dde

dde, the editor for dd projects. Open a folder that dd builds, edit it, and build, test, run and launch it from the keyboard, with the output streaming into a pane beside the code and every error one key away.

Written in C++ on libdesktop's four core, platform, render and ui libraries. Its ui::app hosts one native frame and an element tree containing the drawn menu, split panes and document/list controls; nothing third-party is required. It starts instantly and typically uses a few megabytes of memory.

dde with its own repository open: a source file in the editor and dd build debug in the Output pane.

Features

• dd built in — Build (F7), Test (Ctrl+Shift+T), Run (Ctrl+F5) and Launch (Ctrl+Shift+F5) from the dd menu, with the configuration, the test label, every target and the project's own dd.psd1 commands a click away. dd.psd1 is read as data; nothing runs because a folder was opened
• Output pane — the running command's output, live (Ctrl+Shift+U); double-click an error, or press F8 / Shift+F8, to go to its file, line and column
• Folder browser — navigate a root folder; create, rename and delete files inline
• Multi-file search — live search across the folder, grouped by file with highlighted matches (Ctrl+Shift+F)
• Four document views — text, Markdown, CSV table and hex, chosen automatically and remembered per file
• Syntax highlighting — C++, Rust, Python, PowerShell and Markdown
• C/C++ navigation — go to definition (F12), switch header/source (Ctrl+F12), and navigation history (Alt+Left / Alt+Right), using a lightweight lexical index rather than a compiler
• Editing — unlimited undo, word wrap, indent/unindent, spell check
• Utilities — JSON reformat (Ctrl+R), sort and de-duplicate lines, evaluate a selected expression (Ctrl+E)
• Session memory — restores the recent root folders and the last document open in each

Open documents are never closed behind your back: unsaved files stay in memory with their full undo history and are shown in red. You are prompted to save only when changing folder, exiting, or running a dd command.

dd itself needs PowerShell 7.4 (pwsh) on PATH; without it, or without a dd.ps1 in the folder, the dd menu says so and stays disabled.

Building

Requires Windows x64 and Visual Studio with the Desktop C++ workload. The vendored dd 0.2.5 runtime locates Visual Studio and uses the CMake and Ninja that ship with it.

.\dd.ps1 build        # both configurations
.\dd.ps1 test --label unit
.\dd.ps1 launch       # build, then start a persistent app

Output is exe\dde-64.exe, or dde-64d.exe for Debug. Neither run nor launch closes an already-running copy, so close the app before rebuilding its executable — or build the other configuration from inside it.

FetchContent brings in libdesktop. A sibling ../libdesktop checkout is used automatically when present; a clean clone otherwise fetches the GIT_TAG pinned in CMakeLists.txt.

Documentation

• docs/design.md — architecture, views, keyboard reference and configuration
• docs/cpp.md — the lexical C/C++ index behind go-to-definition
• AGENTS.md — conventions for contributors

License

MIT. The executable links libdesktop (LGPL-2.1-or-later) statically, so a distributed binary must let its users relink it against a modified libdesktop (LGPL-2.1 section 6). Before distributing a binary, include libdesktop's notices, licence and corresponding source, including changes, plus the application source and build instructions or relinkable object files. Record the exact revisions, compiler and configuration, and verify a build with a modified libdesktop. Permit modification for the recipient's own use and reverse engineering to debug those modifications. A link to the latest source alone is not a relinking package.