Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
164 lines (120 loc) · 4.96 KB

help.md

File metadata and controls

164 lines (120 loc) · 4.96 KB
Raw

Flow Control: a programmer's text editor

Terminal configuration

Most terminals have default keybindings that conflict with common editor commands. I highly recommend rebinding them to keys that are not generally used anywhere else.

For Kitty rebinding kitty_mod by adding this line to your kitty.conf is usually enough:

kitty_mod ctrl+alt

For other editors you will probably have to disable or rebind them each individually.

Searching

Press ctrl+f to search this help file. Type a search term and press ctrl+n/ctrl+p or f3/shift+f3 to jump through the matches. Press Enter to exit find mode at the current match or Escape to return to your starting point.

Input Modes

Flow Control supports multiple input modes that may be changed interactively at runtime. The current input mode (and some other settings) is persisted in the configuration file automatically.

  • f2 => Cycle major input modes (flow, vim, ...)

The current input mode is displayed in the at the left side of the statusbar.

  • ctrl+shift+p or alt+x => Show the command palette

The command palette allows you to fuzzy search and select commands to run. It also shows any available keybind that may be used to run the command without opening the palette.

  • ctrl+f2 => Show all available commands and keybinds

This shows all currently available commands. Including commands that are normally only executed via a keybinding. Selecting a command in this view will insert the command name into the current document instead of executing it. This is very useful for editing keybinding definition files.

Run the Edit keybindings command to save the current keybinding mode to a file in the configuration keys directory and open it for editing. Save your customized keybinds under a new name in the same directory to create an entirely new keybinding mode that can be selected with f2. Delete the keybinding file from the configuration keys directory to revert the mode to it's built-in definition (if there is one). Changes to keybinding files will take effect on restart.

Keybinding modes may inherit all non-conflicting keybindings from another mode by adding an inherit option to the settings section of the keybind file like this:

{
    "settings": {
        "inherit": "vim",
    },
    "normal": {
    ...

This allows you to make only minor additions/changes to an existing builtin mode without copying the whole mode and is easier to keep up-to-date.

Flow mode

The default input mode, called just flow, is based on common GUI programming editors. It most closely resembles Visual Studio Code, but also takes some inspiration from Emacs and others. This mode focuses on powerful multi cursor support with a find -> select -> modify cycle style of editing.

See the ctrl+f2 palette when flow mode is selected to see the full list of keybindings for this mode.

Vim mode

The vim modes, shown as NORMAL, INSERT or VISUAL in the status bar, follow the basic modal editing style of vim. The basics follow vim closely, but more advanced vim functions (e.g. macrosand registers) are not supported (yet). Keybindings from flow mode that do not conflict with vim keybindings also work in vim mode.

(work in progress)

Mouse Commands

Mouse commands are not rebindable and are not listed in the command palette.

  • Left Click => Clear all cursors and selections and the place cursor at the mouse pointer

  • Double Left Click => Select word at mouse pointer

  • Triple Left Click => Select line at mouse pointer

  • Drag Left Click => Extend selection to mouse pointer

  • Ctrl + Left Click => Add cursor at mouse click

  • Alt + Left Click => Goto definition of symbol at click

  • hold Alt => Enable jump/hover mouse mode

  • Right Click => Extend selection to mouse pointer

  • Back Button, Forward Button => Jump to previous/next location in the location history

  • Scroll Wheel => Scroll

  • Ctrl + Scroll Wheel => Fast scroll

Configuration

Configuration is stored in the standard location ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/flow/config.json. This is usually ~/.config/flow/config.json.

The default configuration will be written the first time Flow Control is started and looks similar to this:

{
    "frame_rate": 60,
    "theme": "default",
    "input_mode": "flow",
    "gutter_line_numbers": true,
    "gutter_line_numbers_relative": false,
    "enable_terminal_cursor": false,
    "highlight_current_line": true,
    "highlight_current_line_gutter": true,
    "show_whitespace": false,
    "animation_min_lag": 0,
    "animation_max_lag": 150
}

Most of these options are fairly self explanitory.

theme, input_mode and show_whitespace are automatically persisted when changed interactively with keybindings.

frame_rate can be tuned to control the maximum number of frames rendered.

animation_max_lag controls the maximum amount of time allowed for rendering scrolling animations. Set to 0 to disable scrolling animation altogether.