Posted by OlaProis 1/11/2026
Built a Markdown editor using Rust + egui. v0.2.1 just dropped with major Mermaid improvements:
→ Native Mermaid diagrams - Flowcharts, sequence, state, ER, git graphs - pure Rust, no JS
→ Split view - Raw + rendered side-by-side with sync scrolling
→ Syntax highlighting - 40+ languages with large file optimization
→ JSON/YAML/TOML tree viewer - Structured editing with expand/collapse
→ Git integration - File tree shows modified/staged/untracked status
Also: minimap, zen mode, auto-save, session restore, code folding indicators.
~15MB binary, instant startup. Windows/Linux/macOS.
GitHub: https://github.com/OlaProeis/Ferrite
v0.2.2 coming soon with performance improvements for large files. Looking for feedback!
- Immediate mode — egui redraws every frame, which makes state management simpler (no callback hell). Great for prototyping.
- Pure Rust, minimal deps — egui is self-contained. gtk-rs requires GTK installed on the system.
- Cross-platform out of the box — Same code runs on Windows/Linux/macOS/Web
- Rapid iteration — Hot reload-friendly, easy to experiment with layouts
Trade-offs: egui's TextEdit isn't designed for code editors (no multi-cursor, can't hide folded text), which is why v0.3.0 will replace it with a custom widget.
Something that doesn't suck like draw.io!
What specific diagram types do you need — network topology, service flows, infrastructure layout?
A few thoughts:
What might work today: - Sequence diagrams can model service-to-service flows (API calls, auth handoffs)
- Flowcharts with subgraphs can represent VPC boundaries, security groups
- C4-style (context, container, component) is sometimes modeled with flowcharts
What would make it better:
- Custom shapes/icons (AWS service icons)
- Annotations for security boundaries, trust zones
- Data flow direction markers
Alternative you might try now:
D2 (https://d2lang.com) has better icon support and was designed for architecture diagrams. It has an AWS icon pack. Structurizr also does C4 well.
That said, if there's demand for architecture-specific diagrams in Ferrite's Mermaid renderer, I could look at:
1. Custom icon/shape support via external SVGs
2. A dedicated "architecture" diagram type with security-relevant annotations
Would a template or example for modeling security flows in Mermaid's current syntax help as a starting point?
Honestly, this is a gap in the ecosystem. For now, most people either:
- Use draw.io/Excalidraw despite the pain
- Build diagrams programmatically (Diagrams-as-code Python library has good AWS support)
- Just accept text-based flowcharts without icons
If I add custom icon/shape support to Ferrite's Mermaid renderer (v0.3.0+), AWS icons could be a good test case. No promises, but I hear the frustration.
I've even found sonnet and opus to be quite capable of generating json describing nodes and edges. I had them generate directed acyclic processing graphs for a GUI LLM data flow editor that I built (also with Claude - https://nodecul.es/ if curious)
Added to the v0.2.3 roadmap — will provide a statically-linked x86_64-unknown-linux-musl binary alongside the standard glibc one.