Acme editor notes

acme

Resources

The Acme User Interface for Programmers
A Tour of the Acme Editor - Watch this if you’re completely new.
Plan9 Acme Intro - Part 1
The Tao of Acme
Extensibility in the Acme text editor

Mouse

Acme needs a 3-button mouse to work properly. All buttons can be used to select text, but their function is different upon release. The left button is used for just selecting text. The middle button is used for executing text. The right button is for searching text and loading files or directories. Text doesn’t have to first be selected when using button 2 and 3 (middle and right) if the selection is only one word.

Acme also makes use of mouse chording (e.g pressing more than one button).


Button 1-2	Cut.
Button 1-3	Paste
Select text + Button 2-1	Execute with selection as argument.

Move around


`:2`	Go to 2nd line.
`:0`	Go to beginning of file.
`:$`	Go to end of file.
`CTRL-A`	Go to beginning of line.
`CTRL-E`	Go to end of line.
`CTRL-F`	Filepath autocompletion.
`Edit =`	Find current line number.

Search and select


`:,`	Select all lines.
`Edit ,`	Select all lines.
`:1,5`	Select lines 1 to 5.
`Edit 1,5`	Select lines 1 to 5.
`:/regexp/`	Select lines matching `regexp`.
`:/regexp1/,/regexp2/`	Select lines between `regexp1` and `regexp2`.
`Edit + /foo`	Forward serach.
`:/foo`	Forward search.
`:foo`	Forward search.
Right click kon word.	Forward search.
`Edit -/foo`	Backward search.
`:-/foo`	Backward search.
`-/foo`	Backward search.

Edit text


`CTRL-U`	Delete from cursor to beginning of line.
`CTRL-W`	Delete before cursor.
`CTRL-H`	Delete character before cursor.
`Edit , d`	Clear window.
`Edit , s/foo/bar/g`	Global replace.
`Edit , \| sed 's/foo/bar/g'`	Global replace.
`Edit s/foo/bar/g`	Replace in selection.
`Edit 2 d`	Delete 2nd line.
`Edit 2 c/foo`	Change 2nd line.
`Edit 2 a/foo`	Append after 2nd line.
`Edit 2 i/foo`	Prepend before 2nd line.

Work with external commands


`cmd`	Run `cmd` with the file as argument.
`\|cmd`	Pipe selection through `cmd` and also apply changes.
`>cmd`	Send selection to `cmd` and see result in a temporary window.
`<cmd`	Paste output of `cmd` in current window (no selection required).

Any command can be used, these are just a few examples.


`Edit , < echo foo`	Replace window body with some text (works with any command).
`echo foo \| 9p write acme/$winid/body`	Append to end of current window body.
`Edit , > wc -l`	Count lines.
`Edit , \| sort`	Sort lines.
`Edit ,x/regexp/ < date`	Replace `regexp` with the output of date(1).
Select text + `\| sed '' > foo.txt`	Cut to `foo.txt`.
Select text + `> sed '' > foo.txt`	Copy to `foo.txt`.

Files

As mentioned earlier, files are opened using the right mouse click.


`foo.c`	Open file.
`foo.c:3`	Open file on line 3.
`foo.c:3:9`	Open file on line 3 column 9.
`foo.c:/^func`	Open file on the line starting with `func`.
`foo.c:/bar/,/baz/`	Open file with a selection from `bar` to `baz`.

Useful Acme commands


`win`	Spawn shell as a window.
`web URL`	Open `URL` in browser.
`Dump`	Save current state.
`Load`	Load dump.
`Tab 8`	Set tab width to 8.

Variables


`$%`	Current file name.
`$samfile`	Current file name.
`$winid`	Current window.