Contents

Working with Files

Buffers

One of the first things you will notice when opening multiple files in Textadept is that there is no tab bar showing the files that are open. This was a design decision because Textadept was built to support unlimited split views. Having a single tab bar for multiple views would cause confusion and having one tab bar per view would clutter the interface.

Instead of having tabs, Textadept has the buffer browser. Press Ctrl+B (⌘B on Mac OSX | M-B or M-S-B in curses) to open it.

Buffer Browser

The buffer browser shows you a list of currently open buffers, the most recent towards the bottom. Typing part of any filename filters the list. Spaces are wildcards. You can also just use the arrow keys. Pressing Enter or selecting OK switches to the selected buffer.

Buffer Browser Filtered

You can see which buffer is active by looking at Textadept’s titlebar. Pressing Ctrl+Tab (^⇥ on Mac OSX | M-N in curses) cycles to the next buffer and Ctrl+Shift+Tab (^⇧⇥ | M-P) cycles to the previous one.

Settings

Individual files have three configurable settings: indentation, line endings, and encoding. Indentation is composed of an indentation character and an indentation size. Line endings are characters that separate lines. File encoding determines how text characters are displayed. Textadept shows these settings in the buffer status statusbar.

Document Statusbar

Indentation

Indentation is usually set by a language-specific module or the current theme. By default, indentation is 2 spaces. You can toggle between using tabs and spaces manually by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T (^⇧T on Mac OSX | M-T or M-S-T in curses). Toggling between tabs and spaces only affects future indentation; it does not convert existing indentation. Ctrl+Alt+I (^I | M-I) performs the conversion. (If the buffer is using tabs, all indenting spaces are converted to tabs. If the buffer is using spaces, all indenting tabs are converted to spaces.) Similarly, you can set indentation size manually using the “Buffer -> Indentation” menu.

Line Endings

Line endings, commonly known as end-of-line (EOL) markers, are set for new files based on the current platform. On Windows, CRLF (“\r\n”) is used. Otherwise, LF (“\n”) is. This can be changed manually using the “Buffer -> EOL Mode” menu. Unlike indentation settings, switching EOL modes converts all existing EOLs automatically. Textadept attempts to auto-detect the EOL mode of opened files regardless of the current platform, but falls back to the defaults mentioned earlier when necessary.

Encodings

Textadept represents all characters and strings internally as UTF-8. You will not notice any difference for working with files containing ASCII text since UTF-8 is compatible with it. Textadept can also detect ISO-8859-1 and MacRoman, the primary encodings used on Windows and Mac OSX respectively. Files with more exotic encodings may not be detected properly, if at all. You can change the list of encodings Textadept tries to detect via io.encodings.

It is recommended to use UTF-8 encoded files because UTF-8 is very well supported by other text editors and operating systems. You can change file encoding via the “Buffer -> Encoding” menu. Conversion is immediate, requiring no separate steps. Textadept saves new files as UTF-8 by default, but does not alter the encoding of existing files.

Recent Files

Pressing Ctrl+Alt+O (^⌘O on Mac OSX | M-^O in curses) brings up a dialog that behaves like the buffer browser, but displays a list of recently opened files to reopen.

Sessions

By default, Textadept saves its state on exit so it can be restored the next time the editor starts up. You can disable this by passing the -n or --nosession switch to Textadept on startup. Sessions can be manually saved and opened via the “File -> Save Session…” and “File -> Load Session…” menus or by using the -s and --session switches on startup. The switches accept the path of a session file or the name of a session in ~/.textadept/. Session files store information such as open buffers, current split views, caret and scroll positions in each buffer, Textadept’s window size, and recently opened files. Tampering with session files may have unintended consequences.

Snapopen

A quicker, though slightly more limited alternative to the standard file selection dialog is snapopen. It behaves like the buffer browser, but displays a list of files to open, including files in sub-directories. You can snapopen the current file’s directory with Ctrl+Alt+Shift+O (^⌘⇧O on Mac OSX | M-S-O in curses) or from the “Tools -> Snapopen -> Current Directory” menu. Snapopen is pretty limited from the menu, but more versatile in scripts. Ctrl+U (⌘U | ^U) snaps open ~/.textadept/.

Snapopen

Views

Split Views

Textadept allows you to split the editor window as many times as you like both horizontally and vertically. Ctrl+Alt+S or Ctrl+Alt+H splits horizontally into top and bottom views and Ctrl+Alt+V splits vertically (^S and ^V respectively on Mac OSX | N/A in curses) into side-by-side views. You can resize the splitter bar by clicking and dragging with the mouse or using Ctrl+Alt++ and Ctrl+Alt+- (^+ and ^- | N/A). The same file can be opened in multiple views.

Pressing Ctrl+Alt+N (^⌥⇥ on Mac OSX | N/A in curses) goes to the next view and Ctrl+Alt+P (^⌥⇧⇥ | N/A) goes to the previous one. Note: depending on the split sequence, the order when cycling between views may be unexpected.

To unsplit a view, enter the view to keep open and press Ctrl+Alt+W (^W on Mac OSX | N/A in curses). To unsplit all views, use Ctrl+Alt+Shift+W (^⇧W | N/A).

Split views are unavailable in curses.

Settings

Individual views have many configurable settings. Among the more useful settings are viewing line endings, handling long lines, viewing indentation guides, and viewing whitespace. These options change how buffers in the current view are displayed. Changing a setting in one view does not change that setting in any other split view. It will have to be done manually.

Line Endings

Normally, EOL characters (“\r” and “\n”) are invisible. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Enter (^↩ on Mac OSX | none in curses) toggles their visibility.

Long Lines

By default, lines with more characters than the view can show are not wrapped into view. Ctrl+Alt+\ (^\ on Mac OSX | none in curses) toggles line wrapping.

Indentation Guides

By default, small guiding lines are shown based on indentation level. Ctrl+Alt+Shift+I (^⇧I on Mac OSX | N/A in curses) toggles showing these guides.

Indentation guides are unavailable in curses.

Whitespace

Normally, whitespace characters, tabs and spaces, are invisible. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S (^⇧S on Mac OSX | none in curses) toggles their visibility. Visible spaces are shown as dots and visible tabs are shown as arrows.

Zoom

You can temporarily increase or decrease the font size in a view with Ctrl+= (⌘= on Mac OSX | N/A in curses) and Ctrl+- (⌘- | N/A) respectively. Ctrl+0 (⌘0 | N/A) resets the zoom.

Zooming is unavailable in curses.