Vim inspired — Faster as in fewer keystrokes — Multiple selections — Orthogonal design
git clone http://github.com/mawww/kakoune.git cd kakoune/src make ./kak
See http://github.com/mawww/golf for kakoune solutions to vimgolf challenges, regularly beating the best vim solution.
See the design document for more information on Kakoune philosophy and design.
Kakoune is a code editor heavily inspired by Vim, as such most of its commands are similar to vi’s ones, and it shares Vi’s "keystrokes as a text editing language" model.
Kakoune can operate 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 (as in keystroke count) with Vim.
Kakoune works on selections, which are oriented, inclusive range of characters, selections have an anchor and a cursor character. Most commands move both of them, except when extending selection where the anchor character stays fixed and the cursor one moves around.
Join us on freenode IRC #Kakoune
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Multiple selections as a central way of interacting
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Powerful selection manipulation primitives
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Select all regex matches in current selections
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Keep selections containing/not containing a match for a given regex
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Split current selections with a regex
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Text objects (paragraph, sentence, nestable blocks)
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Powerful text manipulation primitives
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Align selections
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Rotate selection contents
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Case manipulation
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Indentation
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Piping each selection to external filter
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Client-Server architecture
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Multiple clients on the same editing session
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Use tmux or your X11 window manager to manage windows
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Simple interaction with external programs
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Automatic contextual help
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Automatic as you type completion
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Macros
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Hooks
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Syntax Highlighting
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Supports multiple languages in the same buffer
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Highlight a buffer differently in different windows
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Kakoune dependencies are:
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A C++14 compliant compiler (GCC >= 5 or clang >= 3.9) along with its associated C++ standard library (libstdc++ or libc++)
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ncurses with wide-characters support (>= 5.3, generally referred to as libncursesw)
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asciidoc (for the
a2ktool), to generate man pages
To build, just type make in the src directory. To generate man pages, type make doc in the src directory.
Kakoune can be built on Linux, MacOS, and Cygwin. Due to Kakoune relying heavily on being in a Unix-like environment, no native Windows version is planned.
In order to install kak on your system, rather than running it directly from
its source directory, type make install, you can specify the PREFIX and
DESTDIR if needed.
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Homebrew (OSX)
brew install ncurses Then, to install, brew install --HEAD https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mawww/kakoune/master/contrib/kakoune.rb To update kakoune, brew upgrade --fetch-HEAD kakoune |
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Fedora 22/23/24/Rawhide
Use the copr repository. dnf copr enable jkonecny/kakoune dnf install kakoune |
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Arch Linux
A PKGBUILD kakoune-git to install Kakoune is available in the AUR. # For example build and install Kakoune via yaourt yaourt -Sy kakoune-git |
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Gentoo
Kakoune is found in portage as app-editors/kakoune |
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Exherbo
cave resolve -x repository/mawww cave resolve -x kakoune |
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openSUSE
kakoune can be found in the editors devel project. Make sure to adjust the link below to point to the repository of your openSUSE version. #Example for Tumbleweed: sudo zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/editors/openSUSE_Factory/editors.repo sudo zypper refresh sudo zypper install kakoune |
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Ubuntu
Building on Ubuntu 16.04. Make sure you have .local/bin in your path to make the kak binary available from your shell. sudo apt install libncursesw5-dev asciidoc git clone https://github.com/mawww/kakoune.git && cd kakoune/src make PREFIX=$HOME/.local make install |
Just running kak launch a new kak session with a client on local terminal. kak accepts some switches:
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-c <session>: connect to given session, sessions are unix sockets/tmp/kakoune/<user>/<session>,<user>/<session>can be used as well to connect to another user’s session, provided the socket permissions have been changed to allow it. -
-e <commands>: execute commands on startup -
-n: ignore kakrc file -
-s <session>: set the session name, by default it will be the pid of the initial kak process. -
-d: run Kakoune in daemon mode, without user interface. This requires the session name to be specified with -s. In this mode, the Kakoune server will keep running even if there is no connected client, and will quit when receiving SIGTERM. -
-p <session>: read stdin, and then send its content to the given session acting as a remote control. -
-f <keys>: Work as a filter, read every file given on the command line and stdin if piped in, and apply given keys on each. -
-ui <userinterface>: use given user interface,<userinterface>can be-
ncurses: default terminal user interface -
dummy: empty user interface not displaying anything -
json: json-rpc based user interface that writes json on stdout and read keystrokes as json on stdin.
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-l: list existing sessions, and check the dead ones -
-clear: clear dead session’s socket files -
-ro: prevent modifications to all buffers from being saved to disk -
+line[:column]: specify a target line and column for the first file
There are two directories containing Kakoune’s scripts:
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runtime: located in../share/kak/relative to thekakbinary contains the system scripts, installed with Kakoune. -
userconf: located in$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kak/, which defaults to$HOME/.config/kak/on most systems, containing the user configuration.
Unless -n is specified, Kakoune will load its startup script located
at ${runtime}/kakrc relative to the kak binary. This startup script
is responsible for loading the user configuration.
First, Kakoune will search recursively for .kak files in the autoload
directory. It will first look for an autoload directory at
${userconf}/autoload and will fallback to ${runtime}/autoload if
it does not exist.
Once all those files are loaded, Kakoune will try to source
${runtime}/kakrc.local which is expected to contain distribution provided
configuration.
And finally, the user configuration will be loaded from ${userconf}/kakrc.
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Note
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If you create a user autoload directory in ${userconf}/autoload,
the system one at ${runtime}/autoload will not be loaded anymore. You can
add a symbolic link to it (or to individual scripts) inside
${userconf}/autoload to keep loading system scripts.
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The main concept in Kakoune is the selection. A selection is an inclusive, directed range of character. A selection has two ends, the anchor and the cursor.
There is always at least one selection, and a selection is always at least one character (in which case the anchor and cursor of the selections are on the same character).
In normal mode, keys are not inserted directly inside the buffer, but are editing commands. These commands provide ways to manipulate either the selections themselves, or the selected text.
When entering insert mode, keys are now directly inserted before each selection’s cursor. Some additional keys are recognised in insert mode:
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<esc>: leave insert mode -
<backspace>: delete characters before cursors -
<del>: delete characters under cursors -
<left>, <right>, <up>, <down>: move the cursors in given direction -
<home>: move cursors to line begin -
<end>: move cursors to end of line -
<c-n>: select next completion candidate -
<c-p>: select previous completion candidate -
<c-x>: explicit insert completion query, followed by:-
f: explicit file completion -
w: explicit word completion -
l: explicit line completion
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<c-o>: disable automatic completion for this insert session -
<c-r>: insert contents of the register given by next key -
<c-v>: insert next keystroke directly into the buffer, without interpreting it. -
<c-u>: commit changes up to now as a single undo group. -
<a-;>: escape to normal mode for a single command
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h: select the character on the left of selection end -
j: select the character below the selection end -
k: select the character above the selection end -
l: select the character on the right of selection end -
w: select the word and following whitespaces on the right of selection end -
b: select preceding whitespaces and the word on the left of selection end -
e: select preceding whitespaces and the word on the right of selection end -
<a-[wbe]>: same as [wbe] but select WORD instead of word -
f: select to the next occurence of given character -
t: select until the next occurence of given character -
<a-[ft]>: same as [ft] but in the other direction -
m: select to matching character -
M: extend selection to matching character -
x: select line on which selection end lies (or next line when end lies on an end-of-line) -
X: similar tox, except the current selection is extended -
<a-x>: expand selections to contain full lines (including end-of-lines) -
<a-X>: trim selections to only contain full lines (not including last end-of-line) -
%: select whole buffer -
<a-h>: select to line begin -
<a-l>: select to line end -
/: search (select next match) -
<a-/>: search (select previous match) -
?: search (extend to next match) -
<a-?>: search (extend to previous match) -
n: select next match -
N: add a new selection with next match -
<a-n>: select previous match -
<a-N>: add a new selection with previous match -
pageup, <c-b>: scroll one page up -
pagedown, <c-f>: scroll one page down -
<c-u>: scroll half a page up -
<c-d>: scroll half a page down -
': rotate selections (the main selection becomes the next one) -
<a-'>: rotate selections backwards -
;: reduce selections to their cursor -
<a-;>: flip the selections' direction -
<a-:>: ensure selections are in forward direction (cursor after anchor) -
<a-.>: repeat last object orf/tselection command.
A word is a sequence of alphanumeric characters or underscore, a WORD is a sequence of non whitespace characters.
for most selection commands, using shift permits extending current selection
instead of replacing it. for example, wWW selects 3 consecutive words
Most selection commands also support counts, which are entered before the command itself.
For example, 3W selects 3 consecutive words and 3w select the third word on
the right of selection end.
Any normal mode command can be prefixed with \ which will disable hook execution
for the duration for the command (including the duration of modes the command could
move to, so \i will disable hooks for the whole insert session).
As autoindentation is implemented in terms of hooks, this can be used to disable it when pasting text.
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i: enter insert mode before current selection -
a: enter insert mode after current selection -
d: yank and delete current selection -
c: yank and delete current selection and enter insert mode -
.: repeat last insert mode change (i,a, orc, including the inserted text) -
<a-d>: delete current selection -
<a-c>: delete current selection and enter insert mode -
I: enter insert mode at current selection begin line start -
A: enter insert mode at current selection end line end -
o: enter insert mode in one (or given count) new lines below current selection end -
O: enter insert mode in one (or given count) new lines above current selection begin -
<a-o>: add an empty line below cursor -
<a-O>: add an empty line above cursor -
y: yank selections -
p: paste after current selection end -
P: paste before current selection begin -
<a-p>: paste all after current selection end, and select each pasted string. -
<a-P>: paste all before current selection begin, and select each pasted string. -
R: replace current selection with yanked text -
<a-R>: replace current selection with every yanked text -
r: replace each character with the next entered one -
<a-j>: join selected lines -
<a-J>: join selected lines and select spaces inserted in place of line breaks -
<a-m>: merge contiguous selections together (works across lines as well) -
<gt> (>): indent selected lines -
<a-gt>: indent selected lines, including empty lines -
<lt> (<): deindent selected lines -
<a-lt>: deindent selected lines, do not remove incomplete indent (3 leading spaces when indent is 4) -
|: pipe each selection through the given external filter program and replace the selection with it’s output. -
<a-|>: pipe each selection through the given external filter program and ignore its output -
!: insert command output before selection -
<a-!>: append command output after selection -
u: undo last change -
<a-u>: move backward in history -
U: redo last change -
<a-U>: move forward in history -
&: align selection, align the cursor of selections by inserting spaces before the first character of the selection -
<a-&>: copy indent, copy the indentation of the main selection (or the count one if a count is given) to all other ones -
`: to lower case -
~: to upper case -
<a->`: swap case -
@: convert tabs to spaces in current selections, uses the buffer tabstop option or the count parameter for tabstop. -
<a-@>: convert spaces to tabs in current selections, uses the buffer tabstop option or the count parameter for tabstop. -
<a-">: rotate selections content, if specified, the count groups selections, so3<a-">rotate (1, 2, 3) and (3, 4, 6) independently.
Commands beginning with g are used to goto certain position and or buffer.
If a count is given prior to hitting g, g will jump to the given line.
Using G will extend the selection rather than jump.
Commands beginning with v permit to center or scroll the current
view. Using V will lock view mode until <esc> is hit
Current selections position can be saved in a register and restored later on.
By default, marks use the '^' register, but using the register can be set
using "<reg>
5D32
; prefix.
Z will save the current selections to the register.
<a-Z> will combine the current selections to the register.
z will restore the selections from the register.
<a-z> will combine the selections from the register with the existing ones.
When combining selections, kakoune will prompt for a combining mode:
+ will append selections from both lists into a single list
< will select the selection with the leftmost cursor for each pair
> will select the selection with the rightmost cursor for each pair
Some commands, like the goto commands, buffer switch or search commands, push the previous selections to the client’s jump list. It is possible to forward or backward in the jump list using:
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<c-i>: Jump forward -
<c-o>: Jump backward -
<c-s>: save current selections
Kak was designed from the start to handle multiple selections.
One way to get a multiselection is via the s key.
For example, to change all occurrences of word 'roger' to word 'marcel' in a paragraph, here is what can be done:
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select the paragraph with enough
x -
press
sand enter roger, then enter -
now paragraph selection was replaced with multiselection of each roger in the paragraph
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press
cand marcel<esc> to replace rogers with marcels
A multiselection can also be obtained with S, which splits the current
selection according to the regex entered. To split a comma separated list,
use S then ', *'
The regex syntax supported by Kakoune is the Perl one and is described here Regex syntax.
s and S share the search pattern with /, and hence entering an empty
pattern uses the last one.
As a convenience, <a-s> allows you to split the current selections on
line boundaries.
To clear multiple selections, use space. To keep only the nth selection
use n followed by space, in order to remove a selection, use <a-space>.
<a-k> allows you to enter a regex and keep only the selections that
contains a match for this regex. Using <a-K> you can keep the selections
not containing a match.
C copies the current selection to the next line (or lines if a count is given)
<a-C> does the same to previous lines.
$ allows you to enter a shell command and pipe each selection to it.
Selections whose shell command returns 0 will be kept, other will be dropped.
Some keys allow you to select a text object:
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<a-a>: selects the whole object -
<a-i>: selects the inner object, that is the object excluding its surrounder. For example, for a quoted string, this will not select the quote, and for a word this will not select trailing spaces. -
[: selects to object start -
]: selects to object end -
{: extends selections to object start -
}: extends selections to object end
After this key, you need to enter a second key in order to specify which object you want.
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b,(or): select the enclosing parenthesis -
B,{or}: select the enclosing {} block -
r,[or]: select the enclosing [] block -
a,<or>: select the enclosing <> block -
"orQ: select the enclosing double quoted string -
'orq: select the enclosing single quoted string -
`org: select the enclosing grave quoted string -
w: select the whole word -
W: select the whole WORD -
s: select the sentence -
p: select the paragraph -
␣: select the whitespaces -
i: select the current indentation block -
n: select the number -
u: select the argument -
c: select user defined object, will prompt for open and close text.
For nestable objects, a count can be used in order to specify which surrounding level to select.
When pressing : in normal mode, Kakoune will open a prompt to enter a command.
Commands are used for non editing tasks, such as opening a buffer, writing the current one, quitting, etc.
A few keys are recognized by prompt mode to help edit a command:
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<ret>: validate prompt -
<esc>: abandon without -
<left> or <a-h>: move cursor to previous character -
<right> or <a-l>: move cursor to previous character -
<home>: move cursor to first character -
<end>: move cursor past the last character -
<backspace> or <a-x>: erase character before cursor -
<del> or <a-d>: erase character under cursor -
<c-w>: advance to next word begin -
<c-a-w>: advance to next WORD begin -
<c-b>: go back to previous word begin -
<c-a-b>: go back to previous WORD begin -
<c-e>: advance to next word end -
<c-a-e>: advance to next word end -
<up> or <c-p>: select previous entry in history -
<down> or <c-n>: select next entry in history -
<tab>: select next completion candidate -
<backtab>: select previous completion candidate -
<c-r>: insert then content of the register given by next key. -
<c-v>: insert next keystroke without interpreting it -
<c-o>: disable auto completion for this prompt
Commands starting with horizontal whitespace (e.g. a space) will not be saved in the command history.
Some commands take an exclamation mark (!), which can be used to force
the execution of the command (i.e. to quit a modified buffer, the
command q! has to be used).
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cd [<directory>]: change the current directory to<directory>, or the home directory if unspecified -
doc <topic>: display documentation about a topic. The completion list displays the available topics. -
e[dit][!] <filename> [<line> [<column>]]: open buffer on file, go to given line and column. If file is already opened, just switch to this file. Use edit! to force reloading. -
w[rite][!] [<filename>]: write buffer to <filename> or use its name if filename is not given. If the file is write-protected, its permissions are temporarily changed to allow saving the buffer and restored afterwards when the write! command is used. -
w[rite]a[ll]: write all buffers that are associated to a file. -
q[uit][!] [<exit status>]: exit Kakoune, use quit! to force quitting even if there is some unsaved buffers remaining. If specified, the client exit status will be set to <exit status>. -
w[a]q[!] [<exit status>]: write the current buffer (or all buffers whenwaqis used) and quit. If specified, the client exit status will be set to <exit status>. -
kill[!]: terminate the current session, all the clients as well as the server, use kill! to ignore unsaved buffers -
b[uffer] <name>: switch to buffer <name> -
b[uffer]n[ext]: switch to the next buffer -
b[uffer]p[rev]: switch to the previous buffer -
d[el]b[uf][!] [<name>]: delete the buffer <name> -
source <filename>: execute commands in <filename> -
colorscheme <name>: load named colorscheme. -
rename-client <name>: set current client name -
rename-buffer <name>: set current buffer name -
rename-session <name>: set current session name -
echo [options] <text>: show <text> in status line, with the following options:-
-markup: expand the markup strings in <text> -
-debug: print the given text to the*debug*buffer
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nop: does nothing, but as with every other commands, arguments may be evaluated. So nop can be used for example to execute a shell command while being sure that it’s output will not be interpreted by kak.:%sh{ echo echo tchou }will echo tchou in Kakoune, whereas:nop %sh{ echo echo tchou }will not, but both will execute the shell command. -
fail <text>: raise an error, uses <text> as its description
Multiple commands can be separated either by new lines or by semicolons,
as such a semicolon must be escaped with \; to be considered as a literal
semicolon argument.
Values, options and shell context can be interpolated in strings.
See :doc expansions.
If not launched with the -n switch, Kakoune will source the
../share/kak/kakrc file relative to the kak binary, which
will source additional files:
If the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kak/autoload directory exists, load every
*.kak files in it, and load recursively any subdirectory.
If it does not exist, falls back to the site wide autoload directory
in ../share/kak/autoload/.
After that, if it exists, source the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kak/kakrc file
which should be used for user configuration.
In order to continue autoloading site-wide files with a local autoload
directory, just add a symbolic link to ../share/kak/autoload/ into
your local autoload directory.
Kakoune can store named and typed values that can be used both to customize the core editor behaviour, and to keep data used by extension scripts.
See :doc options.
Faces describe how characters are displayed on the screen: color, bold, italic…
See :doc faces.
Registers are named lists of text. They are used for various purposes, like storing the last yanked text, or the captured groups associated with the selections.
See :doc registers.
Kakoune can record and replay a sequence of key presses.
Macros are recorded with the Q key, and are stored by default in the @
register. Another register can be chosen by with hitting "<reg> before
the Q key.
To replay a macro, use the q key.
Using the * key, you can set the search pattern to the current selection.
This tries to be intelligent. It will for example detect if the current selection
begins and/or ends at word boundaries and set the search pattern accordingly.
With <a-*> you can set the search pattern to the current selection without
Kakoune trying to be smart.
Kakoune regex syntax is based on the ECMAScript syntax (ECMA-262 standard). It always run on Unicode codepoint sequences, not on bytes.
See :doc regex.
The execute-keys and evaluate-commands are useful for scripting
in non interactive contexts.
See :doc execeval.
Kakoune can propose completions while inserting text, the completers option
controls automatic completion, which kicks in when a certain idle timeout is
reached (see idle_timeout option). Insert mode completion can be explicitly triggered
using <c-x>, followed, by:
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f : filename completion
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w : word completion (current buffer)
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W : word completion (all buffers)
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l : line completion (current buffer)
Completion candidates can be selected using <c-n> and <c-p>.
From insert mode, pressing <a-;> allows you to execute a single normal mode
command. This provides a few advantages:
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The selections are not modified: when leaving insert mode using
<esc>the selections can change, for example when insert mode was entered withathe cursor will go back one char. Or if on an end of line the cursor will go back left (if possible). -
The modes are nested: that means the normal mode can enter prompt (with
:), or any other modes (using:on-keyor:menufor example), and these modes will get back to the insert mode afterwards.
This feature is tailored for scripting/macros, as it provides a more predictable
behaviour than leaving insert mode with <esc>, executing normal mode command
and entering back insert mode (with which binding ?)
Manipulation of the displayed text, such as syntax coloration and wrapping is done through highlighters.
See :doc highlighters.
Commands can be registered to be executed when certain events arise with hooks.
See :doc hooks.
New commands can be created using :define-command.
Some helper commands are available to define composite commands.
With :alias commands can be given additional names. Aliases are scoped, so
that an alias can refer to one command for a buffer, and to another for another
buffer. The following command defines <alias> as an alias for <command>:
:alias <scope> <alias> <command>
<scope> can be one of global, buffer or window.
:unalias <scope> <alias> [<expected>]
Will remove the given alias in the given scope. If <expected> is specified
the alias will only be removed if its current value is <expected>.
The :edit command can take a -fifo parameter:
:edit -fifo <filename> [-scroll] <buffername>
In this case, a buffer named <buffername> is created which reads its content
from fifo <filename>. When the fifo is written to, the buffer is automatically
updated.
If the -scroll switch is specified, the initial cursor position will be made
such as the window displaying the buffer will scroll as new data is read.
This is very useful for running some commands asynchronously while displaying
their result in a buffer. See rc/make.kak and rc/grep.kak for examples.
When the buffer is deleted, the fifo will be closed, so any program writing
to it will receive SIGPIPE. This is useful as it permits to stop the writing
program when the buffer is deleted.