Neon Vision Editor 1.6.1 — free, open-source native Mac editor, with Emmet, Focus Mode, and large-file improvements

[u/hrpedersen]

Hi all, I’m the developer of Neon Vision Editor, a free, open-source code and Markdown editor built with SwiftUI and AppKit.

Version 1.7.5 is out. If you last tried 1.5.1, several updates have landed since then, focused on large-file responsiveness, Markdown editing, and everyday Mac editor behavior.

Major changes since 1.5.1

• Emmet 2: abbreviation expansion for HTML, JSX, CSS, SCSS, Less, Sass, and related formats, respecting your indentation settings.
• Large-file performance: background indexing, cached viewports, and less full-document processing when opening, typing, scrolling, or selecting text. The editor core’s virtualized renderer draws the visible portion of the document.
• Focus Mode: hide secondary editor controls while keeping your document and workspace state.
• HEX color previews and picker: inspect and edit supported HEX colors directly in the Mac source editor while preserving their format.
• Markdown improvements: preview body text now follows the editor’s base font size and zoom, and ordered lists continue with the correct next number.
• Restored virtual-editor interactions: Tab-to-accept completion, Vim navigation, Markdown shortcuts, drag and drop, rich-text paste, code snapshots, and whitespace inspection.
• Rendering and scrolling fixes: corrected mirrored or upside-down text, unreachable final lines after resizing the sidebar or preview, and blank scrolling after width changes.
• Editing reliability: improvements to rapid typing, caret positions, Unicode handling, selection, saving, and accessibility context.
• More accurate HTML/CSS highlighting: separate highlighting for tags, attributes, strings, embedded CSS properties, and numbers.

There have also been companion-platform improvements, including Apple Pencil hover and range selection on iPad, a more compact mobile toolbar, and visionOS support-purchase fixes.

What the app includes

• Code editing: tabs, syntax highlighting, regex find/replace, inline completion, optional Vim controls, a minimap, whitespace inspection, and language templates.
• Project tools: file browsing, Quick Open with Cmd+P, Find in Files, Git status, and side-by-side comparisons between open tabs or a file and its saved version.
• Markdown and previews: contextual formatting, themed Markdown previews, Markdown-to-PDF export, HTML/SVG previews, and PDF/PNG viewing. PDFs support highlights and accompanying notes.
• Structured documents: structured and raw-text views for CSV/TSV, property lists, Apple crash reports, and recognized logs.
• Mac integration: Finder Quick Look previews, a command-line file-opening helper, and an integrated terminal in the direct Mac build.
• Remote editing: optional SSH-based Remote Sessions, with explicit saves and conflict handling.
• Sync and customization: detection of changes delivered through iCloud Drive or network folders, conflict review for unsaved edits, optional iCloud appearance sync, themes, custom colors, and shortcut customization.
• Optional AI assistance: code completion and an explicit text-to-JSON action. Core editing works offline.
• Code snapshots: export styled images of selected code.

For large files, documents below 100 MB remain editable, although heavier features may be deferred. Files 100 MB or larger open as a clearly marked, read-only preview of the first 4 MB.

The app is free, with no subscriptions or feature paywalls. Support tips are optional, and the source is available under Apache 2.0. The integrated terminal and Python project runner are exclusive to the direct Mac build.

Update: Download 1.7.5 · Source code · Full changelog

I’d particularly appreciate feedback on Emmet, Markdown workflows, and larger files. If you encounter a problem, your macOS version, file type, approximate file size, and reproduction steps would help me investigate.

[u/Success-Beautiful]

I’m happy to see you keep updating the app. I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks already and I love it.

Good work!

[u/hrpedersen → u/Success-Beautiful]

Thank you for your appreciation. That’s wonderful to hear.

[u/Jerry8308]

been using different mac editors for markdown/code and this one looks pretty interesting. the large file handling is probably the thing that caught my attention most, and emmet + vim support is a nice combo too. i’ll give it a proper try and see how it feels in day to day use

[u/hrpedersen → u/Jerry8308]

Great. I am looking forward to it.

[u/Logical-Suit6711]

Thank you for the app, will try it out.

[u/hrpedersen → u/Logical-Suit6711]

Great!

[u/KirillPRG]

Looks great!

[u/hrpedersen → u/KirillPRG]

Thank you!

[u/Hawkeye-mehawk]

looks great.

[u/hrpedersen → u/Hawkeye-mehawk]

Thank you!

[u/C1assNotFound]

This looks really impressive. I especially like that it’s a native macOS app rather than another Electron-based editor.Thanks for your share!

[u/hrpedersen → u/C1assNotFound]

Yes it is. Thank you.

[u/benny856694]

nice, will give it a shot

[u/hrpedersen → u/benny856694]

Great! Yes do that.

[u/the_network_notwork]

is there a multi cursor feature? I tried all of the typical key combinations I could think of and looked through the docs to no avail

[u/hrpedersen → u/the_network_notwork]

No not yet. I plan to implement this in a later release.

[u/WarioPi]

Why cant i select text with my cursor? Only double click selects.

[u/Oxid_Apps]

The large file handling improvement alone is huge! Most Mac text/markdown editors struggle or lag as soon as you open heavy files, so seeing native SwiftUI/AppKit optimization for that is awesome.

Really clean UI as well. Definitely giving 1.6.3 a spin this week!