MinimalEditor

MinimalEditor is a native macOS plain-text editor built in Swift.

It is intentionally narrow in scope: one window, plain text only, .txt only, and persistent custom colors for the editor background and text.

The main use case is a permanently dark writing surface, for example black background with light text.

Features

• Open existing .txt files
• Create new plain-text documents
• Save and Save As with enforced .txt extension
• Persistent global theme for background and text color
• Rich-text paste stripped down to plain text
• Unsaved changes warning before destructive actions

Download

Prebuilt signed binaries are available from the Releases page.

Homebrew

brew tap driade/minimal-editor https://github.com/driade/minimal-editor
brew install --cask driade/minimal-editor/minimaleditor

This tap installs the notarized app published in GitHub Releases.

Build

Requirements:

• macOS
• Xcode
• XcodeGen

git clone https://github.com/driade/minimal-editor.git
cd minimal-editor
xcodegen generate
./scripts/build_universal.sh

The app will be generated at:

build-universal/output/MinimalEditor.app

That command builds a universal macOS app with Apple Silicon and Intel slices.

If SIGNING_IDENTITY is set, the script signs the final universal app bundle. If not, it performs ad-hoc signing so the app remains runnable locally.

Tests

xcodebuild -project MinimalEditor.xcodeproj -scheme MinimalEditor -destination 'platform=macOS,arch=arm64' test

The current test suite covers .txt URL enforcement and persisted theme color behavior.

GitHub Releases

The repository is prepared for GitHub Actions release builds:

• pull requests and branch pushes build the app and upload a ZIP artifact
• version tags like v0.1.0 build, sign, notarize, and publish a release asset

Required GitHub secrets for signed and notarized tag releases:

• BUILD_CERTIFICATE_BASE64
• P12_PASSWORD
• KEYCHAIN_PASSWORD
• APPLE_ID
• APPLE_APP_SPECIFIC_PASSWORD
• APPLE_TEAM_ID

For local notarization, use:

./scripts/notarize_local.sh build-universal/output/MinimalEditor.app MinimalEditorNotary

Signing

The release pipeline is configured so:

• Xcode builds are generated without relying on target-level signing
• scripts/build_universal.sh signs the final universal app bundle when SIGNING_IDENTITY is set
• tag builds in GitHub Actions import the Developer ID certificate, sign the final app, notarize it, and publish the ZIP asset
• hardened runtime is applied on the final signed release build

Project Layout

• MinimalEditor/: app source
• MinimalEditorTests/: unit tests
• project.yml: XcodeGen project definition
• scripts/build_universal.sh: universal release build helper

License

MIT