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Welcome to the kakoune wiki!

The wiki is world writable, so do not hesitate to add information you found useful in it. (See revisions history)

It offers extra knowledge complementing common topics covered in the README and in the official kakoune doc. So be sure to read those documents beforehand.

If you need more help, don't hesitate to ask on:

• libera IRC #kakoune
• discuss (forum / mailing list)
• https://www.reddit.com/r/kakoune/

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Onboarding

• Why Kakoune?
• Walkthrough / tutorial
• Vimtutor-like tutorial
• Migrating from Vim
• Migrating from Vim popular plugins
• Migrating from Vis

Keys

• Normal mode commands — cheat sheet of all keys used in normal mode (also with alt, ctrl)
• Avoid the escape key — leave insert mode quickly
• Ambiguous Keys - how to deal with <c-i> versus <tab> in the terminal
• Implementing user mode (Leader key) — organize personal mappings
• Kakoune explain — translate kakoune keys sequence to plain english
• Kakoune TV — screencasts with keys explanations

Editing

• Indentation & Tabulation — tabs vs spaces
• Wrapping — stop at 80chars
• Selections — derived text manipulation primitives
• Selections Combinations — discover <a-z> and <a-Z>
• Regex — expressions used in prompt, for searching, splitting, filtering…
• Undo tree — navigate through history
• Increment and Decrement
• Reverse search - <a-/>

Configuring

• Running commands at startup - How to use the kakrc file and autoload directory
• Setting Plugin Options - Some plugins' options can't just be set directly in kakrc

Emulation in other Editors

• Emacs - kakoune.el
• VS Code:
  • Dance: Kakoune emulation in native operations
  • kakoune-mode: Kakoune process used as editing driver

User Interface

Tips to customize the way kakoune looks in the terminal

• Highlighters — enhance buffer content, with syntax color
• Line flags — line numbers, gutter signs
• Status line — modeline
• Info boxes — interactive help
• Kakoune Ink — online editor to build colorschemes
• Highlight status line - distinguish between focused and unfocused clients in tmux

Integration with OS and other tools

• Languages — support for C, C++, Java, Python…
• IDE — organize multiple windows
• Bar – use lemonbar / polybar to display extra info like the buffer list
• Kak daemon helper : 1 session per project
• Registers & Clipboard — cut, copy, paste with system
• macOS tips — specific to the Apple OS
• Windows tips — specific to the Microsoft OS
• Fuzzy finders — FZF, FASD…
• JSON-RPC UI — build custom UI
• bc — increment numbers, simple math…
• Qalculate! — advanced math…
• wc — count chars, words, lines
• Shell Scripting
• Manipulating dates with Chronic — Changing time format, Incrementing / Decrementing dates
• Readline - Making bash and other apps that use Readline feel more Kakoune-y

Plugins

Find Plugins: https://kakoune.org/plugins.html

• Writing Plugins — Tips, tricks and conventions
• Documenting Plugins — What to write and where
• Installing Plugins — How to add somebody else's plugin to your configuration
• Plugin Managers — tools that are aimed to simplify maintenance of installed plugins.

Supported tools in rc dir

For the meaning the content of the Clients column below, see use kakoune as an IDE

Name	Commands	Clients	Site	More info…
rc/detection
editorconfig	editorconfig-load		http://editorconfig.org	editorconfig…
modeline	modeline-parse		:h modeline
rc/tools
clang	clang-parse, clang-complete, clang-enable-autocomplete, clang-enable-diagnostics, clang-diagnostics-next		https://clang.llvm.org	clang…
comment	comment-block, comment-line, align-selections-left
ctags	tag, tag-complete, ctags-funcinfo, ctags-enable-autoinfo, ctags-generate, update-tags		https://ctags.io	ctags…
doc	doc	docsclient
format	format, format-buffer, format-selections			format…
git	git	docsclient	https://git-scm.com
grep	grep, grep-previous-match, grep-next-match	jumpclient, toolsclient		grep…
iterm	iterm-new-vertical, iterm-new-horizontal, iterm-new-tab, iterm-new-window, iterm-focus		https://www.iterm2.com
lint	lint, lint-enable, lint-disable, lint-prev, lint-next			lint…
make	make, make-prev, make-next	jumpclient, toolsclient
man	man	docsclient
spell	spell, spell-next, spell-replace
rc/tools/go
go	go-complete, go-enable-autocomplete, go-disable-autocomplete, go-doc-info, go-print-signature, go-jump, go-share-selection	jumpclient	https://github.com/nsf/gocode
rc/tools/python
jedi	jedi-complete, jedi-enable-autocomplete, jedi-disable-autocomplete		https://github.com/davidhalter/jedi
rc/tools/rust
racer	racer-complete, racer-enable-autocomplete, racer-disable-autocomplete		https://github.com/racer-rust/racer
rc/windowing
kitty	kitty-terminal, kitty-terminal-tab, kitty-focus, kitty-repl		https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty
screen	screen-terminal-vertical, screen-terminal-horizontal, screen-terminal-window, screen-focus		https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/
tmux	tmux-terminal-vertical, tmux-terminal-horizontal, tmux-terminal-window, tmux-focus		https://github.com/tmux/tmux
tmux-repl	tmux-repl-vertical, tmux-repl-horizontal, tmux-repl-window
x11	x11-terminal, x11-focus
x11-repl	x11-repl, x11-send-text
rc/filetype
rust				rust...