PowerShell Mode for Zed

20 Sep 2014 – Programming and Applications

There’s a new crop of programmer’s text editors out there written with JavaScript and Web browser technology, and they’ve been getting a lot of buzz. I’ve been playing around a bit with several of them, and I’m intrigued by Zed. Zed steps a bit outside the traditional box and tries to bring a simplified approach to code editing with minimalist UI and reduced command complexity. It also features an excellent remote editing mode, and it feels like it takes cross-platform compatibility more to heart than some of the other options.

I’ve recently been doing some PowerShell scripting at work. You don’t really need a full-fledged IDE for PowerShell, so I decided to see if I could set up Zed for script editing. There’s no PowerShell mode included and I couldn’t find any existing extensions, but Zed is based on the Ace editor component and it turns out that Ace already has PowerShell support. With just a few lines of JSON configuration, I was able to create a Zed PowerShell mode for .ps1 script files. Thanks to the hidden functionality already provided by Zed and Ace, you get not just syntax highlighting but also code folding and autocompletion.

Installing the PowerShell mode is extremely simple using the Zed Package Manager. Just run the Tools:Zpm:Install command and enter gh:kpitt/zed-powershell-mode for the URI. You can access the source on GitHub if you would like to comment or contribute.