
---------------------------------------------------------------------

K Kakoune https://api.cirrus-ci.com/github/mawww/kakoune.svg https://
builds.sr.ht/~mawww/kakoune.svg https://img.shields.io/badge/
IRC-%23kakoune-blue.svg

---------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Table of Contents

1. TL;DR
2. Introduction
    2.1. Features
    2.2. Screenshots
3. Getting started
    3.1. Building
    3.2. Installing
    3.3. Running
4. Basic Interaction
    4.1. Selections
    4.2. Normal Mode
    4.3. Insert Mode
    4.4. Movement
    4.5. Appending
    4.6. Using Counts
    4.7. Disabling Hooks
    4.8. Changes
    4.9. Goto Commands
    4.10. View commands
    4.11. Marks
    4.12. Jump list
    4.13. Multi Selection
    4.14. Object Selection
5. Commands
    5.1. Basic Commands
    5.2. Multiple commands
6. Configuration & Autoloading
    6.1. Kakrc
    6.2. Color Schemes
7. Options
8. Advanced topics
    8.1. Faces
    8.2. Registers
    8.3. Macros
    8.4. Search selection
    8.5. Regex syntax
    8.6. Exec and Eval
    8.7. Insert mode completion
    8.8. Escape to normal mode
    8.9. Highlighters
    8.10. Hooks
    8.11. Key Mapping
    8.12. Defining Commands and Aliases
    8.13. FIFO Buffers
9. Credits


---------------------------------------------------------------------

1. TL;DR

---------------------------------------------------------------------

https://kakoune.org

Modal editor — Faster as in fewer keystrokes — Multiple selections — 
Orthogonal design

git clone https://github.com/mawww/kakoune.git
cd kakoune
make
./src/kak

See https://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’s philosophy
and design.


---------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Introduction

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Kakoune is a code editor that implements Vi’s "keystrokes as a text
editing language" model. As it is also a modal editor, it is somewhat
similar to the Vim editor (after which Kakoune was originally
inspired).

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 being competitive with Vim
in terms of keystroke count.

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 selections, where the anchor
character stays fixed and the cursor moves around.

See https://vimeo.com/82711574

Join us on libera IRC #Kakoune


2.1. Features

--------------

  * Multiple selections as a central way of interacting
  * Powerful selection manipulation primitives

      + Select all regex matches in current selections
      + Keep selections containing/not containing a match for a given
        regex
      + Split current selections with a regex
      + Text objects (paragraph, sentence, nestable blocks)
  * Powerful text manipulation primitives

      + Align selections
      + Rotate selection contents
      + Case manipulation
      + Indentation
      + Piping each selection to external filter
  * Client-Server architecture

      + Multiple clients on the same editing session
      + Use tmux or your X11 window manager to manage windows
  * Simple interaction with external programs
  * Automatic contextual help
  * Automatic as you type completion
  * Macros
  * Hooks
  * Syntax Highlighting

      + Supports multiple languages in the same buffer
      + Highlight a buffer differently in different windows


2.2. Screenshots

--------------

Figure 1. Kakoune in i3

Kakoune in i3


Figure 2. Kakoune in tmux

Kakoune in tmux


---------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Getting started

---------------------------------------------------------------------


3.1. Building

--------------

Kakoune’s dependencies are:

  * 

To build, just type make in the src directory. To generate man pages,
type make man 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.


3.2. Installing

--------------

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.

Homebrew (macOS) or Linuxbrew

brew install kakoune

MacPorts (macOS)

sudo port selfupdate
sudo port install kakoune

Fedora supported versions and Rawhide

dnf install kakoune

Fedora daily builds

Use the copr repository.

dnf copr enable jkonecny/kakoune
dnf install kakoune

RHEL/CentOS 8

Kakoune can be found in the EPEL8 repositories.

dnf install kakoune

Arch Linux

Kakoune is found in the repositories.

pacman -S kakoune

Gentoo

Kakoune is found in portage as app-editors/kakoune.

emerge kakoune

Installation and Gentoo specific documentation is available.

Exherbo

cave resolve -x repository/mawww
cave resolve -x kakoune

openSUSE

Kakoune can be found in the repositories.

sudo zypper install kakoune

Ubuntu

Kakoune can be found in the Ubuntu repositories.

sudo apt install kakoune

If you want to compile from source on 20.04 or earlier, you must
force the build to use GCC 10, which is not the default. Also, make
sure you have .local/bin in your path so that kak is available after
the installation.

git clone https://github.com/mawww/kakoune.git && cd kakoune/src
CXX=g++-10 make
make PREFIX=$HOME/.local install

Debian

Kakoune can be found in Debian 9 (Stretch) and later releases.

sudo apt install kakoune

FreeBSD

Kakoune is available in the official ports tree as editors/kakoune.

A binary package is also available and can be installed with

pkg install kakoune

OpenBSD

Building on OpenBSD 6.7 amd64.

# pkg_add git gmake
# git clone https://github.com/mawww/kakoune
# cd kakoune
# export CXX=clang++
# gmake install

Kakoune is available in the 6.7-current port tree as editors/kakoune

A binary package is also available for -current snapshot and can be
installed with

# pkg_add kakoune

Running with support for plugins.

# pkg_add dash
$ export KAKOUNE_POSIX_SHELL=/usr/local/bin/dash
$ kak

Solus

Kakoune is available in the Solus stable repository.

It can be installed with

eopkg install kakoune

Void

Kakoune is available in the repositories.

It can be installed with

xbps-install -S kakoune

Termux

Kakoune is available in the repositories.

It can be installed with

pkg install kakoune

Nix

nix-env -iA nixpkgs.kakoune


3.3. Running

--------------

Running kak launches a new kak session with a client on local
terminal. Run kak -help to discover the valid command line flags.

3.3.1. Configuration

There are two directories containing Kakoune’s scripts:

  * runtime: located in ../share/kak/ relative to the kak binary
    contains the system scripts, installed with Kakoune.
  * userconf: located in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kak/, which will fallback
    to $HOME/.config/kak/ if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set, 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.

Finally, the user configuration will load from ${userconf}/kakrc.

Note

If you create a user autoload directory in ${userconf}/autoload, the
system one at ${runtime}/autoload will not load anymore. You can add
a symbolic link to it (or to individual scripts) inside ${userconf}/
autoload to keep loading system scripts.


---------------------------------------------------------------------

4. Basic Interaction

---------------------------------------------------------------------


4.1. Selections

--------------

The main concept in Kakoune is the selection. A selection is an
inclusive, directed range of characters. 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
selection are on the same character).


4.2. Normal Mode

--------------

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.


4.3. Insert Mode

--------------

When entering insert mode, keys are now directly inserted before each
selection’s cursor. Some additional keys are recognised in insert
mode:

  * <esc>: leave insert mode
  * <backspace>: delete characters before cursors
  * <del>: delete characters under cursors
  * <left>, <right>, <up>, <down>: move cursors in given direction
  * <home>: move cursors to line beginning
  * <end>: move cursors to line ending
  * <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
  * <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


4.4. Movement

--------------

See ??? below for instructions on extending (appending to) the
current selection in order to select more text.

  * 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 (including) the next occurrence of the given
    character
  * t: select until (excluding) the next occurrence of the given
    character
  * <a-[ft]>: same as [ft] but in the other direction
  * m: select to matching character
  * M: extend selection to matching character
  * 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)
  * (: 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 or f/t selection command.
  * _: trim selections

A word is a sequence of alphanumeric characters or underscore, a WORD
is a sequence of non whitespace characters.


4.5. Appending

--------------

For most ??? commands, using Shift extends the current selection
instead of replacing it.

Examples:

  * wWW selects 3 consecutive words: first w selects a word, then WW
    extends the selection two words further.
  * f/F/ selects up to and including the second / character forward.


4.6. Using Counts

--------------

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.


4.7. Disabling Hooks

--------------

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.


4.8. Changes

--------------

  * i: enter insert mode before each selection
  * a: enter insert mode after each selection
  * d: yank and delete each selection
  * c: yank and delete each selection and enter insert mode
  * .: repeat last insert mode change (i, a, or c, including the
    inserted text)
  * <a-d>: delete each selection
  * <a-c>: delete each selection and enter insert mode
  * I: enter insert mode at each selection begin line start
  * A: enter insert mode at each selection end line end
  * o: enter insert mode in one (or given count) new lines below each
    selection end
  * O: enter insert mode in one (or given count) new lines above each
    selection begin
  * <a-o>: add an empty line below each cursor
  * <a-O>: add an empty line above each cursor
  * y: yank selections
  * p: paste after each selection end
  * P: paste before each selection begin
  * <a-p>: paste all after each selection end
  * <a-P>: paste all before each selection begin
  * R: replace each selection with yanked text
  * <a-R>: replace each 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-_>: 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 its output.
  * <a-|>: pipe each selection through the given external filter
    program and ignore its output
  * !: insert command output before each selection
  * <a-!>: append command output after each selection
  * u: undo last change
  * <c-k>: move backward in history
  * <a-u>: undo selection changes
  * U: redo last change
  * <c-j>: move forward in history
  * <a-U>: redo selection changes
  * &: align selections, 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 selected tabs to spaces, uses the buffer tabstop
    option or the count parameter for tabstop.
  * <a-@>: convert selected spaces to tabs, uses the buffer tabstop
    option or the count parameter for tabstop.
  * <a-)>: rotate selections content, if specified, the count groups
    selections, so 3<a-)> rotate (1, 2, 3) and (4, 5, 6)
    independently.
  * <a-(>: rotate selections content backwards


4.9. Goto Commands

--------------

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.

See :doc keys goto-commands.


4.10. View commands

--------------

Commands beginning with v permit to center or scroll the current
view. Using V will lock view mode until <esc> is hit

See :doc keys view-commands.


4.11. Marks

--------------

Current selections position can be saved in a register and restored
later on.

See :doc keys marks.


4.12. Jump list

--------------

Some commands, like the goto commands, buffer switch or search
commands, push the previous selections to the client’s jump list.

See :doc keys jump-list.


4.13. Multi Selection

--------------

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:

  * select the paragraph with x then enough J
  * press s and enter roger, then enter
  * now paragraph selection was replaced with multiselection of each
    roger in the paragraph
  * press c and 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 based on the ECMAScript
script syntax and is described at :doc regex.

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 ,. To keep only the nth selection
use n followed by ,, in order to remove a selection, use <a-,>.

<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 duplicates selections on the lines that follow them. <a-C> does the
same but on the preceding 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.


4.14. Object Selection

--------------

Objects are specific portions of text, like sentences, paragraphs,
numbers… Kakoune offers many keys allowing you to select various text
objects.

See :doc keys object-selection.


---------------------------------------------------------------------

5. Commands

---------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

See :doc keys prompt-commands.


5.1. Basic Commands

--------------

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).

Commands starting with horizontal whitespace (e.g. a space) will not
be saved in the command history.

  * 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 when waq is 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
  * 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 its 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


5.2. Multiple commands

--------------

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.

5.2.1. String syntax and expansions

Values, options and shell context can be interpolated in strings.

See :doc expansions.


---------------------------------------------------------------------

6. Configuration & Autoloading

---------------------------------------------------------------------


6.1. Kakrc

--------------

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.


6.2. Color Schemes

--------------

Kakoune ships with some color schemes that are installed to ../share/
kak/colors/. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kak/colors/ is present the builtin
command colorscheme will offer completion for those color schemes. If
a scheme is duplicated in userspace, it will take precedence.


---------------------------------------------------------------------

7. Options

---------------------------------------------------------------------

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.


---------------------------------------------------------------------

8. Advanced topics

---------------------------------------------------------------------


8.1. Faces

--------------

Faces describe how characters are displayed on the screen: color,
bold, italic…

See :doc faces.


8.2. Registers

--------------

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.


8.3. Macros

--------------

Kakoune can record and replay a sequence of key presses.

See :doc keys macros.


8.4. Search selection

--------------

Using the * key, you can set the search pattern to the current
selection. See :doc keys searching.


8.5. Regex syntax

--------------

Kakoune regex syntax is based on the ECMAScript syntax (ECMA-262
standard). It always runs on Unicode codepoint sequences, not on
bytes.

See :doc regex.


8.6. Exec and Eval

--------------

The execute-keys and evaluate-commands are useful for scripting in
non interactive contexts.

See :doc execeval.


8.7. Insert mode completion

--------------

Kakoune can propose completions while inserting text: filenames,
words, lines…

See :doc keys insert-mode-completion.


8.8. Escape to normal mode

--------------

From insert mode, pressing <a-;> allows you to execute a single
normal mode command. This provides a few advantages:

  * The selections are not modified: when leaving insert mode using
    <esc> the selections can change, for example when insert mode was
    entered with a the 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-key or :menu for
    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
?)

See :doc modes.


8.9. Highlighters

--------------

Manipulation of the displayed text, such as syntax coloration and
wrapping is done through highlighters.

See :doc highlighters.


8.10. Hooks

--------------

Commands can be registered to be executed when certain events arise
with hooks.

See :doc hooks.


8.11. Key Mapping

--------------

Custom key shortcuts can be registered through mappings.

See :doc mapping.


8.12. Defining Commands and Aliases

--------------

New commands can be created using :define-command.

See :doc commands declaring-new-commands.

They can be given additional short names depending of the scope with
:alias.

See :doc commands aliases.

Some helper commands are available to define composite commands.

See :doc commands helpers.


8.13. FIFO Buffers

--------------

FIFO buffers are very useful for running some commands asynchronously
while progressively displaying their result in Kakoune.

See :doc buffers fifo-buffers.


---------------------------------------------------------------------

9. Credits

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to p0nce for designing the Kakoune logo.

And thanks to all the contributors who help move the project forward!

