micro/runtime/help/tutorial.md

Tutorial

This is a brief intro to micro's configuration system that will give some simple examples showing how to configure settings, rebind keys, and use init.lua to configure micro to your liking.

Hopefully you'll find this useful.

Settings

In micro, your settings are stored in ~/.config/micro/settings.json, a file that is created the first time you run micro. It is a json file which holds all the settings and their values. To change an option, you can either change the value in the settings.json file, or you can type it in directly while using micro.

Simply press CtrlE to go to command mode, and type set option value (in the future, I will use > set option value to indicate pressing CtrlE). The change will take effect immediately and will also be saved to the settings.json file so that the setting will stick even after you close micro.

You can also set options locally which means that the setting will only have the value you give it in the buffer you set it in. For example, if you have two splits open, and you type > setlocal tabsize 2, the tabsize will only be 2 in the current buffer. Also micro will not save this local change to the settings.json file. However, you can still set options locally in the settings.json file. For example, if you want the tabsize to be 2 only in Ruby files, and 4 otherwise, you could put the following in settings.json:

{
    "*.rb": {
        "tabsize": 2
    },
    "tabsize": 4
}

Micro will set the tabsize to 2 only in files which match the glob *.rb.

If you would like to know more about all the available options, see the options topic (> help options).

Keybindings

Keybindings work in much the same way as options. You configure them using the ~/.config/micro/bindings.json file.

For example if you would like to bind CtrlR to redo you could put the following in bindings.json:

{
    "CtrlR": "redo"
}

Very simple.

You can also bind keys while in micro by using the > bind key action command, but the bindings you make with the command won't be saved to the bindings.json file.

For more information about keybindings, like which keys can be bound, and what actions are available, see the keybindings help topic (> help keybindings).

Configuration with Lua

If you need more power than the json files provide, you can use the init.lua file. Create it in ~/.config/micro. This file is a lua file that is run when micro starts and is essentially a one-file plugin.

I'll show you how to use the init.lua file by giving an example of how to create a binding to CtrlR which will execute go run on the current file, given that the current file is a Go file.

You can do that by putting the following in init.lua:

function gorun()
    local buf = CurView().Buf -- The current buffer
    if buf:FileType() == "go" then
        HandleShellCommand("go run " .. buf.Path, true, true) -- the first true means don't run it in the background
    end
end

BindKey("CtrlR", "init.gorun")

Alternatively, you could get rid of the BindKey line, and put this line in the bindings.json file:

{
    "CtrlR": "init.gorun"
}

For more information about plugins and the lua system that micro uses, see the plugins help topic (> help plugins).