A code IDE that's actually snappy.
IdeUltra is a native macOS code editor that opens in under 150 ms and paints every keystroke in under 16 ms. Pure Rust on top of egui — no Electron, no webview, no language server doing first-run indexing on a 50,000-file repo. Open a folder, edit, save. That's the whole loop.
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MPJHorner/IdeUltra/main/scripts/install.sh | bash
An editor with no patience for warm-up.
Most editors spend their first second on language servers, indexing, telemetry beacons. IdeUltra is the editor you reach for when starting a heavy one feels like too much friction. It's not a replacement for your full-fat IDE — it's the tool you actually use for the next ten minutes.
Cold-start < 150 ms
From open to a focused editor in less time than your terminal prompt blinks. Keystroke-to-paint stays under 16 ms even on a 10,000-line file.
Lazy file tree
The sidebar opens a 50k-file workspace instantly because it only reads the directory you're looking at. .gitignore aware out of the box.
Syntect highlighting
~100 languages via Sublime-grade syntect rules. Two bundled themes that match the egui dark/light visuals.
Fuzzy file + project search
⌘P filters every file in the workspace. ⇧⌘F searches across them. ⌘D selects the next occurrence of the word under the caret.
Split editor
⌘\ opens a second pane with its own active tab. Click in either pane to focus it; click again to collapse.
Crash recovery
Every dirty buffer snapshots to disk every second. Force-quit IdeUltra and the next launch offers to restore your unsaved work.
Keymap presets
Welcome screen lets you pick IdeUltra Default, VS Code, or PhpStorm. Switch any time from the menu — the command palette updates its hints live.
Markdown preview
⌥⌘M opens a live side-pane on .md tabs. Headings, code blocks, lists, blockquotes, clickable links — all rendered as you type.
Git status decorations
Sidebar files get a coloured M/A/?/D badge in any git repo. Refreshes on save and on focus regain.
Install. Open a folder. Edit.
Drop IdeUltra.app in /Applications, open it. The welcome modal asks for your keymap once. Press ⇧⌘O to open a folder and you're working.
Install
Mount the universal .dmg, drag IdeUltra.app to /Applications. First launch is Gatekeeper-prompted because the binary isn't notarised yet.
$ open IdeUltra-0.13.0.dmg
# drag → /Applications
$ xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/IdeUltra.app
Pick a keymap
First launch shows a welcome modal with three presets. The palette and menu shortcuts update live — try them from the very first frame.
# Default ⌘P Go to file # VS Code ⌘P Go to file # PhpStorm ⇧⌘O Go to file
Edit
Click a file in the sidebar (or ⌘P). Type. ⌘S writes. Window title + tab show a dot while dirty. External edits propagate live; dirty buffers show a "View diff" banner.
● src/app.rs /Users/you/proj · Ln 142, Col 12 · Rust
Use cases.
Quick edits without booting your full IDE
Tweak a config, fix a typo in a README, comment out a line in nginx.conf. IdeUltra opens before VS Code's splash screen finishes drawing.
Reviewing a downloaded repo
Just cloned a repo to read one function? Open it, hit ⌘P, jump to the file. No language-server indexing, no extensions modal.
Pairing with coding agents
The watcher catches agent-driven edits. Clean buffers reload silently; dirty buffers show a "View diff" banner so you never lose in-progress work to an agent's overwrite.
SSH'd or battery-conscious laptops
A 7.6 MB native binary that idles at near-zero CPU. No web stack, no GPU shaders running unprompted, no fans spinning up because of an Electron renderer.
Plain-text tasks
Markdown, notes, drafts, dotfiles. ⌥⌘M for live preview, word count in the status bar, sane defaults for prose.
Project-wide find & replace
⇧⌘F searches every file in the workspace. Toggle Replace and it'll rewrite them all after a confirm step. Open tabs update in place.
Install in 30 seconds.
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MPJHorner/IdeUltra/main/scripts/install.sh | bashOne line. The script fetches the latest universal .dmg from GitHub, copies IdeUltra.app to /Applications, and clears the Gatekeeper quarantine flag. macOS 11+, Apple Silicon or Intel. Want to do it by hand? Grab the latest release and drop the app in /Applications — full install guide has all the alternatives.
Read the full reference.
Every shortcut, every preference, every command. Mobile-friendly, kept in sync with the code that ships.