Textadept
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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.
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.
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.
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/.
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.