In search of a non-electron text editor that can fold | Are emacs and (neo)vim my only options?

Kate,kdevelop,xed,mousepad,gnome builder.,notepad next(clone notepad++)

That's a lot of options! Thank you.

Geany(Its a lightweight GTK Based IDE)

Too low on the list
Thank you!
Question: According to this table, Geany's capabilities might leave some to desire when it comes to code/text folding. Is this correct? Or is the table simply outdated?
- Yw and I think it's up to date that list (i just looked at article last updated)

There's also Zed. And helix.

Amongst all the other great alts here

Also neovim is really dope! Just have to throw that there

There’s also Zed.
Noted. Thank you!
And helix.
I believe this doesn't have folding (yet). Unfortunately.
Also neovim is really dope! Just have to throw that there
xD , Neovim is definitely pretty cool.
- I use Zed as my primary editor these days. It’s just about ready for prime time!
  (Source: 12 years of web and Linux hacking)

I have to agree with the positivism surrounding Kate. It has been the only one (together with KDevelop) out of the 5 text editors I've installed and tested since yesterday that actually did what I desired from it. Props to the devs! Let's see if it can dethrone Emacs 😜.
- Emacs will always be abe to do things you can't do with other editors. It's a text based interface toolkit that happens to also have a good text editor and IDE capability. Buuut, you need to spend a lot of time to set things up. I use it since probably more than 20 years and I still often need to look up and learn stuff. If you want a tool and not a workshop, get a simpler editor.

On windows: Notepad++. On Linux-based OS: Kate. And there's also JetBrains Fleet, that is jetbrains answer to vscode.

Thank you!
I tested Notepad Next, which seems to be Notepad++' cross-platform alternative. However, I wasn't able to get the folding functionality on a Markdown file. Am I doing something wrong?
I've tried Kate since yesterday, it has been one of the better ones for now.
JetBrains Fleet seems like a cool project. But I'll probably wait until it's open sourced. Thanks anyways!
Kate is for Windows and Mac as well
Also notepad++ on wine on Linux ... Not my favorite but it's there
- Yeah.. but why? Kate is better in about every way. And while we're on the topic, Kate is also available on the windows store, with a real Windows build.

Will probably get airstriked for this, but Zed is also a option.

Also, if you're using GNOME, then try GNOME builder. And if you're using KDE, then try KDevelop or Kate.

tbf, i love zed and using it for big stuff and neovim for basic scripts is the perfect balance for me
i’ve heard that some people love using kate because, with some plugins, it really can do all most people need. i’ve seen a dude make a video on it but would need some time to find it again if there was any interest.
Thank you for your recommendations!
Hopefully I'll get around to take Zed for a test drive in the near future.
As for GNOME Builder, for some reason, I wasn't able to replicate what's seen above with it. Perhaps it doesn't support Markdown that well. Or..., it needs/requires a plugin to do its bidding. Would you happen to know more on this? Any help is appreciated!
KDevelop and Kate, on the other hand, have been a very pleasant surprise. I have literally checked about a dozen of text editors since yesterday, and these two have been the only ones that have yielded the desired result. Props and kudos to the dev team!

If you don't want to go the Emacs or Vim routes, try Kate. Neovim is amazing but Kate is too from what I hear. Similar support for LSPs.

It's not that I don't want to go with Emacs or Neovim. Rather, I want to explore what else is out there.
As for Kate, thank you for its endorsement! I've tried Kate since making this post and it^[Together with KDevelop. Though it has to be noted that KDevelop IIUC seems to rely on Kate for this functionality.] has been the only one which has yielded a desirable result. I can wholeheartedly attest to its quality.

Look at Helix and Zed.

Zed is the goat
- Do you happen to have a lot of experience with other text editors (and/or IDEs)? If so, would you like to chime in and compare Zed to the ones you feel confident talking about?
  Thanks in advance!
Thanks for the recommendations! Helix doesn't seem to offer this functionality (yet). Unfortunately...
As for Zed, it does seem to be capable of reproducing the functionality found in the gif (or at least to some extent). However, installing it on my distro isn't pretty. Therefore, I wish to install it at some point, but I'll wait it out for now.

SublimeText?

Looks cool. Thanks!
Uhmm..., did I understand correctly that it's not open source?
- Not op but no it's not.

Others have given you many options, but I would like to know why Nvim or Emacs are not good options for you?

No no, don't get me wrong. I think both Emacs and Neovim are excellent. And this little endeavor/search/pursuit has (perhaps more than anything) solidified (and gave context as to) why they're in their own league.
Like, I've tried about a dozen of text editors in last couple of days. And with most^[Heck, I've only been able to confirm that Kate and KDevelop at least do what has been advertised (by others).] of them I've failed to reproduce the functionality demonstrated in the gif.
But even the very best of what I've tried since making this post pales -or at least seems to be*- in terms of extensibility. And, when we add in Emacs' proven^[Neovim is still relatively new. I don't think I can justifiably vouch for its longevity yet.] longevity, it becomes hard to root for any of the alternatives. At least..., so far*.
Still, I had to answer for myself if committing to Emacs (or Neovim for that matter) was justified given the fact that I had not a lot of experience with text editors 😅. Like, as funny as it sounds, I've moved from Word+StickyNotes to (GNOME's) Text Editor to a bunch^[I can recall ghostwriter, MarkText and QOwnNotes.] of Markdown text editors to Emacs. And the switch to Emacs was mostly motivated when I saw Obsidian do the very thing you see in the gif 😂. But as cool as learning the ropes of Emacs was, I think I was experiencing some impostor syndrome shenanigans.
Thankfully, it seems that this has mostly served to be a huge motivation boost. Perhaps I was (more than) ready to conquer Emacs all along...
- If you had started with that people would have told you that nothing comes even close. The closest things you will find are Atom (archived), Sublime (closed source) and Helix (still very new and no plugin support, but something to keep an eye on).
  Speaking of obsidian, the reason why it took me forever to start using Silverbullet is that Emacs has org-mode which does most of what Silverbullet/Obsidian do out of the box, plus some other stuff that they don't do (e.g. excel like tables).
  But I wanted something I could edit remotely through my phone and web interfaces are better than using text editors over ssh connections. Also I have migrated from Emacs to Nvim, the reasons are purely ergonomical (pinky fatigue is a real issue) but after switching I found a jump in the way to think about an editor. Emacs is great, don't get me wrong, and if you decide to learn Emacs I can assure you it will be the best editor you've used, but it still edits things at a character level, while there are concepts for matching brackets or quotes changing the text inside quotes in Emacs is very character oriented, I.e. go to start of quote, start marking, move to matching quote, delete, whereas in vim is sort of a higher level language where you say Change Inside Next Quote using cin", and expanded with some plugins you can even do srnq' to Surround Replace Next Quote with ' (which will change the quotations on the next text from whatever to '). And that's a lot closer to the way I think so it skips a mental step (plus it's a lot less keystrokes and no Ctrl for my pinky).
  But those are the reasons why I switched, many people use Emacs for decades without ergonomic issues, whichever of the two you decide to learn you'll understand why they're the staple editors for most people who actually choose an editor.

Thank you for mentioning Lapce!
I have been interested in Lapce for a long time. Unfortunately, IIUC, it doesn't support folding Markdown headings as shown in the gif. At least, I wasn't able to get it to work. Can you attest to this? Or am I doing something wrong? Your aid would be much appreciated!

ED IS THE STANDARD EDITOR

If you're not trolling, then I'd like to offer my apologies for assuming you were.
Perhaps I shouldn't feed the trolls, but I couldn't resist: does ed even support the functionality demonstrated in the gif above? I'm asking this from a genuine position of ignorance.
- Honestly: Yeah, i was trolling (kind of), but:
  I DO like to code via ED because the design and workflow of ED (or even better: Sam) makes folding unnecessary because you only put on the screen what is needed right at that moment. Want to see two functions 1000 lines apart? No problem, just print them right below each other on the screen.

Textadept!.

Yet another one I've never heard of before. Thank you so much for mentioning it!

There's got to be a Micro plug-in for this.

WAIT, if I'm reading this right, it's had code folding since last year: https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/pull/2942
I'm gonna try this right now
- Thanks a lot for putting in the work! Uhmm..., how has testing been? Were you able to pull this off with Markdown?

You might have a look at LEO:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_(text_editor)

I used it extensively for some time to write big documentation. It is good.

But I'd guess that for most tasks, Emacs org-mode is the most powerful option.

Interesting. First time reading about it*. Were it not for you, this might have been completely off the radar. So thank you for mentioning it!
But I’d guess that for most tasks, Emacs org-mode is the most powerful option.
Yeah, it has been slowly growing on me 😜. But I would like to explore all other options before I fully commit.
- What makes LEO great for consistent larger documentation is that one can write things like footnotes or a glossary in nodes which can be linked into multiple pages - much like files with multiple hard links in a file system.
  Also, it can re-read exported generated files into a structured outline, which is managed under version control.
  Also, good support for literate programming, which is Don Knuth's perhaps greatest idea.

UPDATE: For posterity's sake, I'd like to reflect on the last couple of days.

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone that has contributed to the discussion! Were it not for your recommendations/suggestions/endorsements, then I might not have found a valid alternative.

Secondly, I've taken every single recommendation pretty seriously. As such, I've either installed them to see for myself if I was able to reproduce the functionality found in the gif found above. Or, didn't install them to begin with due to the suggested installation methods not passing through my (rather) strict policy on software. Regardless, in the end, I've only found two pieces of software that satisfied the bill: Kate and KDevelop.

KDevelop is pretty cool, but is more of an IDE rather than a text editor. As such, I've landed on Kate.

But, perhaps more than anything, I've come to really appreciate Emacs (and Neovim). And, perhaps more than ever, I feel ready to take them on 💪. Wish me luck 😊.

Sublime.

Thank you! Unfortunately, I've come to the understanding it's not open source. So it's unlikely I'll go for it.