Micro

Lightweight terminal based text editor. A good alternative to emacs, vi, and nano.

https://github.com/zyedidia/micro

Installation

sudo apt install curl
cd ~/Downloads 
curl https://getmic.ro | sudo bash
sudo mv micro /usr/bin
cd ~/.config
ln -s ~/combined/public/system/editors/micro/micro.config micro

On wayland, I need xclip to be installed for copy-and-paste to work outside of the terminal:

sudo apt-get install xclip

Build

It's also possible to build from source pretty easily if you have a Go compiler installed

Make sure that you have Go version 1.16 or greater and Go modules are enabled.

sudo apt install golang

git clone https://github.com/zyedidia/micro
cd micro
make build
sudo mv micro /usr/bin # optional

Wrap

What about word wrapping? How to enable?

run the command:

set softwrap true

set sets the option to value. See the options help topic for a list of options you can set. This will modify your settings.json with the new value.

Or, if you want to edit the file directly, in the settings file (~/.config/micro/settings.json), enable the softwrap option:

{
    "softwrap": true
}

There is also wordwrap, but it requires softwrap which seems to do what I'm after

https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/blob/master/runtime/help/options.md

Line Numbers

Toggle line numbers on and off quickly with ctrl-r

This is available by default. The binding looks like:

    "Ctrl-r":          "ToggleRuler",

same as

set ruler true|false

Navigation / Moving Cursor

Jump to next blank line By default "ctrl-up" and "ctrl-down" jump to the beginning and the end of the document / buffer. I prefer when they jump to the next blank line instead.

    "CtrlUp": "ParagraphPrevious",
    "CtrlDown": "ParagraphNext",

Built-in, Default: There is also emacs mode if you're willing to switch over to using Alt for navigation:

    "Alt-a": "StartOfLine",
    "Alt-e": "EndOfLine",
    "Alt-f": "WordRight",
    "Alt-b": "WordLeft",

This is difficult to let go of, especially since these bindings work on the shell. Custom: These have existing, default equivalents ("Alt-right-arrow" and "Alt-left-arrow"), but if command execute is mapped to ctrl-p, it's available:

    "Ctrl-e": "EndOfLine",
    "Ctrl-a": "StartOfTextToggle",

Find / Search

Find is available via ctrl-f, but you must complete your first search by pressing enter before you can use ctrl-n to findNext.

Autoformat

One nice feature of bigger editors like VSCode is the ability to automatically format code so that things like spacing are clean.

It seems like this is something the built in linter may be able to do:

https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/blob/master/runtime/plugins/linter/linter.lua

At least with a .vue file [2023.09.16], spacing changes were not fixed.

Autoformat Plugins

https://github.com/a11ce/micro-autofmt
a11ce/micro-autofmt: Multi-language autoformatter for Micro

micro --plugin install autofmt

use prettier to do the formatting

https://github.com/gamemaker1/micro-plugin-prettier
gamemaker1/micro-plugin-prettier: A Micro plugin that formats your code using Prettier

Added the following to settings.json

    "pluginrepos": [
        {
            "name": "official",
            "url": "https://github.com/micro-editor/plugin-repo/raw/master/repo.json"
        },
        {
            "name": "prettier",
            "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gamemaker1/micro-plugin-prettier/main/repo.json"
        }
    ],

Then tried installing with:

npm install --global prettier
micro --plugin install prettier

I am getting Unknown plugin "prettier"

https://prettier.io/docs/en/options.html
Options · Prettier
about:reader?url=https%3A%2F%2Fprettier.io%2Fdocs%2Fen%2F
What is Prettier? · Prettier

Plugins & Commands

https://micro-editor.github.io/plugins.html
Micro - Plugins
https://github.com/topics/micro-editor
micro-editor · GitHub Topics

To register a function as a command, you need the following somewhere:

function init()
        config.MakeCommand("enumbuffers", enumBuffers, config.NoComplete)
end

For mapping a keybinding to a function in init.lua, in bindings.json

    "Ctrl-u": "lua:initlua.now",
    "Ctrl-j": "lua:initlua.nowtop",

Buffers / Tabs

Buffer switching?

Doesn't seem to be the same as emacs here. There is only the concept of tabs.

Remember: alt-, and alt-. to move to different tabs.

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

• tabmove '[-+]?n': Moves the active tab to another slot. n is an integer. If n is prefixed with - or +, then it represents a relative position (e.g. tabmove +2 moves the tab to the right by 2). If n has no prefix, it represents an absolute position (e.g. tabmove 2 moves the tab to slot 2).

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

• textfilter 'sh-command': filters the current selection through a shell command as standard input and replaces the selection with the stdout of the shell command. For example, to sort a list of numbers, first select them, and then execute > textfilter sort -n.

micro/commands.md at master · zyedidia/micro · GitHub

keybinding equivalents

    "Alt-,":           "PreviousTab",
    "Alt-.":           "NextTab",
    "CtrlPageUp":     "PreviousTab",
    "CtrlPageDown":   "NextTab",

Bindings

Map keystrokes to the desired command.

Ctrl-o opens new files.

Can also run this as a command with ctrl-e

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

open ~/.config/micro/bindings.json

TODO: how is the ctrl-o binding defined? would like to do something similar for replace and prompt for input Todo: how to be able to pass parameters after triggering a command:

    "Alt-%": "command:replace"

Delete

I remember reading in the documentation about "ctrl-backspace" to delete a whole word. There is some issue with that. It would be nice to be able to enable.

   "Alt-Backspace":  "DeleteWordLeft",

ctrl-d is duplicate line by default
might want to keep it as delete?
have been using ctrl-g for duplicate line

Commands

Interesting commands from ctrl-e help commands

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

• pwd: Print the current working directory.

• 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 Ctrl-c will display Copy.

Other commands

• reload: reloads all runtime files.

• reset 'option': resets the given option to its default value

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

Failed Custom Bindings

This didn't seem to have any effect when in a command. Only Escape seems to work.

    "Ctrl-g": "Escape",

ctrl-i is the same as TAB in most terminals. Difficult to bind to it

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=terminal+ctrl-i+sends+tab&ia=web
terminal ctrl-i sends tab at DuckDuckGo
https://superuser.com/questions/638690/inputrc-tab-and-ctrl-i
terminal - .inputrc, TAB and CTRL-i - Super User

Tmux

Tmux and micro don't work well together in my experience. Many of the commands overlap.

• term exec?: Open a terminal emulator running the given executable. If no executable is given, this will open the default shell in the terminal emulator.

with the term command, micro acts a bit like tmux... may not need tmux then?

Custom: Skip: Ctrl-p gets in the way of current tmux bindings for running commands. Move that elsewhere if emacs bindings open up?

    "Ctrl-p": "CommandMode",

Maybe if the editor is so lightweight, it's easier to manage separate instances externally in something like tmux?

tmux bindings may interfere with micro bindings?

Tried replacing ctrl-e -- seems easier to let go of chord for moving to end of line.

Troubleshooting

Note the version in ubuntu via apt-get tends to be a bit old and can leave log.txt files everywhere.

# sudo apt-get install micro

Links

https://micro-editor.github.io/
Micro - Home
https://micro-editor.github.io/plugins.html
Micro - Plugins
https://github.com/zyedidia/micro
GitHub - zyedidia/micro: A modern and intuitive terminal-based text editor