Fresh

What's New in Fresh (0.2.9) ​

February 25, 2026

A roundup of features and fixes since the 0.2 release — over 90 bug fixes, 8 GitHub issues resolved, and a handful of new capabilities.

Code Folding ​

Fold and unfold code blocks using LSP foldingRange. Click the gutter indicator to collapse a range; click again to expand. Keyboard navigation (Up/Down) skips over folded regions. Each split view maintains its own fold state.

Code Folding demo

Markdown Editing ​

Smart editing when writing Markdown: Enter continues list items (bullets, ordered lists, checkboxes), Enter on an empty marker removes it, and Tab indents list items while cycling the bullet style. Single-quote auto-close is disabled in Markdown files so apostrophes don't interfere. (This is implemented as a built-in plugin, markdown_source, enabled by default.)

Compose Mode (experimental) ​

On top of source editing, an experimental compose mode conceals syntax markers (**, *, []()), applies soft line breaks at a configurable width, and renders tables. Open the same file in a vertical split to see source and composed views side by side.

Markdown Compose Mode demo

Precise Go to Line in Large Files ​

Fresh adds support for precise line numbers in very large files. The new default when opening a large file shows exact byte offsets in the gutter, instead of approximate line numbers. Using "Go to Line" (Ctrl+G) offers to scan the file — only the line index is kept in memory, not the file contents. Over SSH, the scan runs server-side and only the index is transferred. Open remote files with fresh user@host:/path/to/file — see Remote Editing (SSH) for details.

Large File Line Scanning demo

Vertical Rulers ​

Add column rulers at any position via the "Add Ruler" command. Useful for enforcing line length limits. Rulers are per-buffer and can be added or removed from the command palette.

Vertical Rulers demo

Smart Editing ​

Smart Home toggles between first non-whitespace character and column 0. Smart Backspace in leading whitespace removes one indent level instead of a single character. Auto-indent fixes: Go files dedent with tabs, tab_size is respected, Python nested indentation after consecutive : lines works correctly.

Smart Editing demo

Auto-Save ​

New auto_save_enabled config option. When turned on, modified buffers are saved to disk at a configurable interval (default 30 seconds). The existing crash-recovery auto-save (every 2 seconds to a recovery directory) continues to work independently.

Auto-Save demo

Also New ​

Performance ​

  • Replaced linear span lookups in syntax highlighting with an O(1) amortized cursor.
  • Path-copying PieceTree mutations with structural diff via Arc::ptr_eq — diff cost is proportional to edit regions, not total leaves.
  • Eliminated JSON round-trip and JS re-parsing in plugin hook dispatch.
  • Viewport-aware gutter indicator batching for large files (~780K IPC commands reduced to ~50 per edit).

LSP & Diagnostics ​

  • Diagnostics panel: Up/Down scrolls the editor to preview each diagnostic's location; Enter jumps and focuses.
  • Fresh now advertises all supported LSP client capabilities, enabling diagnostics from strict servers like pyright.
  • Fixed state corruption when toggling LSP off/on — didClose is now sent so re-enable gets a fresh didOpen.
  • LSP status bar indicator no longer disappears after each request.

Plugin API v2 ​

  • Versioned plugin API with editor.apiVersion().
  • New createTerminal, sendTerminalInput, closeTerminal for terminal control from plugins.
  • Split labels to prevent files opening in managed splits; labels persist across sessions.
  • Plugin state API for reading editor state from hooks.

Quality of Life ​

  • Horizontal scrollbar with drag support and toggle commands.
  • Split-view scroll sync — same-buffer splits can scroll together (toggle via command palette).
  • Glob patterns in language config — filenames field supports *.conf, *rc, /etc/**/rc.* for extensionless file detection.
  • Configurable clipboard — use_osc52 and use_system_clipboard toggles to prevent hangs in certain terminals.
  • File explorer — show_hidden / show_gitignored toggles now persist to config and are applied on startup.
  • Smooth scrolling — cursor movement scrolls one line at a time instead of recentering the viewport.
  • Macro shortcut — F4 plays last recorded macro.

Released under the Apache 2.0 License