1MLE(1) BSD General Commands Manual MLE(1)
2
4 mle — flexible terminal-based text editor
5
7 mle [-habcHiKklMmNnpSstvwxyz] [file[:line]] ...
8
10 mle is a small, flexible, terminal-based text editor written in C. It
11 runs on Linux, Windows (cygwin), FreeBSD, and MacOS. Visit
12 https://github.com/adsr/mle for more info.
13 Basic usage
15 $ mle # Open blank buffer
16 $ mle one.c # Edit one.c
17 $ mle one.c:100 # Edit one.c at line 100
18 $ mle one.c two.c # Edit one.c and two.c
19 $ mle -h # Show command line help
20 The default key bindings are intuitive. Input text as normal, use direc‐
22 tional keys to move around, use `Ctrl-S` to save, `Ctrl-O` to open,
23 `Ctrl-X` to exit.
24 Press `F2` for full help.
26 Options
28 -h Show help message
29 -a ⟨1|0⟩ Enable/disable tab_to_space (default: 1)
31 -b ⟨1|0⟩ Enable/disable highlight bracket pairs (default: 1)
33 -c column Color column (default: -1, disabled)
35 -H ⟨1|0⟩ Enable/disable headless mode (default: 1 if no tty,
37 else 0)
38 -i ⟨1|0⟩ Enable/disable auto_indent (default: 0)
40 -K kdef Make a kmap definition (use with -k).
42 kdef is formatted as
44 `<name>,<default_cmd>,<allow_fallthru>`, where name
45 is the name of the kmap, default_cmd is the default
46 command handler (can be empty), and allow_fallthru is
47 a 0 or 1 specifying whether unhandled key input
48 should be forwarded to the previous kmap on the stack
49 or not.
50 -k kbind Add key binding to current kmap definition (use after
52 -K).
53 kbind is formatted as `<cmd>,<key>,<param>`, where
55 cmd is a command name, key is a key name, and param
56 is a static parameter passed to the command (can be
57 empty).
58 -l ltype Set linenum type (default: 0, absolute).
60 ltype can be 0 (absolute), 1 (relative), or 2 (both)
62 -M macro Add a macro.
64 macro is formatted as `<name> <key1> <key2> ...
66 <keyN>`, where name is the name of the macro, and
67 keyN are space-separated key names.
68 -m key Set macro toggle key (default: M-r). key is a key
70 name.
71 -N Skip reading of rc file
73 -n kmap Set init kmap (default: mle_normal). kmap is a kmap
75 name.
76 -p macro Set startup macro. macro is a macro name.
78 -S syndef Make a syntax definition (use with -s).
80 syndef is formatted as
82 `<name>,<path_pattern>,<tab_width>,<tab_to_space>`,
83 where name is a syntax name, path_pattern is a path
84 matching regex (PCRE), tab_width is the default tab
85 width, tab_to_space is a 0 or 1 specifying whether to
86 convert tabs to spaces or not.
87 -s synrule Add syntax rule to current syntax definition (use af‐
89 ter -S).
90 synrule is formatted as `<start>,<end>,<fg>,<bg>`,
92 where start and end are text matching regexes (PCRE),
93 and fg and bg are attributes to apply to matching
94 text.
95 If both start and end are supplied, the rule applies
97 to all text matched in between the regexes, poten‐
98 tially spanning multiple lines. If only start is
99 specified, the rule applies to text matched by the
100 regex on a single line.
101 Attributes for fg and bg are as follows:
103 0 default
105 1 black
107 2 red
109 4 yellow
111 5 blue
113 6 magenta
115 7 cyan
117 8 white
119 256 bold
121 512 underline
123 1024 reverse
125 -t size Set tab size (default: 4)
127 -v Print version and exit
129 -w ⟨1|0⟩ Enable/disable soft word wrap (default: 0)
131 -x uscript Run a Lua user script (experimental)
133 -y syntax Set override syntax for files opened at start up. If
135 '-' is specified, use the built-in generic syntax.
136 syntax is any syntax name.
137 -z ⟨1|0⟩ Enable/disable trim_paste (default: 1)
139
141 Below are some advanced things you can do with mle.
142 rc file
144 To customize the editor, make an rc file named ~/.mlerc or /etc/mlerc.
145 The contents of the rc file are any number of cli options separated by
146 newlines. Lines that begin with a semi-colon are interpretted as com‐
147 ments.
148 If the rc file is executable, mle executes it and interprets the result‐
150 ing stdout as described above. For example, consider the following snip‐
151 pet from an executable ~/.mlerc bash(1) script:
152 ...
154 # Define 'test' kmap
155 echo '-Ktest,,1'
156 # M-q: replace grep with git grep if `.git` exists
158 if [ -d ".git" ]; then
159 echo '-kcmd_grep,M-q,git grep --color=never -P -i -I -n %s 2>/dev/null'
160 fi
161 # Set default kmap
163 echo '-n test'
164 ...
165 This overrides the built-in grep command with `git grep` if .git exists
167 in the current working directory.
168 Shell command integration
170 The following programs will enable or enhance certain features of mle if
171 they exist in PATH.
172 bash(1) file tab completion
174 fzf(1) fuzzy file search
176 grep(1) file grep
178 less(1) less integration
180 perl(1) perl 1-liners
182 readtags(1) ctags integration
184 tree(1) file browsing
186 Arbitrary shell commands can also be run via `cmd_shell` (M-e by de‐
188 fault). If any text is selected, it is sent to stdin of the command. Any
189 resulting stdout is inserted into the text buffer.
190 Headless mode
192 mle provides support for non-interactive editing which may be useful for
193 using the editor as a regular command line tool. In headless mode, mle
194 reads stdin into a buffer, applies a startup macro if specified, and then
195 writes the buffer contents to stdout. For example:
196 $ echo -n hello | mle -M 'test C-e space w o r l d enter' -p test
198 hello world
199 If stdin is a pipe, mle goes into headless mode automatically. Headless
201 mode can be explicitly enabled or disabled with the `-H` option.
202 If stdin is a pipe and headless mode is disabled via -H0, mle reads stdin
204 into a new buffer and then runs as normal in interactive mode.
205 Scripting (experimental)
207 mle is extensible via the Lua programming language. Scripts are loaded
208 via the `-x` cli option. Commands registered by scripts can be mapped to
209 keys as normal via `-k`. See https://github.com/adsr/mle for more info.
210
212 mle makes extensive use of the following libraries.
213 uthash for hash maps and linked lists
215 termbox2 for TUI
217 PCRE for syntax highlighting and search
219BSD August 1, 2018 BSD