kak
— a
vim-inspired, selection oriented code editor
kak |
[-d ] [-n ]
[-ro ] [-c
session_id | -s
session_id] [-ui
ui_type] [-e
command] [-E
command]
[+line[:column]
| +:] [file ...] |
kak |
-f keys
[-q ] [-i
suffix] [file ...] |
Kakoune is a code editor heavily inspired by
vim(1) and
vi(1). As
such, most of its commands are similar to
vi(1)'s,
sharing its “keystrokes as a text editing language” model.
Kakoune operates in two modes, normal and
insertion. In insertion mode, keys are directly inserted into the current
buffer. In normal mode, keys are used to manipulate the current selection
and to enter insertion mode.
Kakoune has a strong focus on interactivity.
Most commands provide immediate and incremental results, while still being
competitive in keystroke count with vim.
Kakoune works on selections, which are oriented,
inclusive ranges of characters. Selections have an anchor and a cursor. Most
commands move both of them except when extending selection, where the anchor
character stays fixed and the cursor moves around.
The options are as follows:
-help
- Display a help message and quit.
-version
- Display Kakoune version and quit.
-n
- Do not load the system's kakrc. (often,
/usr/share/kak/kakrc)
-l
- List existing sessions.
-d
- Run as a headless session (requires
-s
).
-e
command
- Execute command after the client initialization
phase.
-E
command
- Execute command after the server initialization
phase.
-f
keys
- Run Kakoune in ‘filter mode’, like
sed(1).
For standard input and each file named on the command line, the whole
buffer is selected (as with
%
) then
keys are executed. The filtered version of standard
input is written to standard output. Any files mentioned on the command
line are modified in-place, but if -i
is provided
then Kakoune makes a backup of the original version.
-i
suffix
- Backup the files on which a filter is applied, using the given
suffix.
-q
- When in ‘filter mode’, don't print any errors
-p
session_id
- Send the commands written on the standard input to session
session_id.
-c
session_id
- Connect to the given session session_id.
-s
session_id
- Set the current session name to session_id.
-ui
type
- Select the user interface type, which can be
terminal,
dummy,
or
json.
-clear
- Remove sessions that were terminated in an incorrect state (e.g. after a
crash).
-ro
- Begin in
readonly
mode, all the buffers opened will not be written to disk.
- +line[:column]
| +:
- Specify a target line and column for the first file. When the plus sign is
followed by only a colon, then the cursor is sent to the last line of the
file.
- file ...
- One or more file(s) to edit.
KAKOUNE_POSIX_SHELL
- Overrides the POSIX shell used for
%sh{...}
expansion, which is /bin/sh
(sh(1))
if unset.
KAKOUNE_CONFIG_DIR
- Overrides the location of the directory containing Kakoune user
configuration. If unset, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kak is
used.
KAKOUNE_RUNTIME
- Overrides the location of the directory containing the Kakoune support
files. If unset, location is determined from Kakoune's binary
location.
XDG_CONFIG_HOME
- Path to the user's configuration directory. If unset,
$HOME/.config is used.
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
- Path to the user's session's sockets. If unset,
$TMPDIR/kakoune is used.
In the paths documented below,
<rtdir> refers to the runtime directory, whose
value is determined in relation to the path to kak
's
binary location if $KAKOUNE_RUNTIME is not set:
<rtdir> =
<path_to_kak_binary>/../share/kak.
If not started with the -n
switch,
kak
will first load
<rtdir>/kakrc, which will in turn load the
following additional files:
- If the $KAKOUNE_CONFIG_DIR/autoload directory
exists, recursively load every *.kak file in it,
and its sub-directories.
- If it does not exist, fall back to the system-wide autoload directory in
<rtdir>/autoload, and recursively load all
files in a similar way.
- <rtdir>/kakrc.local, if it exists; this is a
user-defined system-wide configuration.
- $KAKOUNE_CONFIG_DIR/kakrc, if it exists; this is
the user configuration.
Consequently, if the
$KAKOUNE_CONFIG_DIR/autoload directory exists, only
scripts stored within that directory will be loaded — the built-in
*.kak files will not be.
Users who still want the built-in scripts to be loaded along their
own can create a symbolic link to
<rtdir>/autoload (or to individual scripts in
it) in their user-configuration directory:
ln -s <rtdir>/autoload
${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config} /kak/autoload
- Edit a file:
kak
/path/to/file
- Edit multiple files (multiple buffers will be created):
kak
./file1.txt
/path/to/file2.c
- Prepend a modeline that sets the tabstop to multiple files:
kak
-f
"ggO// kak:
tabstop=8<esc>" *.c