Description
Kakoune is a modal editor which means that keys have different effects
depending on the current mode. Therefore, modes can be conceptualized as
a way to group related behaviors together during a text editing
workflow.
Kakoune starts in Normal mode. A few keys let users enter other modes
where they can focus on a specific task before going back to Normal
mode.
Modes are stored in a stack with the top of the stack being the active
mode. So in some scenarios, the Normal mode may feel nested in
another one. The ModeChange hook is triggered each time a mode is
popped or pushed on this stack. See :doc hooks
To get a comprehensive list of commands available for each modes, see
:doc keys. Most of them are described in info boxes in
real-time if the autoinfo option is set.
To customize key mappings in various modes, refer to
:doc mapping.
Builtin modes
Normal mode
Normal mode is the default mode. It provides commands to manipulate
selections, such as general movement, text object selection, searching,
splitting, and commands to manipulate the text underlying the current
selections, such as yanking, pasting, deleting…
It also provides commands to enter other modes.
See normal commands :doc keys movement.
Insert mode
Insert mode provides an efficient way to interactively write text into
the buffer. Most keys will insert their corresponding characters before
every selections cursors. It also provides completion support for
inserted text along with some commands for basic movement.
Insert mode can be entered from Normal modes through a set of commands
such as i to insert before selection, a to insert after selection,
o to insert in a new line below selections… It can then be exited with
<esc> to return to Normal mode.
See changes :doc keys changes.
From Insert mode, <a-;> provides a way to temporarily enter a new
Normal mode for a single command, before returning to Insert mode.
See insert commands :doc keys insert-mode.
Goto mode
Goto mode provides commands dedicated to jumping either inside a buffer
(such as jumping to buffer start/end, window top/botton) or to another
(such as jumping to the file whose path is currently selected).
See goto commands :doc keys goto-commands.
View mode
View mode provides commands dedicated to controlling the window, such as
scrolling or centering the main selection cursor.
See view commands :doc keys view-commands.
Menu mode
Menu mode is entered when a menu is displayed with the menu command.
Mappings are used to filter and select intended items.
Prompt mode
Mode entered with :, / or the :prompt command. During prompt mode
a line of text is edited and then validated with <ret> or abandoned
with <esc>.
See prompt commands
:doc keys prompt-commands.
Object mode
Mode entered with <a-i>, <a-a> and various combinations of []{}
keys. It aims at crafting semantic selections, often called
text-objects.
See object commands
:doc keys object-commands.
User mode
The user mode is empty by default and is the opportunity to store custom
mappings with no risk to shadow builtin ones. The context of execution
is always the Normal mode.
User modes
The following two commands are useful in advanced use cases, when the
builtin User mode gets too crowded by mappings competing for the same
key that deserves to be split in more meaningful collections. It’s
mostly useful for plugin authors who want to bind their new commands in
extensible menus.
declare-user-mode <name>
Declare a new custom mode that can later be referred by the map
command. For example a grep custom mode to attach keys like n or p
to skim through the output results.
enter-user-mode <name>
Enable the designated mode for the next key. Docstrings are shown in the
automatic info box to increase discoverability. To keep illustrating the
aforementioned fictional grep mode, a normal mapping on <a-g> could
be used to enter this mode.