l123
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.
✦ Status
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.
✦ Install
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.
✦ Keyboard, the short version
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.
✦ What works today
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
is reachable; MVP leaves execute, non-MVP leaves show "Not implemented yet" in line 3 /Worksheet , /Range , /Copy , /Move , /File , /Quit MVP slices
, , , , , MVP slices .xlsx round-trip through IronCalc; .csv import and export
round-trip through IronCalc; import and export 3D workbooks: A..IV sheets, A:B3..C:D5 ranges, GROUP mode
sheets, ranges, GROUP mode Named ranges, @ function MVP set (see docs/SPEC.md §15)
function MVP set (see §15) Command-journal undo, toggleable via /WGD Other Undo
Multi-file sessions ( /File Open Before|After , Ctrl-End navigation)
, 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
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
Find and Replace /Graph tree: Line, Bar, XY, Stack, Pie, HLCO, Mixed; Titles, Legend, Scale, Grid, Color/B&W, Data-Labels
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
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)
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)
✦ Coming
Context help (F1), CRT themes, LMBCS compose key (M10, active)
/Data tree: Fill, Sort, Query, Table, Distribution, Regression, Parse
tree: Fill, Sort, Query, Table, Distribution, Regression, Parse Macros: /X , {BRANCH} , {IF} , {MENUBRANCH} , /Worksheet Learn
, , , , .wk3 read-only import (values)
✦ Architecture
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.
✦ Authenticity contract
l123 makes two promises ( docs/SPEC.md §1):
An experienced 1-2-3 R3.4a user can drive l123 cold, without reading anything. 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/ .
✦ Development
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
— what l123 is docs/PLAN.md — milestones and risk register
— 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.
files. Read-only 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.
✦ Philosophy
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.
✦ License