Mastering the Micro text editor

[BluishHumility]

Mastering the Micro text editor

This topic is about the Micro text editor, why we use it, and how to get started with some of the more advanced features.

This is a FAQ/tutorial topic. It is not intended to host a discussion about editor preference. I have created a sister topic where users can feel free to battle to the death over why their preferred editor is the best, and so on: What's your favorite editor?

Why does Garuda ship with Micro by default?

Micro has very advanced features suitable for experienced users with needs that are specific or complex, but also is very beginner-friendly and easy to get started with. This makes it an appealing default editor choice.

Here is an extremely simplified TL;DR of why Micro is a good editor choice:

• Very easy to use (e.g. common keybindings);
• Great mouse support (drag to create a selection, double-click to select by word, triple-click to select by line);
• Colors and syntax highlighting (over 130 languages supported);
• Highly customizable (change any keybinding or default setting you like);
• Lots of advanced features.

To briefly elaborate on that first point (ease of use), one of the things that makes Micro so easy to get started with for beginners is the fact that it ships with common keybindings most people are used to from other programs. For example:

• Ctrl+C to copy;
• Ctrl+X to cut;
• Ctrl+V to paste;
• Ctrl+S to save;
• Ctrl+F to find/search;
• Shift+ arrow keys to make a selection…

…And so on. The same shortcuts you would find in your web browser, or your document editor.

The bindings are easy to remember, but there is also a nano-like cheat sheet at the bottom of the screen you can toggle open with Alt+G:

You can also rebind any shortcut you like in the bindings.json file, so if you are used to a different binding it’s no problem to set it up.

Press Ctrl+E and type help defaultkeys to see a full list of default keybindings.

And that (Ctrl+E) brings us to one of the most powerful features of Micro: the command bar.

The Command Bar

The command bar can be opened by pressing Ctrl+E. From here, you can launch a number of commands that allow you to access features or change settings. You can open the command bar and type help commands to read through the available commands, or in your browser here.

Reading through the commands is enough to get started because you don’t actually have to commit them to memory or anything; when you open the command bar, if you press Tab it prints out the available commands for you, and you can tab through them until you find the one you need.

If you type a letter or few before you hit Tab, it will narrow down the list to whatever matches what you typed. For example, if you type “S” in the command bar and then hit Tab, it will show you all the “S” commands:

Micro has way too many features to assign a keybinding to each one and try to memorize them all. The command bar gives quick access to all those features so when you want to do something, you can just type it in.

A few basic useful commands:

• save [filename]: Basically a “save as” feature. If you just type save and leave off the filename it’s the same as hitting Ctrl+S.
• replace foo bar [flags]: Replace “foo” with “bar”. The flags (optional) are -a to replace all occurrences, and -l to do a literal search instead of a regex search.
• replaceall foo bar: Basically the same as replace foo bar -a.
• vsplit [filename] and hsplit [filename]: Split the window vertically or horizontally with filename. You can leave off the filename and just open an empty buffer if you want.
  
  
• tab [filename]: Open filename in a new tab.
• goto 123: Go to line 123. If you put a negative number, it will go to that many lines from the end (goto -10 will bring you ten lines from the end of the file).
• term [command]: Open a terminal (inside Micro) and run the command.
  
  
  
  If you leave off the command it will just open a terminal session with the default shell. Combine with vsplit or hsplit if you like to keep a terminal open in your editor while you work.
• set [option] [value] and setlocal [option] [value]: These basically let you change your options from within Micro. set will actually change your settings.json file for you, while setlocal will just temporarily change a setting (just for the file you are working in).

The set and setlocal commands are super handy once you start tinkering around with the various options Micro has, because you can adjust your settings on the fly from within Micro itself without any need for editing a config file or anything like that.

The Options

Micro has way more features than the average text editor. You can read through the available options by opening the command bar and typing help options, or in your browser here. It is recommended you read through them when you have a chance, because there are a lot of great features that you will never find out about any other way.

A few basic useful options:

• autoindent: When creating a new line, use the same indentation as the previous line. (Defaults to true.)
• autosave=X: Enables an autosave feature, which automatically saves the file every X seconds. The default is 0, which disables autosave.
• autosu: Micro will automatically attempt to elevate with sudo if it is needed for saving a file but was not used when opening it.
• backup: Micro will keep backups for all open buffers. This is handy in the event of a crash, or if you close the terminal while Micro is still open with unsaved changes. You can restore the backup by reopening the file in Micro. If you save the file or discard the changes, the backup is automatically removed. (Defaults to true.)
• clipboard: Possible values are external, terminal, or internal. external, the default, will interact with the clipboard manager so you can copy and paste between applications. terminal will use the terminal’s clipboard, which allows copy and paste to function over SSH (very handy!). internal is a Micro-specific clipboard, and is the fallback choice if external is selected but no appropriate clipboard tool (xclip, wl-clipboard, etc) can be found.
• hlsearch: When searching, highlight all matches instead of one at a time. The “extra” highlighting can be temporarily turned off by hitting Esc.
  
  
• eofnewline: Automatically add a newline to the end of the file if it is missing. (Defaults to true.)
• matchbrace: Underline the matching brace (any of these: “( [ {”) when the cursor is on a brace character. (Defaults to true.)
  
• ruler: Display line numbers. (Defaults to true.)
• softwrap: Wrap long lines when they get to the edge of the screen. (Defaults to false.)
• wordwrap: Wrap long lines by words. softwrap must be set to true first.

This is a very small selection of options. As mentioned, it is advised to read through the options on your own; a feature you want may already be available and you’ll never know unless you read the doc.

Setting the option in settings.json

You can override any setting you would like by editing settings.json.

micro ~/.config/micro/settings.json

Only options which have been changed from their default value need to be added to this file. For a full list of options in json format (handy for seeing what the formatting should look like), see the page here: micro/runtime/help/options.md at master · zyedidia/micro · GitHub

For example, to disable the line numbers you can add this to your settings.json file:

{
    "ruler": false
}

Note: each line should end with a comma, except the last line in the file should not. In this example, "ruler": false is the only line so it does not get a comma.

Setting the option in Micro itself

This is arguably the easier option because you don’t have to bother messing around with json syntax. Plus, you can change a setting on the fly–right in the middle of editing a file if you wish.

Sticking with our example, to change the ruler setting from within Micro you just open the command bar with Ctrl+E and use the set command.

set ruler false

This command will add the "ruler": false line to your settings.json file for you, and from now on this will be the new default.

If you would like to change a setting temporarily (i.e., not add it permanently to settings.json), you can use the setlocal command instead.

setlocal ruler false

This will leave the default as-is, but for your current Micro buffer the ruler will be disabled.

Note: With regard to the ruler setting, there is no need to ever use setlocal as we have done in this example because the ruler can be simply toggled on and off with Ctrl+R.

If you want to check the value of an option to see what it is, you can use the show command.

show ruler

It will print whatever the value of that option currenly is. Obviously this would not be needed for the ruler because you can see it when it is on, but other options may be less apparent.

Keybindings

Micro comes with a lot of keybindings enabled by default. You can read through the default keybindings in help defaultkeys, or toggle the details here.

Micro default keybindings

Default Keys

Below are simple charts of the default hotkeys and their functions. For more
information about binding custom hotkeys or changing default bindings, please
run > help keybindings

Please remember that all keys here are rebindable! If you don’t like it, you
can change it!

Power user

Key	Description of function
Ctrl-e	Open a command prompt for running commands (see > help commands for a list of valid commands).
Tab	In command prompt, it will autocomplete if possible.
Ctrl-b	Run a shell command (this will close micro while your command executes).

Navigation

Key	Description of function
Arrows	Move the cursor around
Shift-arrows	Move and select text
Alt(Ctrl on Mac)-LeftArrow	Move to the beginning of the current line
Alt(Ctrl on Mac)-RightArrow	Move to the end of the current line
Home	Move to the beginning of text on the current line
End	Move to the end of the current line
Ctrl(Alt on Mac)-LeftArrow	Move cursor one word left
Ctrl(Alt on Mac)-RightArrow	Move cursor one word right
Alt-{	Move cursor to previous empty line, or beginning of document
Alt-}	Move cursor to next empty line, or end of document
PageUp	Move cursor up one page
PageDown	Move cursor down one page
Ctrl-Home or Ctrl-UpArrow	Move cursor to start of document
Ctrl-End or Ctrl-DownArrow	Move cursor to end of document
Ctrl-l	Jump to a line in the file (prompts with #)
Ctrl-w	Cycle between splits in the current tab (use > vsplit or > hsplit to create a split)

Tabs

Key	Description of function
Ctrl-t	Open a new tab
Alt-,	Previous tab
Alt-.	Next tab

Find Operations

Key	Description of function
Ctrl-f	Find (opens prompt)
Ctrl-n	Find next instance of current search
Ctrl-p	Find previous instance of current search

Note: Ctrl-n and Ctrl-p should be used from the main buffer, not from inside
the search prompt. After Ctrl-f, press enter to complete the search and then
you can use Ctrl-n and Ctrl-p to cycle through matches.

File Operations

Key	Description of function
Ctrl-q	Close current file (quits micro if this is the last file open)
Ctrl-o	Open a file (prompts for filename)
Ctrl-s	Save current file

Text operations

Key	Description of function
Ctrl(Alt on Mac)-Shift-RightArrow	Select word right
Ctrl(Alt on Mac)-Shift-LeftArrow	Select word left
Alt(Ctrl on Mac)-Shift-LeftArrow	Select to start of current line
Alt(Ctrl on Mac)-Shift-RightArrow	Select to end of current line
Shift-Home	Select to start of current line
Shift-End	Select to end of current line
Ctrl-Shift-UpArrow	Select to start of file
Ctrl-Shift-DownArrow	Select to end of file
Ctrl-x	Cut selected text
Ctrl-c	Copy selected text
Ctrl-v	Paste
Ctrl-k	Cut current line
Ctrl-d	Duplicate current line
Ctrl-z	Undo
Ctrl-y	Redo
Alt-UpArrow	Move current line or selected lines up
Alt-DownArrow	Move current line or selected lines down
Alt-Backspace or Alt-Ctrl-h	Delete word left
Ctrl-a	Select all
Tab	Indent selected text
Shift-Tab	Unindent selected text

Macros

Key	Description of function
Ctrl-u	Toggle macro recording (press Ctrl-u to start recording and press again to stop)
Ctrl-j	Run latest recorded macro

Multiple cursors

Key	Description of function
Alt-n	Create new multiple cursor from selection (will select current word if no current selection)
Alt-Shift-Up	Spawn a new cursor on the line above the current one
Alt-Shift-Down	Spawn a new cursor on the line below the current one
Alt-p	Remove latest multiple cursor
Alt-c	Remove all multiple cursors (cancel)
Alt-x	Skip multiple cursor selection
Alt-m	Spawn a new cursor at the beginning of every line in the current selection
Ctrl-MouseLeft	Place a multiple cursor at any location

Other

Key	Description of function
Ctrl-g	Open help file
Ctrl-h	Backspace (old terminals do not support the backspace key and use Ctrl+H instead)
Ctrl-r	Toggle the line number ruler

Emacs style actions

Key	Description of function
Alt-f	Next word
Alt-b	Previous word
Alt-a	Move to start of line
Alt-e	Move to end of line

Function keys.

Warning! The function keys may not work in all terminals!

Key	Description of function
F1	Open help
F2	Save
F3	Find
F4	Quit
F7	Find
F10	Quit

All the keybindings are rebindable–that is, if you would like to change a keybinding to something else, that is supported. It is actually very easily done as well.

Setting a custom keybinding

The easiest way to set up a binding is with the bind command. The format for the command is bind [keycombo] [action]. The bind command can be picky about capitalization, so make sure you are typing the keycombo and action values the way Micro has them listed in the cheatsheets.

For example, let’s say I would like to change Ctrl+V to be copy and Ctrl+C to be paste, I can open the command bar with Ctrl+E and run:

bind Ctrl-v Copy

Open it again and run:

bind Ctrl-c Paste

Note you use lower-cased “v” and “c” in this example; technically an upper-case letter implies using the shift key for the binding in addition to the other keys.

The bind command adds the specified binding to ~/.config/micro/bindings.json. Here we can see the file where I have added the bindings above:

{
    "Ctrl-c": "Paste",
    "Ctrl-v": "Copy"
}

A second method for adding or changing a keybinding would be to edit bindings.json directly. As with settings.json (or any .json file), the syntax must be exactly right or the whole file is no good. If you aren’t sure, just stick with the bind command because it is harder to make a mistake that way.

For a full list of bindable actions (like Copy or Paste), see help keybindings or toggle the details here:

Micro bindable actions

Full list of bindable actions:

CursorUp
CursorDown
CursorPageUp
CursorPageDown
CursorLeft
CursorRight
CursorStart
CursorEnd
SelectToStart
SelectToEnd
SelectUp
SelectDown
SelectLeft
SelectRight
SelectToStartOfText
SelectToStartOfTextToggle
WordRight
WordLeft
SelectWordRight
SelectWordLeft
MoveLinesUp
MoveLinesDown
DeleteWordRight
DeleteWordLeft
SelectLine
SelectToStartOfLine
SelectToEndOfLine
InsertNewline
InsertSpace
Backspace
Delete
Center
InsertTab
Save
SaveAll
SaveAs
Find
FindLiteral
FindNext
FindPrevious
DiffPrevious
DiffNext
Undo
Redo
Copy
CopyLine
Cut
CutLine
DuplicateLine
DeleteLine
IndentSelection
OutdentSelection
OutdentLine
IndentLine
Paste
SelectAll
OpenFile
Start
End
PageUp
PageDown
SelectPageUp
SelectPageDown
HalfPageUp
HalfPageDown
StartOfLine
EndOfLine
StartOfText
StartOfTextToggle
ParagraphPrevious
ParagraphNext
ToggleHelp
ToggleDiffGutter
ToggleRuler
JumpLine
ClearStatus
ShellMode
CommandMode
Quit
QuitAll
AddTab
PreviousTab
NextTab
NextSplit
Unsplit
VSplit
HSplit
PreviousSplit
ToggleMacro
PlayMacro
Suspend (Unix only)
ScrollUp
ScrollDown
SpawnMultiCursor
SpawnMultiCursorUp
SpawnMultiCursorDown
SpawnMultiCursorSelect
RemoveMultiCursor
RemoveAllMultiCursors
SkipMultiCursor
None
JumpToMatchingBrace
Autocomplete

Likewise, the list of all possible keys can be found in help keybindings, or toggled in the details here:

Micro bindable keys

Here is the list of all possible keys you can bind:

Up
Down
Right
Left
UpLeft
UpRight
DownLeft
DownRight
Center
PageUp
PageDown
Home
End
Insert
Delete
Help
Exit
Clear
Cancel
Print
Pause
Backtab
F1
F2
F3
F4
F5
F6
F7
F8
F9
F10
F11
F12
F13
F14
F15
F16
F17
F18
F19
F20
F21
F22
F23
F24
F25
F26
F27
F28
F29
F30
F31
F32
F33
F34
F35
F36
F37
F38
F39
F40
F41
F42
F43
F44
F45
F46
F47
F48
F49
F50
F51
F52
F53
F54
F55
F56
F57
F58
F59
F60
F61
F62
F63
F64
CtrlSpace
Ctrl-a
Ctrl-b
Ctrl-c
Ctrl-d
Ctrl-e
Ctrl-f
Ctrl-g
Ctrl-h
Ctrl-i
Ctrl-j
Ctrl-k
Ctrl-l
Ctrl-m
Ctrl-n
Ctrl-o
Ctrl-p
Ctrl-q
Ctrl-r
Ctrl-s
Ctrl-t
Ctrl-u
Ctrl-v
Ctrl-w
Ctrl-x
Ctrl-y
Ctrl-z
CtrlLeftSq
CtrlBackslash
CtrlRightSq
CtrlCarat
CtrlUnderscore
Backspace
OldBackspace
Tab
Esc
Escape
Enter

You can also bind some mouse buttons (they may be bound to normal actions or
mouse actions)

MouseLeft
MouseMiddle
MouseRight
MouseWheelUp
MouseWheelDown
MouseWheelLeft
MouseWheelRight

As you can see, you can even bind some mouse buttons. For example, if I wanted Ctrl+ left click to select a line I can add the binding like so:

bind CtrlMouseLeft SelectLine

The json version of this is:

{
    "CtrlMouseLeft": "SelectLine"
}

It should be noted that in bindings, mouse buttons act the same as keyboard buttons. This means the action will be focused on the cursor in the file (not where you click the mouse cursor). In my example above, if the cursor is on line 3 and I Ctrl+ left click on line 5, line 3 will be selected. If you want the action focused on the mouse cursor, you should first click the mouse (to move the cursor), then execute the keybinding.

Key sequences can be bound by specifying valid keys one after another in brackets, such
as <Ctrl-x><Ctrl-c>. For example, if I want to bind Ctrl+J,Ctrl+B to the “JumpToMatchingBrace” action, the bind command should look like this:

bind <Ctrl-j><Ctrl-b> JumpToMatchingBrace

You can also chain commands in a keybinding by joining them with a comma. For example, lets say I want to set wordwrapping to a keybinding, so I can toggle it on and off. I must use both the softwrap and wordwrap commands together.

In this example I will use Alt+z to toggle wordwrapping on:

bind "command:setlocal wordwrap on,command:setlocal softwrap on"

And Alt+Z to toggle wordwrapping back off again:

bind "command:setlocal wordwrap off,command:setlocal softwrap off"

Plugins

Micro has a robust plugin system, including support for creating your own plugins with Lua. You can read more about creating your own plugins here: micro/runtime/help/plugins.md at master · zyedidia/micro · GitHub

There are six plugins included by default:

• autoclose: Automatically add closing brackets and quotes.
• comment: Lines can be commented or uncommented with keybindings or commands for many languages. Especially handy for commenting out a selection (instead of going line by line).
• diff: Allows a diff gutter that will show changes from the most recent commit when in a Git directory.
• ftoptions: A plugin which provides filetype-specific options, like indentation for example.
• linter: For linting, of course! Many languages are supported.
• literate: Provides advanced syntax highlighting for the Literate coding tool.
• status: Provides some extensions to the status line.

Micro has a built-in plugin manager to automatically download and install your plugins for you. By default it only uses the official channel from GitHub - micro-editor/plugin-channel: Official plugin channel for micro, but you can link in third-party channels with the pluginchannels option. You can also directly link third-party plugins with the pluginrepos option with the plugin manager.

You can start the plugin manager from the command bar with plugin [command]. Here are the available commands:

• plugin list: List all installed plugins.
• plugin install [foo]: Install the foo plugin.
• plugin remove [foo]: Remove the foo plugin.
• plugin update [foo]: Update the foo plugin. Run without arguments to update all plugins.
• plugin search 'foobar': Search available plugins for a keyword.
• plugin available: Show all available plugins that can be installed.

You can always refer to this list of commands in help commands if you need to use one but can’t remember what it is.

Multi-cursor support

Micro has support for Sublime-style multiple cursors with the following default keybindings:

Key	Description of function
Alt-n	Create new multiple cursor from selection (will select current word if no current selection)
Alt-Shift-Up	Spawn a new cursor on the line above the current one
Alt-Shift-Down	Spawn a new cursor on the line below the current one
Alt-p	Remove latest multiple cursor
Alt-c	Remove all multiple cursors (cancel)
Alt-x	Skip multiple cursor selection
Alt-m	Spawn a new cursor at the beginning of every line in the current selection
Ctrl-MouseLeft	Place a multiple cursor at any location

Micro: powerful and easy to use

Micro is a great editor because it is easy for beginners to get started with, but is packed with features for advanced users as well. Hopefully this topic will be helpful for folks who are interested in learning more about the advanced features.

[SGS]

Plus theming, hope I didn’t over read it

set colorscheme gotham

[aegir221]

Ok. I am starting to see some benefits Micro has.

• Simple, DE integrated Clipboard

• Shift - highlight Cut

I wonder where can I find more themes for micro…?

Something like this:

[BluishHumility]

There are a bunch of built-in colorschemes, or you can make your own: micro/runtime/help/colors.md at master · zyedidia/micro · GitHub

In addition to that, there are themes which can be installed through the plugin system. See here for example:

GitHub - Hunter-Github/micro-colorschemes: A list of colorschemes for the intuitive micro...

Once have a plugin installed, you can tinker with it if you’d like and whip up your own custom plugin, as described in this suggestion:

Any great micro colorschemes?

do micro -plugin install monokai-dark to get an idea of how plugins work. ~/.config/micro/plug/monokai-dark is the directory of the plugin, just modify the colors in that file and rename to have a custom plugin. You can use pywal to get example colors from the default wallpaper wal -i /usr/share/wallpapers/garuda-wallpapers/Ghosts.jpg The created colorschemes can be found in ~/.cache/wal/, probably it can be used as source for colors

[aegir221]

I found that 16bit themes pick up wezterm transparent effect. That’s cool. I can work with that.

Edit.
Micro seems to be a new project. Syntax highlighting could be better, so I might look into it. Syntax high lighting is quite subjective, but I prefer many colors. Currently my fav. Micro themes is Solarized. I could tweak this theme too look more fancy.

[aegir221]

Ok. The themes are easy to edit.

Just change the color code in the template file. Like this one: https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/blob/master/runtime/colorschemes/atom-dark.micro

Example: I created a file .config/micro/colorschemes/ and named it atom-dark_CT.micro

After write, I was able to set colorscheme to my custom theme.

---

So after a quick edit I end up with this. Slighly modifed Atom Dark theme.

After couple of edits.

[BluishHumility]

Using the comment plugin

One of the default plugins Micro ships with is the comment plugin, which allows highlighting multiple lines and commenting them out all at once with a command or keybinding.

By default, this function is assigned to the Alt+/ keybinding, but of course you can change this if you wish in the bindings.json file.

For example, to change the binding to use G instead of /:

{
    "Alt-g": "comment.comment"
}

You can also invoke the comment plugin by opening the command bar with Ctrl+E and typing the command comment.

The plugin supports uncommenting lines as well.

How do I change the comment type?

Micro has a few default comment types it will use automatically if it recognizes the filetype. You can refer to the page here to see the specific supported types, or type help comment plugin from the command bar.

Note: “%s” is the content to be commented. Adding symbols before or after the content to be commented is supported (see a couple examples below).

If the filetype cannot be detected (for example, the file is just named “config” or something), or the filetype does not have a default comment type configured, it will use whatever is set as the global comment type. The global setting defaults to shell (uses “#” for comments), but can be changed from the command bar with the “commenttype” option. For example:

> set commenttype "/* %s */"

In this example we have set the default comment type to “/*” to open the comment and “*/” to close it.

You can also set the comment type locally (i.e. just for that file). For example, if I am working in ~/.config/waybar/config, which uses “//” for comments, I can change the comment type for that file without adjusting the global default like this:

> setlocal commenttype "// %s"