Keyboard shortcuts

Press ← or → to navigate between chapters

Press S or / to search in the book

Press ? to show this help

Press Esc to hide this help

Preferences and settings

Settings > Preferences… (Ctrl+,) holds every setting in one window. Changes take effect as you make them; there's no OK button to press. The sections are on the left, with buttons for the Shortcut Mapper, Theme Colours and Customise Toolbar below them.

The most-used switches are also in the Settings menu, so you can flip them without opening Preferences.

Editing

Indentation

  • Tab width: how many columns a tab takes up, and how many spaces an indent is when indenting with spaces.
  • Indent with tabs or Indent with spaces: what Tab and automatic indentation insert. Also Settings > Indent With Spaces.
  • Smart indentation: keep the indent on Enter, and indent after an opening bracket. Also Settings > Smart Indentation.

Typing

  • Close brackets and quotes automatically (Settings > Auto-Close Brackets and Quotes)
  • Close HTML and XML tags automatically (Tools > XML Tools > Close Tags Automatically)
  • Suggest words from the document while typing (Settings > Word Completion)
  • Suggest the language's keywords and functions (Settings > Keyword and Function Completion)
  • Show a function's parameters while typing a call (Settings > Parameter Hints)

See Typing helpers for what each one does.

Display

Font

  • Editor font: the font for the text. The list shows the fonts installed on your computer, monospaced ones first; tick Show proportional fonts to see the rest, and type in Find to look for one. Use Built-in goes back to Hack, the font Ettin Edit comes with.
  • Size: the text size. Ctrl+0 returns to this size after zooming.

Whatever font you choose, Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters are drawn with a CJK font from your system when one is installed.

Show: word wrap, line numbers, the current line highlight, whitespace, end-of-line symbols and invisible characters, indent guides, and the Long-line marker at column, with its column. These are the same switches as in the View menu.

New Documents

What a new tab (Ctrl+N) starts with:

  • Line ending: your system's usual one (LF on Linux, CR LF on Windows), or one you choose.
  • Encoding: UTF-8 unless you choose another.
  • Language: Plain Text, or the language you write most, so new tabs are coloured and complete as that language straight away.

Opened files always keep their own line ending and encoding.

Files and Startup

Interface language

  • The language of menus, dialogs and messages: the same as your system's, or one you choose. Open Translations Folder and Reload are for adding your own translations. See Translations.

Startup and exit

  • Reopen the files that were open last time: start where you left off.
  • Quit without asking about unsaved changes, and bring them back next time: see You won't lose your work. Also Settings > Remember Unsaved Changes on Exit.
  • Open files in the running Ettin Edit window: one window for everything. Also Settings > Single Window.

Files

  • Reload files changed on disk automatically when they have no unsaved changes. Also Settings > Reload Files Changed on Disk Automatically.
  • Check that XML is well-formed each time it's saved. Also Tools > XML Tools > Check Syntax When Saving.

Printing

  • Print line numbers
  • Print syntax colours (darkened to read well on paper)

Updates

  • Check for a new version of Ettin Edit once a week. Also Help > Check for Updates Automatically.

Plugins

Programs that run plugins: the Python 3 and Node.js programs to run plugins with. Leave them empty and Ettin Edit finds them on the PATH; fill them in if you want a particular Python (a virtual environment, say) or a Node.js that isn't on the PATH. Changes apply when plugins are reloaded (Plugins > Reload Plugins).

Where settings are kept

Settings are saved in settings.json in the settings folder. You can copy that file to another computer to take your settings with you. Edit it by hand only while Ettin Edit is closed, because Ettin Edit writes it when settings change.