TUI external editor and local version history

Historical prototype record: This page preserves the July 27, 2026 TUI experiment. It is not current supported-product guidance or a Windows-release blocker.

External editor and terminal

Settings includes editable editor and terminal command preferences plus editor detection. The toolbar's Editor action opens the active repository with the chosen program. The Advanced pane's Open terminal action launches the saved terminal command, or an auto-detected Linux terminal, in the active repository or a validated child working directory.

Editor and terminal preferences are parsed as commands plus fixed arguments and launched as argv sequences, not through sh -c. Newline, NUL, shell operators, and shell-wrapper commands are rejected at the relevant boundary. Detection is a convenience, not trust: review a custom executable before saving it.

If no editor is found, the TUI leaves repository state unchanged and displays a clear notice. A terminal program that requires a graphical display can fail on a headless host; choose a console-capable alternative.

Current scope is one global preference. Per-repository overrides, a complete cross-platform editor catalog, exact file/line actions, remote SSH working copies, and Windows/WSL bridge behavior are not claimed.

Local Git-backed settings versions

The terminal edition owns a separate repository beneath:

$XDG_DATA_HOME/desktop-material-tui/profile-history/<profile-id>

or ~/.local/share/... when XDG_DATA_HOME is unset. This repository is never placed inside the user's working copy and is never pushed unless a future user action explicitly exports it.

A complete snapshot contains settings and profile metadata. The service can:

• record a labeled revision;
• list bounded revision history;
• read a selected revision;
• show a diff between two revisions;
• restore a selected snapshot by creating a new audit revision.

Restore does not rewrite or delete the old commits. The history repository uses its own advisory lock and bounded, no-shell Git calls.

Retention and export

The first preview exposes history operations but does not yet ship a polished retention/pruning/export panel. Until it does:

• back up the complete profile-history directory while the TUI is closed;
• do not run arbitrary Git cleanup in that directory;
• do not copy it into a project repository or publish it automatically;
• treat diffs as potentially private because preferences can include local paths and program names.

A missing or damaged history repository does not authorize modifying the user's project. Recover it from a backup or start a new app-owned history after preserving the old directory for inspection.