path: root/doc/kate/part.docbook

<chapter id="kate-part">
<chapterinfo>
<authorgroup>
<author>&Anders.Lund; &Anders.Lund.mail;</author>
<!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS -->
</authorgroup>
</chapterinfo>
<title>Working with the &kate; editor</title>

<sect1 id="kate-part-overview">

<title>Overview</title>

<para>The &kate; editor is the editing area of the &kate; window. This
editor is also used by &kwrite;, and it can be used in &konqueror; for
displaying text files from your local computer, or from the
network.</para>

<para>The editor is composed of the following components:</para>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry>
<term>The editing area</term>
<listitem><para>This is where the text of your document is located.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>The Scroll bars</term>
<listitem>
<para>The scroll bars indicate the  position of the visible part of
the document text, and can be used to move around the
document. Dragging the scrollbars will not cause the insertion cursor
to be moved.</para>
<para>The scroll bars are displayed and hidden as required.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>The Icon Border</term>
<listitem>
<para>The icon border is a small pane on the left side of the editor,
displaying a small icon next to marked lines.</para>
<para>You can set or remove a <link
linkend="kate-part-bookmarks">bookmark</link> in a visible line by
clicking the &LMB; in the icon border next to that line.</para>
<para>The display of the icon border can be toggled using the
<menuchoice><guimenu>View</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Show Icon
Border</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>The Line Numbers Pane</term>
<listitem>
<para>The Line numbers pane shows the line numbers of all visible
lines in the document.</para>
<para>The display of the Line Numbers Pane can be toggled using the
<menuchoice><guimenu>View</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Show Line
Numbers</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>The Folding Pane</term>
<listitem>
<para>The folding pane allows you to collapse or expand foldable blocks
of lines. The calculation of the foldable regions are done according to
rules in the syntax highlight definition for the document.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

<itemizedlist>
<title>Also in this Chapter:</title>
<listitem><para><link linkend="kate-part-navigation">Navigating in the
Text</link> </para></listitem>
<listitem><para><link linkend="kate-part-selection">Working with the
Selection</link></para></listitem>
<listitem><para><link linkend="kate-part-copy-and-paste">Copying and
Pasting Text</link></para></listitem>
<listitem><para><link linkend="kate-part-find-replace">Finding and
Replacing Text</link></para></listitem>
<listitem><para><link linkend="kate-part-bookmarks">Using
Bookmarks</link></para></listitem>
<listitem><para><link linkend="kate-part-auto-wrap">Automatically
Wrapping Text</link></para></listitem>
<listitem><para><link linkend="kate-part-autoindent">Using automatic indenting</link></para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="kate-part-navigation">
<title>Navigating in the Text</title>

<para>Moving around in the text in &kate; is like in most graphical text
editors. You move the cursor using the arrow keys and the
<keycap>Page Up</keycap>, <keycap>Page Down</keycap>, <keycap>Home</keycap> and
<keycap>End</keycap> keys in combination with the <keycap>Ctrl</keycap> and
<keycap>Shift</keycap> modifiers. The <keycap>Shift</keycap> key is always used
to generate a selection, while the <keycap>Ctrl</keycap> key have different
effects on different keys:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>For the <keycap>Up</keycap> and <keycap>Down</keycap> keys it
means scroll rather than move the cursor.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>For the <keycap>Left</keycap> and <keycap>Right</keycap>
keys it means skip words rather than characters.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>for the <keycap>Page Up</keycap> and <keycap>Page Down</keycap>
keys it means move to the visible edge of the view rather than browse.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para>For the <keycap>Home</keycap> and <keycap>End</keycap> keys it
means move to the beginning or end of the document rather than the beginning or
end of the line.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>

<para>&kate; also provides you with a way to quickly jump to a matching brace
or paranthese: Place the cursor on the inside of a parenthese or brace
character, and press <keycombo><keycap>Ctrl</keycap><keycap>6</keycap></keycombo>
to jump to the matching parenthese or brace.</para>

<para>In addition you can use
<link linkend="kate-part-bookmarks">bookmarks</link> to quickly jump to
positions that you define on your own.</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="kate-part-selection">
<title>Working with the Selection</title>

<para>There are two basic ways of selecting text in &kate;: using the
mouse, and using the keyboard.</para>

<para>To select using the mouse, hold down the &LMB; while dragging
the mouse cursor from where the selection should start, to the desired
end point. The text gets selected as you drag.</para>

<para>Double-clicking a word will select that word.</para>

<para>Triple-clicking in a line will select the entire line.</para>

<para>If &Shift; is held down while clicking, text will be
selected:</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>If nothing is already selected, from the text cursor
position to the mouse cursor position.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>If there is a selection, from and including that
selection to the mouse cursor position</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<note>
<para>When selecting text by dragging the mouse, the
selected text is copied to the clipboard, and can be pasted by
clicking the middle mouse button in the editor, or in any other
application to which you want to paste the text.
</para>
</note>

<para>To select using the keyboard, hold down the &Shift; key while
using the navigation keys (The Arrow keys, <keycap>Page Up</keycap>,
<keycap>Page Down</keycap>, <keycap>Home</keycap> and
<keycap>End</keycap>, possibly in combination with &Ctrl; to extend
the move of the text cursor).</para>

<para>See also the section <link
linkend="kate-part-navigation">Navigating in the Text</link> in this
Chapter.</para>

<para>To <action>Copy</action> the current selection, use the
<menuchoice><guimenu>Edit</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Copy</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item or the keyboard
shortcut (defaults to <keycombo
action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>C</keycap></keycombo>).</para>

<para>To <action>Deselect</action> the current selection, use the
<menuchoice><guimenu>Edit</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Deselect</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item, or the
keyboard shortcut (default is <keycombo
action="simul">&Ctrl;&Shift;<keycap>A</keycap></keycombo>), or click
with the &LMB; in the editor.</para>

<sect2 id="kate-part-selection-block">
<title>Using Block Selection</title>

<para>When Block Selection is enabled, you can make <quote>vertical
selections</quote> in the text, meaning selecting limited columns from
multiple lines. This is handy for working with tab separated lines for
example.</para>

<para>Block Selection can be toggled using the
<menuchoice><guimenu>Edit</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Toggle Block
Selection</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item. The default keyboard
shortcut is <keycap>F4</keycap></para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="kate-part-seleciton-overwrite">

<title>Using Overwrite Selection</title>

<para>If Overwrite Selection is enabled, typing or pasting text into
the selection will cause the selected text to be replaced. If not
enabled, new text will be added at the position of the text
cursor.</para>

<para>Overwrite Selection is enabled by default.</para>

<para>To change the setting for this option, use the <link
linkend="config-dialog-editor-cursor-selection">Select Page</link> of the <link
linkend="config-dialog">Configuration Dialog</link>.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="kate-part-selection-persistent">

<title>Using Persistent Selection</title>

<para>When Persistent selection is enabled, typing characters or
moving the cursor will not cause the Selection to become
deselected. This means that you can move the cursor away from the
selection and type text.</para>

<para>Persistent Selection is disabled by default.</para>

<para>Persistent Selection can be enabled in the <link
linkend="config-dialog-editor-cursor-selection">Select Page</link> of the <link
linkend="config-dialog">Configuration Dialog</link>.</para>

<warning>
<para>If Persistent Selection and Overwrite Selection are both
enabled, typing or pasting text when the text cursor is inside the
selection will cause it to be replaced and deselected.</para>
</warning>

</sect2>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="kate-part-copy-and-paste">

<title>Copying and Pasting Text</title>

<para>To copy text, select it and use the
<menuchoice><guimenu>Edit</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Copy</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item. Additionally,
selecting text with the mouse will cause selected text to be copied to
the X selection.</para>

<para>To paste the text currently in the clipboard, use the
<menuchoice>
<guimenu>Edit</guimenu><guimenuitem>Paste</guimenuitem></menuchoice>
menu item.</para>

<para>Additionally, text selected with the mouse may be pasted by
clicking the <mousebutton>middle</mousebutton> mouse button at the
desired position.</para>

<tip>
<para>If you are using the &kde; desktop, you can retrieve earlier
copied text from any application using the &klipper; icon in the
&kicker; icon tray.</para>
</tip>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="kate-part-find-replace">
<title>Finding and Replacing Text</title>

<sect2 id="find-replace-dialog">
<title>The <guilabel>Find Text</guilabel> and <guilabel>Replace
Text</guilabel> Dialogs</title>


<para>The Find and Replace Text dialogs in &kate; are very much the
same, except the Replace Text dialog offers the means of entering a
replacement string along with a few extra options.</para>

<para>The dialogs offer the following common options:</para>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Text to Find</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>This is where to enter the search string. The interpretation of the string
depends on some of the options described below.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Regular Expression</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>If checked, the search string is interpreted as a regular
expression. A button for using a graphical tool to create or edit the
expression will be enabled.</para>
<para>See <link linkend="regular-expressions">Regular
Expressions</link> for more on these.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Case Insensitive</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>If enabled, the search will be case insensitive.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Whole Words Only</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>If checked, the search will only match if there is a word
boundary at both ends of the string matching, meaning not an
alphanumeric character - either some other visible character or a line
end.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>From cursor</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>If checked, the search will start at cursor position, otherwise it will
start at the beginning of the first line in the document.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Find Backwards</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>If checked, the search will look for the first match above the
starting point, either cursor position or the beginning of the
document, if the <guilabel>From Beginning</guilabel> option is
enabled.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

<para>The <guilabel>Replace Text</guilabel> Dialog offers some
additional options:</para>

<variablelist>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Replace With</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>This is where to enter the replacement
string.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Selected Text</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>This option is disabled if no text is selected, or if the
<guilabel>Prompt on Replace</guilabel>
option is enabled. If checked, all matches of the search string within
the selected text will be replaced with the replace string.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Prompt on Replace</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>If checked, a small dialog will prompt you for what to
do for each time a match is found. It offers the following options:
<variablelist>

<varlistentry>
<term><guibutton>Yes</guibutton></term>
<listitem><para>Activate this to replace the current match (which is
selected in the editor).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guibutton>No</guibutton></term>
<listitem><para>Activate to skip the current match, and try to find another one.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guibutton>All</guibutton></term>
<listitem><para>Activate to cancel prompting, and just replace all
matches.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guibutton>Close</guibutton></term>
<listitem><para>Activate this to skip the current match and end the
searching.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

<note>
<para>There is currently no way to use minimal matching when searching
for a regular expression. This will be added in a future version of
&kate;</para>
</note>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="finding-text">
<title>Finding Text</title>

<para>To find text, launch the <guilabel>Find Text</guilabel> Dialog
with <keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>F</keycap></keycombo>or
from the <menuchoice><guimenu>Edit</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Find...</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item, enter a
search string, set the <link
linkend="find-replace-dialog">options</link> as desired and hit
<guibutton>Ok</guibutton>. If the search was started at cursor position and no
match was found before reaching the end (or beginning if you are searching
backward) of the document, you will be asked if you want to wrap the search.
</para>

<para>If a match is found it is selected and the <guilabel>Find
Text</guilabel> Dialog is hidden, but stay tuned, finding further
matches is very easy:</para>

<para>To find the next match in the search direction, use the
<menuchoice><guimenu>Edit</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Find
Next</guimenuitem></menuchoice> command or press
<keycap>F3</keycap>.</para>

<para>To find the next match in the opposite direction, use the
<menuchoice><guimenu>Edit</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Find
Previous</guimenuitem></menuchoice> command or press <keycombo
action="simul">&Shift;<keycap>F3</keycap></keycombo>.</para>

<para>If no match is found before reaching the document end (or beginning if you
are searching backward) , you will be asked if you want to wrap the search.
</para>

</sect2>

<sect2>
<title>Replacing Text</title>

<para>To replace text, launch the <guilabel>Replace text</guilabel>
Dialog using the <menuchoice><guimenu>Edit</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Replace</guimenuitem></menuchoice> command, or the
<keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>R</keycap></keycombo> shortcut,
enter a search string and optionally a replace string (if the replace
string is empty, each match will be removed), set
the <link linkend="find-replace-dialog">options</link> as desired and
hit the <guibutton>Ok</guibutton> button.</para>

<tip>
<para>If you are using a regular expression to find the text to replace, you can
employ backreferences to reuse text captured in parenthesized subpatterns of the expression.</para>
<para>See <xref linkend="regular-expressions"/><!-- xref to reg-exp appendix --> for more
on those.</para>
</tip>

<tip><para>You can do <command>find</command>, <command>replace</command> and
<command>ifind</command> (incremental search) from the
<link linkend="advanced-editing-tools-commandline">command line</link>.</para>
</tip>

</sect2>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="kate-part-bookmarks">
<title>Using Bookmarks</title>

<para>The bookmarks feature allows you to mark certain lines, to be
able to easily find them again.</para>

<para>You can set or remove a bookmark in a line in two ways:</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Move the insertion cursor to the line and activate the
<menuchoice><guimenu>Bookmarks</guimenu><guimenuitem>Toggle
Bookmark</guimenuitem></menuchoice> (<keycombo
action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>B</keycap></keycombo>) command.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Click in the Icon Border next to the line.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>


<para>Bookmarks are available in the <guimenu>Bookmarks</guimenu>
menu. The individual bookmarks are available as menu items, labeled
with the line number of the line with the bookmark, and the first few
characters of the text in the line. To move the insertion cursor to
the beginning of a bookmarked line, open the menu and select the
bookmark.</para>

<para>To quickly move between bookmarks or to the next/previous bookmark,
use the <menuchoice><guimenu>Bookmarks</guimenu><guimenuitem>Next</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice> (<keycombo action="simul"><keycap>Ctrl</keycap>
<keycap>Page Down</keycap></keycombo>)  or <menuchoice>
<guimenu>Bookmarks</guimenu><guimenuitem>Previous</guimenuitem></menuchoice>
(<keycombo action="simul"><keycap>Ctrl</keycap><keycap>Page Up</keycap>
</keycombo>) commands.</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="kate-part-auto-wrap">

<title>Automatically Wrapping text</title>

<para>This feature allows you to have the text formatted in a very simple way: the text will be wrapped,
so that no lines exceed a maximum number of characters per line, unless there is a longer string of
non-whitespace characters.</para>

<para>To enable/disable it, check/uncheck the <guibutton>Word Wrap</guibutton> checkbox in the
<link linkend="config-dialog-editor-edit">edit page</link> of the <link linkend="config-dialog">configuration dialog</link>.</para>

<para>To set the maximum line width (maximum characters per line), use the
<link linkend="config-dialog-editor-wrap-words-at"><guibutton>Wrap Words At</guibutton></link>
option in the <link linkend="config-dialog-editor-edit">edit page</link> of the <link linkend="config-dialog">configuration
dialog</link>.</para>

<para>If enabled,
it has the following effects:

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>While typing, the editor will automatically insert a hard line break after
the last whitespace character at a position before the maximum line width is reached.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>While loading a document, the editor will wrap the text in a similar way, so that
no lines are longer than the maximum line width, if they contain any whitespace allowing that.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para>

<note><para>There is currently no way to set word wrap for document types, or even to enable or disable
the feature on document level. This will be fixed in a future version of &kate;</para></note>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="kate-part-autoindent">
<title>Using automatic indenting</title>

<para>&kate;s editor component supports a variation of autoindenting modes,
designed for different text formats. You can pick from the available modes using
the <menuchoice><guimenu>Tools</guimenu><guisubmenu>Indentation</guisubmenu></menuchoice>
menu. The autoindent modules also provides a function
<menuchoice><guimenu>Tools</guimenu><guimenuitem>Align</guimenuitem></menuchoice>
which will recalculate the indentation of the selected or current line. Thus,
you may reindent your entire document by selecting all the text and activating
that action.</para>

<para>All the indent modes use the indentation related settings in the active
document.</para>

<tip><para>You can set all sorts of configuration variables, including
those related to indentation using <link linkend="config-variables">Document
Variables</link> and <link linkend="config-dialog-editor-filetypes">File
types</link>.</para></tip>

<variablelist>

<title>Available Autoindent Modes</title>

<varlistentry>
<term>None</term>
<listitem><para>Selecting this mode turns automatic indenting off entirely.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>Normal</term>
<listitem><para>This indenter simply keeps the indentation similar to the
previous line with any content other than whitespace. You can combine this
with using the indent and unindent actions for indenting to your own taste.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry><term>C Style</term>
<listitem><para>An indenter for C and similar languages, such as
C++, C#, java, javascript and so on. This indenter will not work with scripting
languages such as Perl or PHP.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>SS C Style</term>
<listitem><para>An alternative indenter for C and similar languages, with the
same constraints.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>Python Style</term>
<listitem><para>An indenter specifically for the python scripting language.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>XML</term>
<listitem><para>A very nice XML auto-indenter. However tempting, do not try to
use this with HTML other than XHTML, because it fails with the old style
HTML tags (open tags like for example &lt;br&gt;)</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>Variable Indenter</term>
<listitem>

<note>
<para>The variable indenter is experimental, and may change behavior or
disappear in future versions.</para>
</note>

<para>
The variable indenter is special in that it can be configured using variables in
the document (or in a filetype configuration). The followwing variables are
read:

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>var-indent-indent-after</term>
<listitem>
<para>A regular expression which will cause a line to
be indented by one unit, if the first non-whitespace-only line above matches.
var-indent-indent: A regular expression, which will cause a matching line
to be indented by one unit.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>


<varlistentry>
<term>var-indent-unindent</term>
<listitem>
<para>A regular expression which will cause the line to be
unindented by one unit if matching.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>var-indent-triggerchars</term>
<listitem>
<para>A list of characters that should cause the
indention to be recalculated immediately when typed.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>var-indent-handle-couples</term>
<listitem>
<para>A list of parenthese sets to handle. Any combination
of 'parens' 'braces' and 'brackets'. Each set type is handled
the following way: If there are unmatched opening instances on the above line,
one indent unit is added, if there are unmatched closing instances on the
current line, one indent unit is removed.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><literal>var-indent-couple-attribute</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>When looking for unmatched couple openings/closings,
only characters with this attribute are considered. The value must be the
attribute name from the syntax xml file, for example "Symbol". If it's not
specified, attribute 0 is used (usually 'Normal Text').</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

</sect1>

</chapter>