The Fundamentals
If you have ever used a text editor, you will have no problem using
&kate;. In the next two sections, Starting
&kate; and Working with
&kate;, you will find everything you need to get up and running
quickly.
Starting &kate;
You can start &kate; from the TDE menu or from the
command line.
From the Menu
Open the &tde; program menu by clicking on the
big T icon on the toolbar at the bottom left of your
screen. This will raise the program menu. Move your
cursor up the menu to the UtilitiesEditors menu item. A list
of available editors will appear. Choose
&kate;.
Unless you configure &kate; not to, it will load the last files you
edited. See Configuring &kate; to learn
how to toggle this feature on and off.
From the Command Line
You can start &kate; by typing its name on the command line. If you give
it a file name, as in the example below, it will open or create that
file.
%kate
If you have an active connection and permission, you can take advantage
of &tde;'s network transparency to open files on the internet.
%kateCommand Line Options&kate; accepts the following command line options:kate
This lists the most basic options available at the command line.
kate
This lists the options available for changing the way &kate; interacts with &Qt;.
kate
This lists the options available for changing the way &kate; interacts with &tde;.
kate
This lists the available &tde;-tempfile specific options.
kate
This lists all of the command line options.
kate
Lists &kate;'s authors in the terminal window.
kate
Lists version information for &Qt;, &tde;, and &kate;.
kate
Shows license information.
katename
Starts kate with the session name. The session is created
if it does not exist already. If a &kate; instance running the specified session
exists, the specified files are loaded in that instance. When used with the
option, an instance running this session will be used as
well.
kateURL
Causes &kate; to use and existing instance if there is one. If you want all
documents to open in one kate instance, you can add this option to the default
command in your &tde; application configuration, as well as create a shell alias
in your command intepreter if it supports that.
kate
If the multiple document interface (MDI) setting is enabled, forces &kate; to
use the single document interface (SDI) mode.
katePID
Only reuses an instance with the specified PID (Process ID). Used with the
option.
kateencodingURLUses the specified encoding for the document.
katelineURLNavigates to the specified line after opening the document.
katecolumnURLNavigates to the specified column after opening the document.
kateReads the document content from STDIN. This
is similar to the common option used in many command line
programs, and allows you to pipe command output into &kate;.kateSince &kate; 2.5.1 this standard &tde; option is supported.
When used, the specified files are treated as temporary files and
deleted (if they are local files and you have sufficient permissions) when
closed, unless they are modified since they were opened.Drag and Drop
&kate; uses the &tde; Drag and Drop protocol. Files may be dragged and
dropped onto &kate; from the Desktop, &konqueror; or some remote ftp
site opened in one of &konqueror;'s windows.
Working with &kate;
Quick Start will show you how to
toggle four simple options that will let you configure some of &kate;'s
more powerful features right away.
Shortcuts lays out some of the default keystroke
shortcuts for those who can't or don't want to use a mouse.
Quick Start
This section will describe some of the items on the
Settings menu so that you can quickly configure
&kate; to work the way you want it.
When you start &kate; for the first time you'll see two windows
with white backgrounds. Above the two windows is a toolbar with the
usual labeled icons. And above that, a menubar.
The left-hand window is a side bar. It combines the Documents
and Filesystem Browser windows. Switch between the two by clicking on the tabs
to the left of the window.
If you've started &kate; with a file, the right-hand window will show
the file you are editing and the Documents on the side bar will show the
name of the file. Use the Filesystem Browser window to open files.
You can toggle the Documents and Filesystem Browser window on and off in
WindowTool Views
menu. This menu offers you your first glimpse into &kate;'s power and
flexibility. In this section we'll look at three items:
Show/Hide Documents
Toggles the Documents on and off. If the Documents/Filesystem Browser side bar
window is not open, &kate; will open the side bar window.Show/Hide
Filesystem Browser
Toggles the Filesystem Browser on and off. This menu item is the same as
Show Documents with one difference. Toggling
it on launches the window with the Filesystem Browser on top.
Show/Hide
Terminal
Toggles a terminal emulator on and off at the bottom of &kate;'s
window. In other words, it gives you a command line within the
application.
Shortcuts
Many of &kate;'s keystroke commands (shortcuts) are configurable by
way of the Settings menu. By default
&kate; honors the following key bindings.
Insert
Toggle between Insert and Overwrite mode. When in insert mode the editor
will add any typed characters to the text and push any previously typed
data to the right of the text cursor. Overwrite mode causes the entry of
each character to eliminate the current character.Left ArrowMove the cursor one character to the left Right Arrow Move the cursor one character to the right Up Arrow Move the cursor up one line Down Arrow Move the cursor down one line Page Up Move the cursor up one page Page DownMove the cursor down one page Backspace Delete the character to the left of the cursor Home Move the cursor to the beginning of the line End Move the cursor to the end of the line DeleteDelete the character to the right of the cursor (or any selected
text)&Shift;Left Arrow Mark text one character to the left &Shift;Right Arrow Mark text one character to the right F1 Help&Shift;F1What's this?&Ctrl;FFindF3Find again&Ctrl;BSet a Bookmark&Ctrl;C Copy the marked text to the clipboard.&Ctrl;N New document&Ctrl;PPrint &Ctrl;QQuit - close active copy of editor &Ctrl;RReplace&Ctrl;SSave your file.&Ctrl;V Paste.&Ctrl;XDelete the marked text and copy it to the clipboard.&Ctrl;ZUndo&Ctrl;&Shift;ZRedoUsing SessionsSessions is how &kate; lets you keep more than one list of files and
GUI configuration around. You can have as many named sessions as you want,
and you can use unnamed or anonymous sessions for files you want to use only
once. Currently &kate; can save the list of open files, and the general window
configuration in the session, future versions of &kate; may add more features
that can be saved in sessions. With the introduction of sessions, &kate; also
allows you to open any number of instances of the application instead of just
one as it used to do as the default behavior.Sessions are supported in three areas:
Command line
options that lets you select and start sessions when launching
kate from the command line.The Sessions
menu that lets you switch, save, start and manage your
sessionsConfiguration
options that lets you decide how sessions generally should
behave.When starting a new session, the GUI configuration of Default
Session is loaded. To save window configuration in the default
session, you need to enable saving window configuration in the sessions
configuration page of the configuration dialog and then load the default
session, set up the window as desired and save the session again.When a named session is loaded, &kate; will display the session name at
the start of the window title, which then have the form
"Session Name: Document name or
&URL; - &kate;"When opening files on the command line with or if a session is selected using the
session chooser, the specified session is loaded prior to the files specified
on the command line. To open files from the command line in a new, unnamed
session, configure kate to start a new session per default in the session page of
the configuration dialog or use with an empty string:
''.Since &kate; 2.5.1 the PID of the current instance is
exported to the environment variable KATE_PID. When opening files
from the built in terminal, Kate will automatically select the current instance
if nothing else is indicated on the command line.Restoring old style &kate; behaviorWhen you get used to using sessions you will hopefully see that they
provide a very simple and efficient tool for working in different areas.
However, if you prefer the old &kate; behavior (one instance opens all files),
you can easily achieve that by following this simple strategy:
Make &kate; always start with the
parameter by adding that to the command in the application preferences,
and additionally using a shell alias.Configure &kate; to load the last used session at startup.Configure &kate; to save the file list when closing a session.
Load the default session onceGetting HelpThis manualOffers detailed documentation on all menu commands,
configuration options, tools, dialogs, plugins &etc; as well as a
description of the &kate; window, the editor and various concepts
used in the application.Press F1 or use the
HelpKate handbook menu topic to view this
manual.What's This HelpWhat's This Help offers immediate help with single elements of
graphical windows, such as buttons or other window areas.We strive to provide What's This Help for any element for which
it makes sense. It is available throughout the configuration dialog,
and in many other dialogs as well.To employ What's This Help, press
&Shift;F1 or use the
HelpWhat's
This menu item to enable What's This
mode. The cursor will turn into an arrow with a question mark, and you
can now click any element in the window to read the What's This Help
for that element, if it is available.Help Buttons in DialogsSome dialogs have a Help Button. Pressing
it will start the &khelpcenter; and open the relevant
documentation.