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.

See > help defaultkeys for a list an explanation of the default keybindings.

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.

Press Ctrl-e to go to command mode, and type set option value (in the future, I will use > set option value to indicate pressing Ctrl-e). 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 Ctrl-r to redo you could put the following in bindings.json:

{
    "Ctrl-r": "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. The plugin name is initlua.

This example will show you how to use the init.lua file by creating a binding to Ctrl-r which will execute the bash command 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:

local config = import("micro/config")
local shell = import("micro/shell")

function init()
    -- true means overwrite any existing binding to Ctrl-r
    -- this will modify the bindings.json file
    config.TryBindKey("Ctrl-r", "lua:initlua.gorun", true)
end

function gorun(bp)
    local buf = bp.Buf
    if buf:FileType() == "go" then
        -- the true means run in the foreground
        -- the false means send output to stdout (instead of returning it)
        shell.RunInteractiveShell("go run " .. buf.Path, true, false)
    end
end

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

{
    "Ctrl-r": "lua:initlua.gorun"
}

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