L123: A Lotus 1-2-3–style terminal spreadsheet with modern Excel compatibility

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• README
• MIT license

A Lotus 1-2-3–style terminal spreadsheet with modern Excel compatibility.

l123 recreates the classic DOS-era spreadsheet experience — slash menus, three-line control panel, keyboard-first workflows, WYSIWYG icon panel, and all — on top of a modern formula engine with native .xlsx round-trip.

Its interaction model targets Lotus 1-2-3 Release 3.4a for DOS (1993). Its compute and I/O layers are Rust, IronCalc, and UTF-8.

Actively developed. Tracking the milestone plan in docs/PLAN.md:

Milestone	Scope	State
M0	Grid, pointer nav, workspace bring-up	✅ done
M1	Control panel, modes, first-char input	✅ done
M2	Engine wire-up, formulas, recalc	✅ done
M3	Menu system and MVP slash commands	✅ done
M4	.xlsx and CSV round-trip	✅ done
M5	3D sheets, GROUP, named ranges, undo	✅ done
M6	Printing (ASCII, PDF, line-printer) and Range Search	✅ done
M7	Graphs: 7 chart types, F10 view, SVG/PNG save	✅ done
M8	R3.4 WYSIWYG icon panel with mouse support	✅ done
M9	Macros: /X, {BRANCH}, {IF}, Learn	planned
M10	Polish: startup splash, context help, themes	🚧 in progress

API, keybindings, and file paths may still change before v1.0.

Requires Rust stable (pinned via rust-toolchain.toml).

git clone git@github.com:duane1024/l123.git
cd l123
cargo build --release
./target/release/l123            # or: cargo run -p l123

Open an existing workbook:

l123 financials.xlsx

Inspect or initialize configuration:

l123 config            # show effective settings and their sources
l123 config --init     # write a sample ~/.l123/L123.CNF

See docs/CONFIG.md for the full list of keys and environment variables.

The keyboard is the product.

Key	What it does
/	Open the slash menu
First letter	Descend into a menu item (no Enter needed)
Arrows / Tab	Move pointer; during entry, commit-and-move
Enter	Commit cell entry
Esc	Back out one level (menu, prompt, POINT anchor)
Ctrl-Break	Abort to READY from anywhere
. (in POINT)	Cycle which corner of the range is anchored
F1	Context help
F2	Edit current cell
F3	List named ranges
F4	Cycle $ absoluteness in a reference
F5	GOTO cell
F9	Recalculate
F10	Full-screen graph view
Alt-F4	Undo
Ctrl-PgUp / Ctrl-PgDn	Previous / next sheet

Mouse is supported for the WYSIWYG icon panel (17 icons, R3.4a layout).

Formulas use 1-2-3 syntax: @SUM(A1..A5), not =SUM(A1:A5). The @ sigil and .. separator are required. #AND#, #OR#, #NOT# are the logical operators.

First character typed in READY decides label vs. value: digits and + - . ( @ # $ start a value; anything else starts a label (with an auto-inserted ' prefix). " = right-align, ^ = center, \- fills the cell with dashes.

• Three-line control panel with live mode indicator
• 13 modes (READY, LABEL, VALUE, EDIT, POINT, MENU, FILES, NAMES, HELP, ERROR, WAIT, FIND, STAT)
• Full slash-menu tree: every path in docs/MENU.md is reachable; MVP leaves execute, non-MVP leaves show "Not implemented yet" in line 3
• /Worksheet, /Range, /Copy, /Move, /File, /Quit MVP slices
• .xlsx round-trip through IronCalc; .csv import and export
• 3D workbooks: A..IV sheets, A:B3..C:D5 ranges, GROUP mode
• Named ranges, @ function MVP set (see docs/SPEC.md §15)
• Command-journal undo, toggleable via /WGD Other Undo
• Multi-file sessions (/File Open Before|After, Ctrl-End navigation)
• /Print File to ASCII, PDF, or line-printer output; headers, footers, margins, page-length, formatted / unformatted / as-displayed / cell-formulas modes; | in first column hides rows from print
• /Range Search Formulas|Labels|Both Find and Replace
• /Graph tree: Line, Bar, XY, Stack, Pie, HLCO, Mixed; Titles, Legend, Scale, Grid, Color/B&W, Data-Labels
• F10 / /Graph View full-screen rendering with Unicode bar + line output; Kitty / iTerm2 / Sixel image support via ratatui-image
• /Graph Save to SVG (and plotters PNG output for all chart types)
• R3.4a WYSIWYG icon panel: all 17 icons, mouse-wired
• Startup splash screen
• Column-width options (/WGC, range-level set/reset)

• Context help (F1), CRT themes, LMBCS compose key (M10, active)
• /Data tree: Fill, Sort, Query, Table, Distribution, Regression, Parse
• Macros: /X, {BRANCH}, {IF}, {MENUBRANCH}, /Worksheet Learn
• .wk3 read-only import (values)

Rust workspace, strict layering:

l123-core  ← types only, zero external deps
  ↑
l123-parse, l123-menu
  ↑
l123-engine           (wraps IronCalc behind a trait)
  ↑
l123-cmd, l123-io, l123-graph, l123-print
  ↑
l123-ui               (ratatui + crossterm; engine-agnostic)
  ↑
l123                  (binary)

IronCalc is behind the Engine trait so it can be swapped. 1-2-3 formula syntax (@SUM, .., #AND#) is translated to Excel syntax in l123-parse before it reaches the engine. The UI never sees IronCalc types.

l123 makes two promises (docs/SPEC.md §1):

1. An experienced 1-2-3 R3.4a user can drive l123 cold, without reading anything.
2. Files round-trip cleanly to and from .xlsx.

SPEC §20 enumerates the behaviors — three-line control panel, menu accelerators, POINT anchor semantics, first-char rule, @ sigil, format tags, commit-on-arrow, WYSIWYG icon panel, and so on — that the project fails if it misses. Every item in the contract has at least one acceptance transcript under tests/acceptance/.

Strict red / green / refactor. Conventions live in CLAUDE.md.

cargo test --workspace                                  # all tests
cargo test -p l123-ui --test acceptance                 # keystroke transcripts
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings   # lint
cargo fmt --all                                         # format

Acceptance transcripts are .tsv files describing keystrokes in and screen state out; see tests/acceptance/README.md for the directive syntax. Every UI-visible change lands with a transcript.

Canonical docs (treat as sources of truth):

• docs/SPEC.md — what l123 is
• docs/PLAN.md — milestones and risk register
• docs/MENU.md — the complete menu tree

If code and doc disagree, fix the doc first.

• Not a DOS emulator. No INT21h, no code pages. Strings are UTF-8.
• Not a visual homage. Functional fidelity, not CRT nostalgia. (Green / amber themes are a stretch goal, not the point.)
• Not a macro player for existing .WK3 files. Read-only .WK3 import is a stretch goal; write is not planned.
• Not a reimplementation of the 1-2-3 compute core. IronCalc does that.
• Not aimed at Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows or SmartSuite. Release 3.4a for DOS only.

Spreadsheets didn't get worse — they just got heavier.

l123 brings back the speed, clarity, and keyboard-driven precision of early spreadsheet software, without sacrificing compatibility with modern workflows.

Because the / key was never the problem.

Licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.

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