Q22

Q22 is a cross-platform binary file editor - the successor to the original Catch22 HexEdit application for Windows.

The core file editing and hex-view capabilities are carried forward from the original HexEdit, while the application UX has been largely rewritten in Qt6. The goal was to keep the direct, capable binary-editing model of the original HexEdit while modernising the UI, settings, theming, packaging, and cross-platform foundations.

Features

Editing:

• Open and edit binary files directly, including large file support.
• Cut, copy, paste, insert, delete, undo, redo.
• View data in hex, decimal, octal, binary, and text forms.
• Group bytes as 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, or 64-bit values.
• Search and jump to offsets without leaving the editor.

Structure View:

• Inspect files through C-style structures.
• Built-in support for PE and ELF files.
• Expand headers, sections, imports, exports, symbols, and related tables.
• Automatically choose known formats from file type or magic bytes.
• Add custom .strata definitions using the Strata language; legacy .struct files are still supported.

Disassembly:

• Disassemble code!
• Supports x86 64-bit, x86 32-bit, ARM, ARM Thumb, and AArch64.
• Detects PE and ELF entrypoints automatically.
• Browse discovered functions and jump between disassembly and bytes.

Bookmarks and annotations:

• Bookmarks and highlights within the hex display.
• Fast access to saved bookmarked positions through the bookmark viewer.
• Bookmark state is persisted for future use.

Clipboard, import, and export formats:

• Copy-as and paste-special workflows for moving data between text and binary forms.
• Import and export files or clipboard data using multiple formats.
• Hex, ASCII/text, and raw data.
• Base64 and UUEncode.
• Intel HEX and Motorola S-records.
• HTML.
• C++, C, and assembler-style data.

UX:

• File properties, checksum calculation, and string extraction panels.
• Recent files and configurable preferences.
• Light, dark, and system theme modes.
• Built-in palettes plus custom palette creation and editing.
• Custom titlebar, docked panels, and platform-specific window chrome for Windows, KDE/KWin, and GNOME/Mutter.
• Windows and Linux build/release workflows.

Build

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --parallel
ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failure

Supported Platforms

• Linux (Fedora currently)
• Windows

more to come!

License

Copyright (C) 2001-2026 James Brown.

Q22 is licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later. The full license text is included in LICENSE.

Releases are created manually from the GitHub Actions Release workflow using a MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH version.