Show HN: A WYSIWYG word processor in Python

cchrisecker 3 days ago 37 commentsRead Article on codeberg.org

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Hi all,

Finding a good data structure for a word processor is a difficult problem. My notebook diaries on the problem go back 25 years when I was frustrated with using Word for my diploma thesis - it was slow and unstable at that time. I ended up getting pretty hooked on the problem.

Right now I’m taking a professional break and decided to finally use the time to push these ideas further, and build MiniWord — a WYSIWYG word processor in Python.

My goal is to have a native, non-HTML-based editor that stays simple, fast, and is hackable. So far I am focusing on getting the fundamentals right. What is working yet is:

- Real WYSIWYG editing (no HTML layer, no embedded browser) with styles, images and tables.

- Clean, simple file format (human-readable, diff-friendly, git-friendly, AI-friendly)

- Markdown support

- Support for Python-plugins

Things that I found:

- B-tree structures are perfect for holding rich text data

- A simple text-based file format is incredibly useful — you can diff documents, version them, and even process them with AI tools quite naturally

What I’d love feedback on:

- Where do you see real use cases for something like this?

- What would be missing for you to take it seriously as a tool or platform?

- What kinds of plugins or extensions would actually be worth building?

Happy about any thoughts — positive or critical. Greetings

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Discussion Sentiment

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Discussion (37 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

fractallyte•3 days ago

One feature missing from almost every mainstream word processor: REVEAL CODES! (https://kb.corel.com/en/127364)

This is a famous "killer" feature from WordPerfect: the ability to view and edit the low-level formatting for a document. It's invaluable for fixing weird bugs.

However, it works only because WP uses the "text-stream" paradigm, where a document comprises a linear stream of text with formatting codes (Bold, Font, Hard Return, etc.) embedded directly at the point at which they're applied.

In contrast, Word uses the "nested containers" model (characters inside words, words inside paragraphs, paragraphs inside sections, etc.), where this feature can't be replicated.

I didn't look closely at your code, but just thought to mention this feature.

nomdep•2 days ago

I don't see why the "nested containers" model would prevent this feature to be replicated, it's just a tree of nodes. Not edit-this-as-plain-text-simple but almost.

kabir_daki•3 days ago

The hardest part of WYSIWYG editors is always cursor positioning and selection across mixed content. How did you handle that? Also curious if you considered using a canvas-based renderer vs DOM — what made you go with your current approach?

chrisecker•2 days ago

Cursor positioning is simple. The layout is a tree of nested box. Each box knows the x,y-position of its children. There is also an index dimension which numbers possible cursor positions. A box lies from i1 to i2 in index space. You just iterate over all boxes holding cursor position i to find the cursor coordinate x,y. Selection is simple as well. It is defined by a start index s1 and end index s2. Some objects have a special selection, e.g. tables where you select a rectangular range of table cells.

chjail-11•3 days ago

I adore anything that avoids using a browser. <3

vishnuharidas•3 days ago

This took me down the nostalgic memory lane of the planet-source-code days. There were hundreds of such projects in Visual Basic, Delphi, C/C++/MFC etc., and text editors and paint clones were the most popular projects.

Georgelemental•2 days ago

> - Real WYSIWYG editing (no HTML layer, no embedded browser) with styles, images and tables. > - Clean, simple file format (human-readable, diff-friendly, git-friendly, AI-friendly)

Very nice! Unfortunately, the UI menus seem to be broken when using a dark-mode GTK theme (e.g. Adwaita Dark).

chrisecker•2 days ago

Yes, I can see what you mean: There are hand coded colors together with system colors. With the dark mode this gives white text on white background for the side panel. Thanks for mentioning.

mttpgn•3 days ago

On MacOS, I'm seeing `ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'miniword.core.utils'` whether I run `python3 -m miniword` from src/miniword/ or from src/miniword/miniword/.

chrisecker•3 days ago

My mistake. Now it works (on linux).

mttpgn•2 days ago

Thanks, and I got the main window open now, but I'm getting a second error that doesn't look OS related. `Plugin error (txtfilter.py): No module named 'miniword.importexport'`

emanuele-em•2 days ago

Tables and images are the part where every "just use a rope" answer falls apart, so going B-tree feels right. I tried building a minimal rich text editor last year and got stuck exactly at the point where tables stopped being attachable as metadata and needed to live in the structure itself, ended up shelving it. Good to see someone actually push through it.

analogpixel•3 days ago

at this point, a WYSIWYG just seems like a huge step backwards from just using markdown. I love having access to my files in a standard text format this is super easy to parse, and not being locked into whatever weird format that WYSIWYG decides to store it in.

I still don't understand why people still use ~~Microsoft Word~~Copilot document writer , I think they have gotten into some weird mindset that their documents require all this weird unnecessary formatting to look "official"

httpsterio•3 days ago

Markdown without formatting isn't usually the nicest to read imo. I actually appreciate a well laid out and formatted document myself.

Also wysiwyg doesn't mean it can't be back and forwards compatible with markdown, it might just mean that it's a markdown editor gui with a preview.

layer8•3 days ago

It’s also not nice to write longer text in monospace. Or to have long URLs interrupt the text just because you want a hyperlink on some word. Or having to lay out tables by hand like ASCII art. Seeing *this* isn’t the same as seeing this. And you need custom editor software anyway to have affordances like TOC navigation.

shakna•2 days ago

Tables by hand, I hate. But I don't quite agree with the first sentiment. For longform prose, it isn't that unusual for people to work with all editing marks visible. Writing novels, I absolutely write using monospace, because it allows you to more concisely control large amounts of formatting easily.

yummybrainz•3 days ago

> long URLs interrupt the text just because you want a hyperlink

This annoyed me until I realized pandoc supports separating [the link text] from the link location.

  [the link text]: </url/to/resource>
      "`title` parameter of the <a> tag, if converted to HTML"

loloquwowndueo•2 days ago

> at this point, a WYSIWYG just seems like a huge step backwards from just using markdown.

Not for a layperson. There’s a reason WYSIWYG word processors completely obliterated the previous “needs an explicit preview mode” generation ones.

ninalanyon•1 day ago

Most of the reason was corporate decisions. My wife was perfectly happy writing a novel in WordStar under CP/M on our Osborne. But in offices you have to use what you are given so when our company switched from WordPerfect to Microsoft Word that's what everyone had to learn to use.

sakesun•3 days ago

Yes. These days, with plain text, pasrsers, Internet, mobile devices and LLM, we really get more than what we see. Only few case where paper print out is still more useful.

netbioserror•3 days ago

My prolific Typst use, along with quickly improving side-by-side editors like Typesetter, are rapidly diminishing (in my eyes) the reasons for WYSIWYG to be. Sure, normies need it, yadda yadda. Is it worth the staggering cost? The file format and GUI complexity?

kubb•3 days ago

I thought the data structure part is solved:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_(data_structure)

chrisecker•3 days ago

Ropes are for strings. In a word processor you need text with formatting, and structures as tables, images and math.

LoganDark•3 days ago

Love to see wxPython!

pbronez•2 days ago

Check out Typst. It’s a markup language focused on print with HTML layout as a secondary target.

__d•3 days ago

This is great!

Curious about the choice of toolkit: what led you to wxPython?

chrisecker•2 days ago

When you want to develop cross platform apps which use the native widgets, there are not so many options. The two big players are qt and wx.

subdomain•3 days ago

I love seeing new word processor projects!

avryhof•3 days ago

Looks like a nice project.

Looks like you missed a file, though.

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'miniword.core.utils'

I don't see it in my local clone of your repo, nor the repo iteslf.

chrisecker•3 days ago

My apologies. I added the missing file.

avryhof•3 days ago

Thanks. I got it to run on my work laptop that runs Windows. Selections don't work, and cairo spits out a bunch of errors during the screen redraws.

I'll give it a shot on my own Ubuntu laptop.