Using the Zed Text Editor

Introduction

The Zed text editor is available here:

Zed Website

Zed is a text editor written in Rust. While the website markets the product as “a code editor crafted for speed and collaboration with humans and AI” it is a very good text edit which can be used without any of the AI features. I have found it to be much faster, more responsive, and eaiser to use than alternatives like VS code. The editor is highly configurable and comes packed with loads of features that other editors pakage as extensions.

Configuration

My configuration is constantly evolving, but my current config looks like this:

{
  "disable_ai": true,
  "ui_font_size": 16,
  "buffer_font_size": 15,
  "theme": {
    "mode": "system",
    "light": "One Light",
    "dark": "Ayu Dark",
  },
  "minimap": {
    "show": "always",
  },
  "vim_mode": true,
  "wrap_guides": [80, 120],
  "preferred_line_length": 80,
  "soft_wrap": "preferred_line_length",
  "show_wrap_guides": true,
  "telemetry": {
    "diagnostics": false,
    "metrics": false,
  },
}

This turns on a few features I like, such as disabling everything AI, adding a vertical ruler at 80 and 120 characters, auto wrapping text at 80 characters, and disabling all telemetry. I also enable vim mode because I like it.