Awesome Tips about Atom Editor

Table of Contents

• Install Atom Editor
• Atom Editor Settings
• Tune Package Configuration
• How To Explore and Learn Atom Functions
• Must-Have Atom Editor Packages
• Atom Editor Shortcuts
• Atom Editor Keymap
• Moving in Atom Editor without Mouse or Trackpad
• Tabs
• Atom Editor Snippets
• Pending Pane Items
• More Atom Editor Tips

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Awesome Tips about Atom Series

Install Atom Editor

• Install Atom from here
• Install Shell Commands
  • Go to Atom -> Install Shell Commands, this will install shell commands: atom and apm or atom-beta, apm-beta depended on we choose to install atom or atom-beta.
• Install Packages at Settings -> Packages
  • Check here for all must-have atom editor packages

Atom Editor Settings

Core Settings

• Show/Hide files/folders ignored by .gitignore
  • (un)check “Hide VCS Ignored Files” in Tree View package
• Make files/folders ignored by .gitignore searchable or not
  • (un)check “Exclude VCS Ignored Paths” in Settings

Atom -> Preference -> Editor -> Enable soft wrap

Tune Package Configuration

• After install a new package, read its settings page to configure it, learn its Keybindings etc.
• Find the package in “Preference -> Packages”

Command Palette

• Select Preserve Last Search at Packages -> Command Palette
  • As we usually call same functions multiple times.

Tree View

• Enable Auto Reveal: link tree view with editor
• Enable Hide Ignored Names, Hide VSS Ignored Files
• cmd-** to open/close the tree view, alt+** to focus it
• a, shift-a, m, or delete to add, move or delete files and folders
• up/down arrow keys to preview files
  • need reload the window
• toggle focus between the tree view and the editor panes by pressing Ctrl+0

Fuzzy Finder

• Select Preserve Last Search

cmd-t or cmd-p	open the file finder
cmd-b	open the list of open buffers
cmd-shift-b	open the list of Git modified and untracked files

AutoSave

• select “enabled”.

Whitespace package

• uncheck “Ensure Single Trailing Newline” option
  • remove trailing whitespace doesn’t work for markdown file
    • Change the file suffix then change it back

How To Explore and Learn Atom Functions

• Command Palette
  • Find all commands from one package by starting with the package name: e.g. Type Change Case to know all functions provided
• Use Cmd+Shift+?: Search -> Help to find/explore/call command.
• After install the package, read its readme, and settings, change them if applied.
• When you want to figure out how to do xx, or want some features, change some settings, first figure out what package provides the function.
  • By using Key Binding Resolver which shows which package responds to your typing or shortcut.

  Functions

• Multiple cursors
  • cmd++Shift+click: add new cursors
• Fold
• Pending Pane Items

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Must-Have Atom Editor Packages

• The Must Have Atom Packages for Productivity, Developers, Writing, Writing with Markdown and etc.

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Atom Editor Shortcuts

• Search shortcut at Settings -> Keybindings
• Shortcuts from vim-mode-plus
• New File under current folder when select the folder or a file in project panel: A

Command+P	Switch to File
Command+Shift+P	Command Palette
Command+\	Toggle Tree View
Command+Enter	Replace all
Ctrl+Shift+C	Copy full path
Cmd+Option++(-)	Increase(decrease) active panel size
Cmd+Ctrl+G	Select all matching characters
Shift+Ctrl+M	Markdown Preview
Cmd+R	File symbol navigation
Ctrl + g	Go to Line
Ctrl+m	Go to Matching Bracket
Cmd+Shift+t	Bring up the list of corrections (with spell-check extension)
Ctrl+Shift+left(or right)	move tab to left(or right)

Shortcut for Moving/Selection

Option+left(right)	Move to beginning/end of word
Option+Shift+left(right)	Select to beginning/end of word
Ctrl+A(E)	Move to first character(end) of Line
Ctrl+Shift+A(E)	Select to first character(end) of line
Cmd+up(down)	Move to top(bottom)
Shift+Cmd+up(down)	Select to top(bottom)

Shortcut for Writing

Cmd+k+u	Convert to Upper Case
Cmd+k+l	Convert to Lower Case
Ctrl+Shift+k	Delete Line
Ctrl+K	Cut to End of Line

New Line Above

• Space and new line are important when we write with markdown and use Pandoc to convert it to HTML.
• So we need insert a new line above to fix the format issue: the default cmd-shift-enter confits with maximize-panels:maxmize
• To assign alt-enter to newline-above, add the following in keymap.cson:

"atom-workspace atom-text-editor:not([mini])":
  "alt-enter": "editor:newline-above"
  # "alt-enter": "editor:newline",

• keybinding-cheatsheet

Atom Editor Keymap

When Shortcut Doesn’t Work

Example: Ctrl+e doesn’t work: not go to end of line

• Use Cmd+. to open Key Binding Resolver
• Type the shortcut, the Key Binding Resolver will show what commands this keybinding resolves to, and which one wins
• In my case, Ctrl+e conflicts with Emmet: expand abbreviation
• To solve it, I can either uninstall Emmet(as I don’t really use it)
• or replace the shortcut with desired function
  • in the Key Binding Resolver click and go to the keymap file and find the keymap definition

  'atom-text-editor:not([mini])':
  'ctrl-e': 'editor:move-to-end-of-line'

How to disable key binding

• Click the clipboard to copy the shortcut definition in Keybindings settings
• replace the function to unset! to remove it or change it to another function

Change “Alt+1” to Toggle Tree-View

• By default, “Alt+1” in Linux would show the first tab which itself is not that useful as I often use “ctrl+p” to go to specific tab;
• “Alt+1” is to toggle(hide) the project view (in left side) in intellij, so I am often confused, and type “alt+1” to hide tree view by mistake.

'atom-workspace':
  'cmd-ctrl-t': 'document-outline:toggle'
  "alt-1": "tree-view:toggle"

Solve the conflict between jumpy:toggle and markdown-preview-enhanced:run-code-chunk

'.editor[data-grammar*="gfm"], .editor[data-grammar*="md"], .editor[data-grammar*="markdown"]':
  'shift-enter': 'jumpy:toggle'

Moving in Atom Editor without Mouse or Trackpad

• Fn+up/down for page up/down
• After highlight and select multiple same words, Cmd+d: find-and-replace:select-next to choose all words what to change, then replace it or use left, right arrow to append words
• Cmd+U to Unselect the next matching characters
• Cmd+Ctrl+G to Select all matching characters

ctrl+F2	list bookmarks
cmd+F2	create bookmark
cmd+R	toggle file symbols

Tabs

• In command palette: Tabs: close other tabs, close tabs to left/right etc
• Pane: Move item left/right(ctrl+shift+left/right) to move tab to the left/right

Atom Editor Snippets

• using """ for Multi-line Snippet Body

'.source.gfm':
  'TL;DR':
    'prefix': 'tldr'
    'body': '#### TL;DR'

Pending Pane Items

• single-clicking a file will open it in pending state
• use this to open files that we don’t want to keep and avoid open too many files
• Cmd+Shift+F: project find opens files in pending state.

More Atom Editor Tips

• Open link in Atom
  • ctrl-shift-o from Atom core
  • Cmd+click from Hyperlink Hyperclick which requires Hyperclick
• Use Rename to move files
• Find previous: shift + enter in the search dialog
• Use Cmd+/ to comment: it know the right syntax for different language
• Click the file name at the bottom bar to copy the full path
• Use Settings -> Updates to update all extensions
• Reset to Factory Defaults: mv ~/.atom ~/.atom-backup

Find Replace with regex

• Add | at the beginning (to fix markdown table)
  • Search for ^(.*)$ and replace with |$1
• find all links that doesn’t start with http in markdown: \]\([^h]
• Only in Selection

File/Directory Pattern Syntax

• Use minimatch and glob patterns
• “globstar” pattern (**) can be used to match arbitrarily many subdirectories: docs/**/*.md
• Exclude file types or paths: !
• Search only java source (exclude test) code: **/src/main/**/*.java or *.java,!*Test.java(this also works in Eclipse)

Hot to Print in Atom Editor

• We can’t print a file directly in Atom Editor
• To print the, we can open the in Chrome, then print in Chrome.
• For markdown, use markdown-preview-enhanced to open it in browser then print.

apm

apm list --installed --enabled
apm list --installed --bare
apm upgrade --no-confirm
apm uninstall ${packagename}

Resources

• Atom Flight Manual