrap the selectionCtrl-Na cursor at the next occurrence of the word — or of the selection, in visualCtrl-Xskip: move the newest cursor on to the next occurrenceCtrl-Alt-↓ Ctrl-Alt-↑a cursor on the line below / aboveEscback to one cursorv V Ctrl-Vcharwise, linewise, blockwiseo Oswap the ends; in a block, swap the columnsI A $block: insert at the left / right edge of every row, ragged right edgep Preplace the selection; p rings what it displaced, P does not:prefills 'v — the selection itself, whatever its shapep Ppaste the newest capture after / before"p "Ppick from everything captured, then paste"nnamed space: "nyy then :yname x; "np picks among names"_black hole — delete without capturing"+y "+psystem clipboard over OSC 52, so it works over SSH/ ? n Nsearch, smartcase, with a [3/17] counter in the footer* #whole word under the cursor:hls :nohhighlight every match / stop:s/a/b/gsubstitute — & repeats it with its flags, g& over the file:g/pat/cmd :vrun d, s, m, case, normal… on matching / other lines:find :find~search the project into a results pane; ~ for regex:replace /a/b/preview every rewrite; a applies one, A allgd gidefinition, implementationsgrreferences in a pane — :replace //new/ over it renamesKwhat the server knows, floated]d [dnext / previous diagnostic<leader><leader>code actions:peek :decldefinition in a split, declaration:format :diags :lspformat the file, every diagnostic, server statusCtrl-N Ctrl-P Tabinsert mode: walk and accept completion-into the file treeCtrl-W ethe tree beside this file, or away againgf gbfile picker, buffer switcherga gAthe alternate file, or it in a vertical splitCtrl-^the alternate bufferCtrl-W s vsplit below / rightCtrl-W h j k lfocus a neighbourCtrl-W + - < > =resize, equalise — :resize 1:2 for ratios:zenhide gutter, numbers and status rows:w :q :wa :qa :bdwrite, close window, all, quit, delete bufferl h Enteropen, close, toggles Ctrl-Vopen in a vertical split- +re-root at the parent / herea r ddcreate, rename, deletec x pmark to copy, to move, put hereyyank the pathgh Rdotfiles, re-readgf /find any path, or the rows on screenbiAn empty buffer.bi <file>Open a file. Encoding, BOM and line endings are detected and kept.bi .A directory opens the file tree, rooted there for the whole session.bi -- <path>Open a file even when it is spelled like a command — `bi ./gen` does the same.bi --help -h helpThe list of commands; `bi help <command>` or a bare command word lists that one's subcommands.bi --version -VThe version.bi config initWrite ~/.config/bi/config.toml with every default commented out. Never overwrites.bi config editOpen the config directory as a tree, writing the file first when it is not there.bi gen sample [schema|data|mapping]Write the sample .bischema, .bidata and .bimapping beside you.bi gen struct --lang <lang> -o <dir> -i <file>A schema and its data as C, C++, Go, Rust, C3 or Lua — types, defaults, ids and find(id).BI_CONFIG=<dir>Use another config directory instead of $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bi or ~/.config/bi.# from https://github.com/qbart/bi/releases/latest $ tar xzf bi-*.tar.gz $ sudo mv bi-*/bi /usr/local/bin/bi
# needs Rust and a C compiler (grammars are C) $ git clone https://github.com/qbart/bi $ cd bi && cargo build --release
# let Gatekeeper run the downloaded binary $ xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /usr/local/bin/bi
$ bi config init # defaults, commented out $ bi config edit # opens the directory