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Plugins

The Modular Text Editor ships with a set of first-party plugins. Each is an independent component that adds a self-contained feature, and each can be enabled or disabled without affecting the rest of the editor.

Third-party plugins and config files are not sandboxed

Plugins run as part of the editor, with the same access to your files, settings and network as the editor itself — they are not sandboxed or restricted in any way. A malicious or buggy plugin could read, change or delete your files, send your data over the network, or run other programs on your computer.

The same caution applies to configuration and data files that plugins load — such as rulesets, log profiles, themes and language-server definitions (*.json and similar). A crafted config file can change what a plugin does, or point it at an external program or server.

Only install plugins — and only apply configuration or JSON files — from sources you trust. Treat anything from an untrusted source the way you would treat running an unknown program. The first-party plugins that ship with the editor are maintained as part of this project; anything you add yourself is your own responsibility.

Managing plugins

  • Open Preferences ▸ Plugins to see every installed plugin — including ones that are disabled or built against a different API version.
  • Enabling or disabling a plugin takes effect on the next launch. The editor never loads or unloads plugin code while running.
  • If something goes wrong, you can start the editor in safe mode with plugins disabled.

Search & navigation

  • Find and Replace — find/replace with whole-word, case, and regex options.
  • Find in Files — search a folder and jump to each match.
  • Incremental Search — search as you type.
  • Mark — highlight every occurrence of a term.
  • Bookmarks — toggle line bookmarks and jump between them.
  • LSP (Language Server) — diagnostics, go-to-definition and hover via language servers (clangd, etc.).
  • Function List — filterable outline of the document's functions, classes and symbols; click to jump.

Editing

  • Snippets — Tab-expandable text snippets with fields and variables, plus file templates.
  • Spell Checking — Hunspell-powered spell checking with suggestions, a personal word list and multi-language dictionaries.
  • Convert Case — change letter case of the selection.
  • Comment — comment/uncomment lines using the language's syntax.
  • Indentation — increase/decrease indent; tabs vs spaces.
  • EOL Conversion — convert line endings (CRLF/LF/CR).
  • Lines — sort, reverse, deduplicate, move, split, join, clean up.
  • Column Editor — insert text or numbers down a column.
  • URL Highlighter — highlight URLs and open them.

Files & workspace

  • Workspace — open a folder and manage its files in a panel.
  • Session — restore open files, layout, and unsaved changes.
  • Encoding — display and convert character encoding.
  • File Association — register OctoEdit as the handler for chosen file types.

Preview

  • Markdown Preview — live, theme-aware Markdown preview (dependency-free).
  • HTML Preview — full-fidelity HTML preview (CSS/JS), with PHP support.

Appearance

Tools

  • Folder Compare — compare two folders recursively; drill into changed files.
  • Document Statistics — live counts and reading time.
  • Log Analyzer — parse, filter and merge log files; follow a request across sources; query Windows Event Log.
  • Crash Report — review and send a report after a crash.

Writing your own

Want to build a plugin? See the Develop section and Writing a plugin.