Contents

Adept Editing

Key Commands

Textadept is entirely keyboard-driven. See the comprehensive list of key commands in the appendix. Key commands can be modified in your key preferences.

Character Autopairing

Usually, quote (', ") and brace ((, [, {) characters go together in pairs. By default, Textadept automatically inserts the complement character when the first is typed. Similarly, the complement is deleted when you press Backspace () over the first. See the preferences page if you would like to disable this.

Word Completion

Textadept provides buffer-based word completion. Start typing a word, press Ctrl+Return (^⎋ on Mac OSX), and a list of suggested completions based on words in the current document is provided. Continuing to type changes the suggestion. Press Return () to complete the selected word.

Word Completion

Adeptsense

Textadept has the capability to autocomplete symbols for programming languages and display API documentation. Lua is of course supported extremely well and other languages have basic support with the help of ctags. Symbol completion is available by pressing Ctrl+Space (⌥⎋ on Mac OSX). Documentation for symbols is available with Ctrl+H (^H).

Adeptsense Lua      Adeptsense Lua String

Adeptsense Doc

For more information on adding adeptsense support for another language, see the LuaDoc.

Find and Replace

Ctrl+F (⌘F on Mac OSX) brings up the Find/Replace dialog. In addition to offering the usual find and replace, Textadept allows you to find with Lua patterns and replace with Lua captures and even Lua code! For example: replacing all (%w+) with %(string.upper('%1')) capitalizes all words in the buffer. Lua captures (%n) are only available from a Lua pattern search, but embedded Lua code enclosed in %() is always allowed.

Note the Ctrl+G, Ctrl+Shift+G, Ctrl+Alt+R, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+R key commands for find next, find previous, replace, and replace all (⌘G, ⌘⇧G, ^R, ^⇧R respectively on Mac OSX) only work when the Find/Replace dialog is hidden. When it is visible, use the button mnemonics: Alt+N, Alt+P, Alt+R, and Alt+A (⌘N, ⌘P, ⌘R, ⌘A) for English locale.

Find in Files

Ctrl+Shift+F brings up Find in Files (⌘⇧F on Mac OSX) and will prompt for a directory to search. The results are displayed in a new buffer. Double-clicking a search result jumps to it in the file. You can also use the Ctrl+Alt+G and Ctrl+Alt+Shift+G (^⌘G and ^⌘⇧G on Mac OSX) key commands. Replace in Files is not supported. You will have to Find in Files first, and then Replace All for each file a result is found in. The Match Case, Whole Word, and Lua pattern flags still apply.

Find in Files

Find Incremental

You can start an incremental search by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F (^⌘F on Mac OSX). Incremental search searches the buffer as you type. Only the Match Case option is recognized. Pressing Esc () stops it.

Replace in Selection

By default, Replace All replaces all text in the buffer. If you want to replace all text in just a portion of the buffer, select a block of text and then Replace All.

Indentation

Change Indent Level

The amount of indentation for a selected set of lines is increased by pressing Tab () and decreased by pressing Shift+Tab (⇧⇥). Using these key sequences when no selection is present does not have the same effect.

Change Indent Size

The indent size is usually set by a language-specific module or the theme. You can set it manually using the Buffer -> Indentation menu. Textadept shows what it is using for indentation in the document statusbar.

Document Statusbar

Using Tabs

You can use tabs instead of the default spaces by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T (^⇧T on Mac OSX) or using the Buffer -> Toggle Use Tabs menu. Textadept shows what it is using for indentation in the document statusbar.

The default option is usually set by a language-specific module or the theme.

Converting Indentation

Use the Edit -> Convert Indentation menu to convert indentation. If the buffer is using tabs, all spaces are converted to tabs. If the buffer is using spaces, all tabs are converted to spaces.

Selecting Text

Rectangular Selection

Holding Alt+Shift (⌥⇧ on Mac OSX) and pressing the arrow keys enables rectangular selections to be made. Start typing to type on each line.

Rectangular Selection      Rectangular Edit

Multiple Selection

Clicking the mouse at a point in the buffer while holding Control places an additional caret at that point. Clicking and dragging while holding Control creates multiple selections. Start typing to enter text at each selection.

This is currently unavailable on Mac OSX.

Selecting Entities

Textadept allows you to select many different entities from the caret. For example, Ctrl+" (^" on Mac OSX) selects all characters in a "" sequence. Typing Ctrl++ (^+) as a follow-up selects the double-quotes too. See the Edit -> Select In... menu for available entities and their key commands.

Enclosing Text

As a complement to selecting entities, you can enclose text as entities. The Edit -> Selection -> Enclose In... menu contains all available entities and their key commands.

If no text is selected, the word to the left of the caret is enclosed.

Word Highlight

All occurrences of a given word are highlighted by putting the caret over the word and pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H (⌘⇧H on Mac OSX). This is useful to show occurrences of a variable name in source code.

Word Highlight

Editing Modes

Virtual Space

Virtual space (freehand) mode is enabled and disabled with Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V (^⇧V in Mac OSX). When enabled, caret movement is not restricted by line endings.

Overwrite

Overwrite mode is enabled and disabled with the Insert key. When enabled, characters in the buffer will be overwritten instead of inserted as you type. The caret also changes to an underline when in overwrite mode.