micro/runtime/help/commands.md

Possible commands

You can execute an editor command by pressing Ctrl-e followed by the command. Here are the possible commands that you can use.

• quit: Quits micro.

• save filename?: Saves the current buffer. If the filename is provided it will 'save as' the filename.

• replace "search" "value" flags: This will replace search with value. The flags are optional. Possible flags are:

  • -a: Replace all occurrences at once
  • -l: Do a literal search instead of a regex search

  Note that search must be a valid regex (unless -l is passed). If one of the arguments does not have any spaces in it, you may omit the quotes.

• replaceall "search" "value": This will replace search with value without user confirmation.

  See replace command for more information.

• set option value: sets the option to value. See the options help topic for a list of options you can set.

• setlocal option value: sets the option to value locally (only in the current buffer).

• show option: shows the current value of the given option.

• eval "expression": Evaluates a Lua expression. Note that micro will not print anything so you should use messenger:Message(...) to display a value.

• run sh-command: runs the given shell command in the background. The command's output will be displayed in one line when it finishes running.

• bind key action: creates a keybinding from key to action. See the sections on keybindings above for more info about what keys and actions are available.

• vsplit filename: opens a vertical split with filename. If no filename is provided, a vertical split is opened with an empty buffer.

• hsplit filename: same as vsplit but opens a horizontal split instead of a vertical split.

• tab filename: opens the given file in a new tab.

• tabswitch tab: This command will switch to the specified tab. The tab can either be a tab number, or a name of a tab.

• log: opens a log of all messages and debug statements.

• plugin install plugin_name: installs the given plugin.

• plugin remove plugin_name: removes the given plugin.

• plugin list: lists all installed plugins.

• plugin update: updates all installed plugins.

• plugin search plugin_name: searches for the given plugin. Note that you can find a list of all available plugins at github.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel.

  You can also see more information about the plugin manager in the Plugin Manager section of the plugins help topic.

• plugin available: list plugins available for download (this includes any plugins that may be already installed).

• reload: reloads all runtime files.

• cd path: Change the working directory to the given path.

• pwd: Print the current working directory.

• open filename: Open a file in the current buffer.

• retab: Replaces all leading tabs with spaces or leading spaces with tabs depending on the value of tabstospaces.

• raw: Micro will open a new tab and show the escape sequence for every event it receives from the terminal. This shows you what micro actually sees from the terminal and helps you see which bindings aren't possible and why. This is most useful for debugging keybindings.

• showkey: Show the action(s) bound to a given key. For example running > showkey CtrlC will display main.(*View).Copy. Unfortuately showkey does not work well for keys bound to plugin actions. For those it just shows "LuaFunctionBinding."

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The following commands are provided by the default plugins:

• lint: Lint the current file for errors.

Command Parsing

When running a command, you can use extra syntax that micro will expand before running the command. To use an argument with a space in it, simply put it in quotes. You can also use environment variables in the command bar and they will be expanded to their value. Finally, you can put an expression in backticks and it will be evaluated by the shell beforehand.