nano: Settings
1
1 7.1 Settings
1 ============
1
1 The supported settings in a nanorc file are:
1
1 ‘set afterends’
1 Make Ctrl+Right stop at word ends instead of beginnings.
1
1 ‘set allow_insecure_backup’
1 When backing up files, allow the backup to succeed even if its
1 permissions can’t be (re)set due to special OS considerations. You
1 should NOT enable this option unless you are sure you need it.
1
1 ‘set atblanks’
1 When soft line wrapping is enabled, make it wrap lines at blank
1 characters (tabs and spaces) instead of always at the edge of the
1 screen.
1
1 ‘set autoindent’
1 Automatically indent a newly created line to the same number of
1 tabs and/or spaces as the previous line (or as the next line if the
1 previous line is the beginning of a paragraph).
1
1 ‘set backup’
1 When saving a file, back up the previous version of it, using the
1 current filename suffixed with a tilde (‘~’).
1
1 ‘set backupdir "DIRECTORY"’
1 Make and keep not just one backup file, but make and keep a
1 uniquely numbered one every time a file is saved — when backups are
1 enabled with ‘set backup’ or ‘--backup’ or ‘-B’. The uniquely
1 numbered files are stored in the specified directory.
1
1 ‘set backwards’
1 Obsolete option. Recognized but ignored. ‘^Q’ is available to
1 start a backward search.
1
1 ‘set boldtext’
1 Use bold instead of reverse video for the title bar, status bar,
1 key combos, function tags, line numbers, and selected text. This
1 can be overridden by setting the options ‘titlecolor’,
1 ‘statuscolor’, ‘keycolor’, ‘functioncolor’, ‘numbercolor’, and
1 ‘selectedcolor’.
1
1 ‘set brackets "STRING"’
1 Set the characters treated as closing brackets when justifying
1 paragraphs. This may not include blank characters. Only closing
1 punctuation (see ‘set punct’), optionally followed by the specified
1 closing brackets, can end sentences. The default value is
1 ""')>]}".
1
1 ‘set casesensitive’
1 Do case-sensitive searches by default.
1
1 ‘set constantshow’
1 Constantly display the cursor position on the status bar. Note
1 that this overrides ‘quickblank’.
1
1 ‘set cutfromcursor’
1 Use cut-from-cursor-to-end-of-line by default, instead of cutting
1 the whole line. (The old form of this option, ‘set cut’, is
1 deprecated.)
1
1 ‘set errorcolor FGCOLOR,BGCOLOR’
1 Use this color combination for the status bar when an error message
1 is displayed. ⇒set functioncolor for valid color names.
1
1 ‘set fill NUMBER’
1 Hard-wrap lines at column number NUMBER. If NUMBER is 0 or less,
1 the maximum line length will be the screen width less NUMBER
1 columns. The default value is -8. This option conflicts with
1 ‘nowrap’; the last one given takes effect.
1
1 ‘set functioncolor FGCOLOR,BGCOLOR’
1 Use this color combination for the concise function descriptions in
1 the two help lines at the bottom of the screen. Valid names for
1 foreground and background color are: ‘white’, ‘black’, ‘blue’,
1 ‘green’, ‘red’, ‘cyan’, ‘yellow’, ‘magenta’, and ‘normal’ — where
1 ‘normal’ means the default foreground or background color. The
1 name of the foreground color may be prefixed with ‘bright’. And
1 either FGCOLOR or ,BGCOLOR may be left out.
1
1 ‘set historylog’
1 Save the last hundred search strings and replacement strings and
1 executed commands, so they can be easily reused in later sessions.
1
1 ‘set keycolor FGCOLOR,BGCOLOR’
1 Use this color combination for the shortcut key combos in the two
1 help lines at the bottom of the screen. ⇒set functioncolor
1 for valid color names.
1
1 ‘set linenumbers’
1 Display line numbers to the left of the text area.
1
1 ‘set locking’
1 Enable vim-style lock-files for when editing files.
1
1 ‘set matchbrackets "STRING"’
1 Set the opening and closing brackets that can be found by bracket
1 searches. This may not include blank characters. The opening set
1 must come before the closing set, and the two sets must be in the
1 same order. The default value is "(<[{)>]}".
1
1 ‘set morespace’
1 Use the blank line below the title bar as extra editing space.
1
1 ‘set mouse’
1 Enable mouse support, so that mouse clicks can be used to place the
1 cursor, set the mark (with a double click), or execute shortcuts.
1
1 ‘set multibuffer’
1 When reading in a file with ‘^R’, insert it into a new buffer by
1 default.
1
1 ‘set noconvert’
1 Don’t convert files from DOS/Mac format.
1
1 ‘set nohelp’
1 Don’t display the help lists at the bottom of the screen.
1
1 ‘set nonewlines’
1 When a file does not end with a newline, don’t automatically add
1 one.
1
1 ‘set nopauses’
1 Don’t pause between warnings at startup. This means that only the
1 last one will be visible (when there are multiple ones).
1
1 ‘set nowrap’
1 Don’t hard-wrap text at all. This option conflicts with ‘fill’;
1 the last one given takes effect.
1
1 ‘set numbercolor FGCOLOR,BGCOLOR’
11 Use this color combination for line numbers. ⇒set
functioncolor for valid color names.
1
1 ‘set operatingdir "DIRECTORY"’
1 ‘nano’ will only read and write files inside "directory" and its
1 subdirectories. Also, the current directory is changed to here, so
1 files are inserted from this directory. By default, the operating
1 directory feature is turned off.
1
1 ‘set positionlog’
1 Save the cursor position of files between editing sessions. The
1 cursor position is remembered for the 200 most-recently edited
1 files.
1
1 ‘set preserve’
1 Preserve the XON and XOFF keys (‘^Q’ and ‘^S’).
1
1 ‘set punct "STRING"’
1 Set the characters treated as closing punctuation when justifying
1 paragraphs. This may not include blank characters. Only the
1 specified closing punctuation, optionally followed by closing
1 brackets (see ‘set brackets’), can end sentences. The default
1 value is "!.?".
1
1 ‘set quickblank’
1 Do quick status-bar blanking: status-bar messages will disappear
1 after 1 keystroke instead of 25. Note that ‘constantshow’
1 overrides this.
1
1 ‘set quiet’
1 Obsolete option. Recognized but ignored.
1
1 ‘set quotestr "REGEX"’
1 The email-quote string, used to justify email-quoted paragraphs.
1 This is an extended regular expression. The default value is
1 "^([ \t]*([#:>|}]|//))+". Note that ‘\t’ stands for a literal Tab
1 character.
1
1 ‘set rebinddelete’
1 Interpret the Delete key differently so that both Backspace and
1 Delete work properly. You should only need to use this option if
1 Backspace acts like Delete on your system.
1
1 ‘set rebindkeypad’
1 Interpret the numeric keypad keys so that they all work properly.
1 You should only need to use this option if they don’t, as mouse
1 support won’t work properly with this option enabled.
1
1 ‘set regexp’
1 Do extended regular expression searches by default.
1
1 ‘set selectedcolor FGCOLOR,BGCOLOR’
11 Use this color combination for selected text. ⇒set
functioncolor for valid color names.
1
1 ‘set showcursor’
1 Put the cursor on the highlighted item in the file browser, to aid
1 braille users.
1
1 ‘set smarthome’
1 Make the Home key smarter. When Home is pressed anywhere but at
1 the very beginning of non-whitespace characters on a line, the
1 cursor will jump to that beginning (either forwards or backwards).
1 If the cursor is already at that position, it will jump to the true
1 beginning of the line.
1
1 ‘set smooth’
1 Use smooth scrolling by default.
1
1 ‘set softwrap’
1 Enable soft line wrapping for easier viewing of very long lines.
1
1 ‘set speller "PROGRAM"’
11 Use the given program to do spell checking and correcting. ⇒
--speller for details.
1
1 ‘set statuscolor FGCOLOR,BGCOLOR’
11 Use this color combination for the status bar. ⇒set
functioncolor for valid color names.
1
1 ‘set suspend’
1 Allow ‘nano’ to be suspended.
1
1 ‘set tabsize NUMBER’
1 Use a tab size of NUMBER columns. The value of NUMBER must be
1 greater than 0. The default value is 8.
1
1 ‘set tabstospaces’
1 Convert typed tabs to spaces.
1
1 ‘set tempfile’
1 Save automatically on exit, don’t prompt.
1
1 ‘set titlecolor FGCOLOR,BGCOLOR’
11 Use this color combination for the title bar. ⇒set
functioncolor for valid color names.
1
1 ‘set trimblanks’
1 Remove trailing whitespace from wrapped lines when automatic
1 hard-wrapping occurs or when text is justified. (The old form of
1 this option, ‘set justifytrim’, is deprecated.)
1
1 ‘set unix’
1 Save a file by default in Unix format. This overrides nano’s
1 default behavior of saving a file in the format that it had. (This
1 option has no effect when you also use ‘set noconvert’.)
1
1 ‘set view’
1 Disallow file modification.
1
1 ‘set whitespace "STRING"’
1 Set the two characters used to indicate the presence of tabs and
1 spaces. They must be single-column characters. The default pair
1 for a UTF-8 locale is "»·", and for other locales ">.".
1
1 ‘set wordbounds’
1 Detect word boundaries differently by treating punctuation
1 characters as part of a word.
1
1 ‘set wordchars "STRING"’
1 Specify which other characters (besides the normal alphanumeric
1 ones) should be considered as parts of words. This overrides the
1 option ‘wordbounds’.
1