#1 2026-10-06 18:50:59

greenjeans

Member

Registered: 2025-01-18

Posts: 391

Website

Solas - A tiny text-editor utility

Solas is a tiny text editor, written in C and GTK2/GTK2-ng, you can view, create, edit, and save all types of text files
including scripts and other types of text files. It is small (28k binary), and very fast. It has very little in the way of
features, no code highlighting or any of that, it's meant to be similar in many ways to the various 'pads, only smaller for
hardcore minimalists. On my old low-spec hardware I really notice a difference in speed of opening and operation. It uses
a fixed font (Monospace 10) but that size can be changed if you re-compile, I wouldn't recommend changing fonts as that
might throw off the line numbers a bit with some fonts.

Menu items are simple: under "File" you'll find New, Open, Save, Save As, and Quit. Under "Edit": Cut, Copy, Paste, Select All.
Keyboard shortcuts for those are displayed as well and functional.

Note: This is the first alpha version, can't find any bugs and it passes all the checks and no log spam. It could probably
use some small refinements, a bit of margin in the main pane, maybe a bottom bar just to have a pretty border of sorts.

Why GTK2? I'm a collaborator on the gtk2-ng project that aims to not just maintain gtk2, but to make it better and backport
some features from gtk3 plus some third-party patches and much of our own improvements, and provide a nice stable version
for years to come, and we're also doing a mountain of work on developing gtk2-ng apps and more. Still I will likely also
make a gtk3 version of Solas if there's folks who like it but would prefer gtk3.

Deb package: https://sourceforge.net/projects/vuu-do … pps/Solas/

Source: https://git.devuan.org/greenjeans/Solas

WizardofCOR

Member

From: Somewhere in the Desert

Registered: 2023-07-28

Posts: 106

Re: Solas - A tiny text-editor utility

Downloading.  So GTK2-NG is keeping it alive, eh?  Was reading up on it - so is this mainly for compatibility, then?
I've always been a big fan of small, simple and secure.  Most software is just bloat anymore, and needlessly complex which in turn presents issues.
So I love apps like this - keep up the awesome work, my friend.  Big fan here.

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Just a dude playing a dude, disguised as another dude...

greenjeans

Member

Registered: 2025-01-18

Posts: 391

Website

Re: Solas - A tiny text-editor utility

Thank you!!

Yep, lot of work to be done yet on gtk2-ng, but the goals are good I think, and in the end it will be a much improved version of gtk2, with a lot of features of gtk3 back-ported to work in it, a kind of hybrid.

The first few months of this year I was focusing on re-creating/making gtk3 versions of some legacy gtk2 apps that will face the chopping block when/if Debian ceases to provide support for gtk2. Then I got involved with the new project and had to start porting the stuff I made back to gtk2, lol, so it's been a lot of work.

Next I think on the list for porting to gtk3 will be Parcellite if I can find some time for it, it's a great little clipboard manager i've used for years and i'd hate to see it go bye-bye.

I now have a great group of folks that i'm working with who are much more skilled than I am, so have been starting to slowly work on more complex projects, PcmanFM has been the target for the last couple of weeks and i'm happy to say we have made some nice progress on that.