Soil

Open-source desktop LaTeX editor with offline two-way Overleaf sync.
Write, compile, and preview LaTeX documents locally — while staying in sync with your Overleaf projects through Git.
No Perl. No TeX Live installation. No fuss. Everything downloads automatically.

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Table of Contents

1. About The Project
   • Built With
2. Features
3. Getting Started
   • Prerequisites
   • Installation
   • Build Distributable
4. Keyboard Shortcuts
5. Contributing
6. License

About The Project

Soil is a self-contained Electron app built for academics, students, and anyone who writes in LaTeX. Most LaTeX workflows either force you into a browser (Overleaf) or require a heavyweight local TeX installation. Soil sits in the middle:

• Edit locally with a proper code editor (Monaco — the same engine behind VS Code)
• Compile locally with an auto-downloaded TinyTeX — no system-wide install required
• Sync with Overleaf through Git so you and your collaborators stay on the same page
• Work offline and push when you're back online — nothing is ever lost

Everything you need downloads automatically on first launch. Open the app and start writing.

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Built With

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Features

Overleaf Integration

• One-click sign-in — secure browser window with reCAPTCHA, SSO, and 2FA support. Session persists across restarts.
• Project browser — all your Overleaf projects sorted by last updated, with instant search and smart local-clone detection.
• Clone any project — from the browser or by pasting a raw git.overleaf.com URL.
• Push + Commit — confirmation dialog shows every changed file before syncing back.
• Pull — fetch the latest version from Overleaf with one click.

Zero-Dependency Setup

• Auto-downloads TinyTeX (TeX Live 2026) on first launch — no system-wide TeX installation needed.
• Auto-downloads MinGit — portable Git binary, no git on PATH required.
• Everything lives in %APPDATA%\Soil\tools\, fully self-contained.
• Progress bar on first launch; retry button on failure.

LaTeX Compilation

• Local pdflatex — no Perl or latexmk dependency.
• Automatic package installation — missing .sty / .cls files resolved and installed via tlmgr with up to 5 cascading install rounds.
• Multi-mirror fallback — TeX Live 2026 repo with German mirror primary, CTAN fallback.
• Runs with -interaction=nonstopmode (Overleaf-compatible).

Editor

• Monaco Editor with full LaTeX syntax highlighting (commands, math, comments, brackets).
• Auto-compile: Off / Normal (5 s) / Fast (1.5 s) debounce modes.
• Error & warning decorations — wavy underlines, glyph dots, minimap highlights, hover messages.
• Git gutter indicators — green (added), blue (modified), red (deleted) bars matching VS Code conventions.
• Bracket pair colourisation and word wrap enabled by default.

File Management

• Sidebar file tree with active-file highlighting.
• Create, upload, and download files through native dialogs.
• Recognises .tex, .bib, .sty, .cls, and common image formats.

PDF Preview

• Live PDF preview powered by PDF.js, rendered on canvas.
• Page navigation, zoom controls, auto-reload after compile.

Offline Mode

• Automatic network detection — DNS probe every 10 seconds.
• Offline banner with unpushed commit count.
• Local commits when offline — no work is lost.
• Back-online sync dialog — one-click push on reconnect.

Settings & Customisation

• Light / Dark / System theme toggle with warm neutral palette.
• Settings panel — manage Git tokens (view masked, change, delete).
• Recent projects quick access on the welcome screen.
• Reset all data — factory reset with double confirmation (red danger zone).

Build-Artifact Safety

• Compilation output (.aux, .log, .pdf, etc.) excluded from the file watcher.
• Push pauses auto-compile and auto-commits straggler build artifacts to avoid rebase conflicts.

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Getting Started

Get Soil running locally in under a minute.

Prerequisites

• Node.js ≥ 18 and npm
• An Overleaf Premium account (for Git sync — local-only editing works without one)

Installation

1. Clone the repo

   git clone https://github.com/RaymonDev/soil.git

2. Install dependencies

   cd soil
   npm install

3. Run the app

   npm start

On first launch Soil will download TinyTeX (~90 MB) and MinGit (~50 MB). This only happens once.

Build Distributable

npm run dist          # current platform
npm run dist:win      # Windows (NSIS installer)
npm run dist:mac      # macOS (DMG)
npm run dist:linux    # Linux (AppImage)

Output goes to release/.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl + S	Save current file to disk
Ctrl + B	Compile LaTeX
Ctrl + Shift + S	Push + Commit to Overleaf

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Contributing

Contributions are what make the open-source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated.

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License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.

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