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Tau

GTK frontend for the xi text editor, written in Rust

Install / Use

/learn @Cogitri/Tau
About this skill

Quality Score

0/100

Supported Platforms

Universal

README

<a href="https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/tau"> <img src="./data/icons//hicolor/scalable/apps/org.gnome.Tau.svg" alt="Tau logo" title="Tau" align="right" height="100" /> </a>

Tau

Gitlab CI status CII Best Practices <a href="https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.gnome.Tau"> <img src="https://flathub.org/assets/badges/flathub-badge-i-en.png" width="85px" /> </a> <a href="https://repology.org/metapackage/tau-editor"> <img src="https://repology.org/badge/vertical-allrepos/tau-editor.svg" alt="Tau Packaging Status" align="right"> </a>

GTK frontend, written in Rust, for the xi editor. Previously called gxi, development now continues under the name "Tau".

screenshot

Installation

Ubuntu >= 19.10, Debian >= Unstable, Fedora >= 31 and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

See https://software.opensuse.org/package/tau for binary packages of Tau. See https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/home:Cogitri/Tau for the source files of the packages.

Arch Linux

You can install binary releases of tau by adding this to your /etc/pacman.conf:

[home_Cogitri_Arch_Community_standard]
SigLevel = Never
Server = https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Cogitri/Arch_Community_standard/$arch

Afterwards run pacman -Syu tau-editor. Alternatively you can install Tau as tau-editor-git from the AUR as per standard procedure.

Void Linux

xbps-install -Syu tau

Alpine Linux

apk add tau

Flatpak

See the instructions on https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.gnome.Tau

Contributing

Clone the repo and its submodules:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/tau

You need the following dependencies installed:

* Cairo >= 1.16
* GDK-Pixbuf-2.0
* GLib-2.0 >= 2.36
* GTK+3 >= 3.20
* Pango >= 1.38
* Rust >= 1.36 # required for one of our deps

On Ubuntu (>=19.10) you can install them with:

sudo apt install meson ninja-build libglib2.0-dev librust-cairo-sys-rs-dev librust-pangocairo-sys-dev librust-gtk+v3-24-dev libhandy-0.0-dev appstream-util libvte-2.91-dev gettext

You can enable optional functionality with the libhandy meson switch, like a more compact settings menu. You need the following dependencies installed for that:

* libhandy >= 0.10
* GTK+3 >= 3.24.1

Now installing Tau should be as easy as doing:

meson --prefix=/usr/local -Dprofile=development build
ninja -C build
sudo ninja -C build install

During development you can quickly test Tau with the following command:

ninja -C build run

You can run tests with:

ninja -C build test

But be mindful that those currently require the source-code-pro font to be installed.

Docs

Please see the documentation in Tau's source files for further information as to how Tau works. gtk-rs' site offers documentation and examples about how gtk-rs works.

Translating

Visit GNOME's Damned Lies Platform to translate Tau.

Installation on Windows

The following should give you a usable Tau binary:

  1. Install Rust by visiting https://rustup.rs. After running the exe press 2 (right after you see the terminal of rustup-init.exe) to customize the settings and enter x86_64-pc-windows-gnu as default triplet (notice the gnu instead of msvc)
  2. Go to https://www.msys2.org/ and download the appropriate installer (usually x86_64)
  3. Go into your start menu and open the MSYS terminal
  4. Enter pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain mingw-w64-x86_64-gtk3 git in the terminal
  5. Open the MinGW64 terminal from your start menu. Do echo 'PATH="/c/Users/${USER}/.cargo/bin:${PATH}"' >> .bash_profile
  6. Reload the just made changes with source .bash_profile. Then clone Tau: git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/tau.
  7. cd tau && cargo run <- This should produce a debug build for you and run it.

Related Skills

View on GitHub
GitHub Stars124
CategoryDevelopment
Updated25d ago
Forks9

Languages

Rust

Security Score

100/100

Audited on Mar 1, 2026

No findings