STAX IDE, a macOS app.
Raw Developer Origin & Technical Request
Hacker News
May 27, 2026
Hi HN. STAX IDE is a macOS app where every terminal session, code editor, and file browser is a movable, resizable window on a single zoomable canvas. `Cmd+wheel` to zoom out and see the whole workspace; zoom in to one window and use it like a normal app.I built it because I was running 8-10 Claude Code / Codex shells in parallel and tabbed terminal apps kept losing my place. I wanted to see every shell at once and drag them around like Post-its. And have my browsers and notes in there too.Implementation choices that might be interesting:• AppKit, not SwiftUI. I needed manual frame control during drag/zoom to avoid AppKit's display-cycle re-entrancy guard, and got it more reliably out of straight NSView land.• SwiftTerm (Miguel de Icaza's emulator) for VT100 + real PTYs (fork + openpty). One `LocalProcessTerminalView` per tab. OSC 7 → cwd → tab title.• `NSScrollView.magnification` for canvas zoom. Cmd+wheel events are coalesced to one mag-update per display frame and the resync broadcast is hopped to the next runloop tick. Earlier versions used to SIGTRAP inside `_postWindowNeedsLayoutUnlessPostingDisabled` because the broadcast was re-entering AppKit's layout pass under aggressive zooming.• Intentionally human-grep-able. No SQLite, no proprietary format.• NSPasteboard drag-and-drop. Finder→canvas drops a folder and spawns a new stack with that folder as cwd. File-panel→terminal drag inserts the absolute path at the cursor.•`NSTextStorageDelegate.processEditing` for syntax highlighting in the editor panels. 22 languages, extension auto-detect, plus a Sublime-style status-bar language picker.* macOS only.Install: brew install --cask vbario/staxide/staxide
Site / DMG releases: staxide.comBuilt solo, used daily, lots of rough edges. Bug reports and corrections both welcome.
Developer Debate & Comments
No active discussions extracted for this entry yet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Market intelligence mapped to STAX IDE, a macOS app..
How is STAX IDE, a macOS app. positioned in the market?
What architecture is tied to STAX IDE, a macOS app.?
Are there startups building around STAX IDE, a macOS app.?
Engagement Signals
Cross-Market Term Frequency
Quantifies the cross-market adoption of foundational terms like SQLite and SwiftUI by tracking occurrence frequency across active SaaS architectures and enterprise developer debates.
SaaS Metrics