micro/runtime/help/help.md

Micro help text

Micro is a terminal-based text editor that aims to be easy to use and intuitive, while also taking advantage of the full capabilities of modern terminals.

To open the command bar, press CtrlE. This enables a > prompt for typing commands. From now on when the documentation says to run a command such as > help, this means press CtrlE and type help (and press enter to execute the command).

For a list of the default keybindings run > help defaultkeys. For more information on keybindings see > help keybindings.

Quick-start

Press Ctrl-q to quit, and Ctrl-s to save. Press CtrlE to start typing commands and you can see which commands are available by pressing tab, or by viewing the help topic > help commands.

Move the cursor around with the mouse or the arrow keys. Run > help defaultkeys to get a quick, easy overview of the default hotkeys and what they do. For more info on rebinding keys, see type > help keybindings.

If the colorscheme doesn't look good, you can change it with > set colorscheme .... You can press tab to see the available colorschemes, or see more information about colorschemes and syntax highlighting with > help colors.

Press Ctrl-w to move between splits, and type > vsplit filename or > hsplit filename to open a new split.

Accessing more help

Micro has a built-in help system which can be accessed with the help command.

To use it, press CtrlE to access command mode and type in help followed by a topic. Typing help followed by nothing will open this page.

Here are the possible help topics that you can read:

• tutorial: A brief tutorial which gives an overview of all the other help topics
• keybindings: Gives a full list of the default keybindings as well as how to rebind them
• defaultkeys: Gives a more straight-forward list of the hotkey commands and what they do.
• commands: Gives a list of all the commands and what they do
• options: Gives a list of all the options you can customize
• plugins: Explains how micro's plugin system works and how to create your own plugins
• colors: Explains micro's colorscheme and syntax highlighting engine and how to create your own colorschemes or add new languages to the engine

For example, to open the help page on plugins you would run > help plugins.

I recommend looking at the tutorial help file because it is short for each section and gives concrete examples of how to use the various configuration options in micro. However, it does not give the in-depth documentation that the other topics provide.