tens is a simple plaintext presentation tool that displays slides in a window.

This is a native macOS port that uses Cocoa/AppKit instead of X11, eliminating the need for XQuartz.

• No dependencies - Uses native macOS frameworks (Cocoa, CoreText, CoreGraphics)
• Simple format - Plain text files, one paragraph per slide
• Auto-scaling - Text automatically scales to fit the window
• Image support - Native support for PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, and more
• Keyboard navigation - Arrow keys, vim keys, or mouse

make clean
make

./tens [FILE]

If FILE is omitted or equals -, stdin will be read.

• Each paragraph (separated by empty lines) is one slide
• Lines starting with # are comments (ignored)
• Lines starting with @ followed by a filename create image slides
• Use \ at start of line to escape @ and #

Welcome to tens

@logo.png

Features:
- Simple
- Fast
- Native macOS

# This is a comment

\@this shows the @ symbol

Thanks!

All formats supported by macOS NSImage:

• PNG
• JPEG / JPG
• GIF
• TIFF
• BMP
• HEIC
• WebP (macOS 11+)
• And more...

Edit config.def.h before building to customize:

• Default fonts
• Colors (foreground/background)
• Key bindings
• Usable screen area

Then rebuild:

cp config.def.h config.h
make clean
make

make install

This installs to /usr/local/bin by default. Change PREFIX in config.mk to install elsewhere.

This is a port of sent from suckless.org.

The original version uses X11/Xlib and requires XQuartz on macOS. This port uses native Cocoa APIs for a better macOS experience.

See LICENSE file for copyright and license details (MIT/X).