home/doc/kak.1

.TH KAK 1

.SH NAME

kak \- a vim inspired, selection oriented code editor

.SH SYNOPSIS

.B kak
[\fB\-help\fR] [\fB\-version\fR] [\fB\-q\fR] [\fB\-n\fR] [\fB\-l\fR] [\fB\-ro\fR] [\fB\-clear\fR] [\fB\-ui\fR \fIui_type\fR] [\fB\-e\fR \fIcommand\fR] [\fB\-E\fR \fIcommand\fR] [\fB\-f\fR \fIkeys\fR] [\fB\-p\fR \fIsession_id\fR] [\fB\-c\fR \fIsession_id\fR|[[\fB\-d\fR] \fB\-s\fR \fIsession_id\fR] [\fB+line\fR[\fB:column\fR]|\fB+:\fR]
.IR file ...

.SH DESCRIPTION

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.

.SH OPTIONS

.TP
.BR \-help
display a help message and quit

.TP
.BR \-version
display kakoune version and quit

.TP
.BR \-n
do not load resource files on startup (\fIkakrc\fR, \fIautoload\fR, \fIrc\fR etc)

.TP
.BR \-l
list existing sessions

.TP
.BR \-d
run as a headless session (requires \fB\-s\fR)

.TP
.BR \-e " " \fIcommand\fR
execute \fIcommand\fR after the client initialization phase

.TP
.BR \-E " " \fIcommand\fR
execute \fIcommand\fR after the server initialization phase

.TP
.BR \-f " " \fIkeys\fR
enter in \fIfilter mode\fR: select the whole file, then execute \fIkeys\fR

.TP
.BR \-i " " \fIsuffix\fR
backup the files on which a filter is applied using the given suffix

.TP
.BR \-q
when in \fIfilter mode\fR, don't print any errors

.TP
.BR \-p " " \fIsession_id\fR
send the commands written on the standard input to session \fIsession_id\fR

.TP
.BR \-c " " \fIsession_id\fR
connect to the given session

.TP
.BR \-s " " \fIsession_id\fR
set the current session name to \fIsession_id\fR

.TP
.BR \-ui " " \fItype\fR
select the user interface, can be one of \fIncurses\fR, \fIdummy\fR or \fIjson\fR

.TP
.BR \-clear
remove sessions that terminated in an incorrect state (e.g. after a crash)

.TP
.BR \-ro
enter in \fIreadonly mode\fR, all the buffers opened will not be written to disk

.TP
.BR +line "[:" column "]"
specify a target \fIline\fR and \fIcolumn\fR 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

.TP
.BR file
one or more \fIfile\fRs to edit

At  startup, if \fB\-n\fR is not specified, Kakoune will try to source the file
\fI../share/kak/kakrc\fR relative to the kak binary. This kak file will then
try to recursively source any files in \fI$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kak/autoload\fR
(with \fI$XDG_CONFIG_HOME\fR defaulting to \fI$HOME/.config\fR, and falling back
to \fI../share/kak/autoload\fR if that autoload directory does not exist),
and finally \fI$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kak/kakrc\fR.

That leads to the following behaviour: by default, with no user autoload
directory, the system wide autoload directory is used, once the user wants
control on autoloading, they can create an autoload directory and eventually
symlink individual scripts, or the whole system wide autoload directory. They
can as well add any new scripts not provided with Kakoune.

.SH EXAMPLES

.PP
Edit a file:

.nf
.RS
kak /path/to/file
.RE
.fi

.PP
Edit multiple files (multiple buffers will be created):

.nf
.RS
kak ./file1.txt /path/to/file2.c
.RE
.fi

.PP
Insert a modeline that sets the tabstop variable at the beginning of several
source code files:

.nf
.RS
kak \-f "ggO// kak: tabstop=8<esc>" *.c
.RE
.fi

.SH FILES

If not started with the \fB\-n\fR switch, Kakoune will source the \fI../share/kak/kakrc\fR file relative to the kak binary,
which will source additional files:

.nf
.RS
if the \fI$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kak/autoload\fR directory exists, load every
\fI*.kak\fR files in it, and load recursively any subdirectory
.RE
.fi

.nf
.RS
if it does not exist, fall back to the system wide autoload directory
in \fI../share/kak/autoload\fR
.RE
.fi

After that, if it exists, source the \fI$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kak/kakrc\fR 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 \fI../share/kak/autoload\fR into your local autoload directory.