# The Fundamentals

If you have ever used a text editor, you will have no problem using &kate;. In the next two sections, Starting &kate; and Working with &kate;, you will find everything you need to get up and running quickly.

## Starting &kate;

You can start &kate; from the TDE menu or from the command line.

### From the Menu

Open the &tde; program menu by clicking on the big T icon on the toolbar at the bottom left of your screen. This will raise the program menu. Move your cursor up the menu to the Utilities Editors menu item. A list of available editors will appear. Choose &kate;.

Unless you configure &kate; not to, it will load the last files you edited. See Configuring &kate; to learn how to toggle this feature on and off.

### From the Command Line

You can start &kate; by typing its name on the command line. If you give it a file name, as in the example below, it will open or create that file.

    %kate myfile.txt

If you have an active connection and permission, you can take advantage of &tde;'s network transparency to open files on the internet.

    %kate http://git.trinitydesktop.org/cgit/tdebase/plain/doc/kate/index.docbook

#### Command Line Options

&kate; accepts the following command line options:

``kate` `--help``

  This lists the most basic options available at the command line.

``kate` `--help-qt``

  This lists the options available for changing the way &kate; interacts with &Qt;.

``kate` `--help-tde``

  This lists the options available for changing the way &kate; interacts with &tde;.

``kate` `--help-tde-tempfile``

  This lists the available &tde;-tempfile specific options.

``kate` `--help-all``

  This lists all of the command line options.

``kate` `--author``

  Lists &kate;'s authors in the terminal window.

``kate` `-v` `--version``

  Lists version information for &Qt;, &tde;, and &kate;.

``kate` `--license``

  Shows license information.

``kate` `-s` `--start` `name``

  Starts &kate; with the session `name`. If the session does not exist, a new session with the specified name is created. If a &kate; instance running the specified session already exists, the specified files are loaded in that instance.

``kate` `-u` `--use` `URL``

  Causes &kate; to use an existing instance if there is one. If you want all documents to open in one kate instance, you can add this option to the default command in your &tde; application configuration, as well as create a shell alias in your command intepreter if it supports that.

``kate` `-f` `--force-sdi``

  If the multiple document interface (MDI) setting is enabled, forces &kate; to use the single document interface (SDI) mode.

``kate` `-p` `--pid` `PID``

  Only reuses an instance with the specified PID (Process ID). Used with the `--use` option.

``kate` `-e` `--encoding` `encoding` `URL``

  Uses the specified encoding for the document.

``kate` `-l` `--line` `line` `URL``

  Navigates to the specified line after opening the document.

``kate` `-c` `--column` `column` `URL``

  Navigates to the specified column after opening the document.

``kate` `-i` `--stdin``

  Reads the document content from STDIN. This is similar to the common option `-` used in many command line programs, and allows you to pipe command output into &kate;.

``kate` `--tempfile``

  Since &kate; 2.5.1 this standard &tde; option is supported. When used, the specified files are treated as temporary files and deleted (if they are local files and you have sufficient permissions) when closed, unless they are modified since they were opened.

### Drag and Drop

&kate; uses the &tde; Drag and Drop protocol. Files may be dragged and dropped onto &kate; from the Desktop, &konqueror; or some remote ftp site opened in one of &konqueror;'s windows.

## Working with &kate;

Quick Start will show you how to toggle simple options that will let you configure some of &kate;'s more powerful features right away. Shortcuts lays out some of the default keystroke shortcuts for those who can't or don't want to use a mouse.

### Quick Start

This section will describe some of the items on the Settings menu so that you can quickly configure &kate; to work the way you want it.

When you start &kate; for the first time you'll see two windows with white backgrounds. Above the two windows is a toolbar with the usual labeled icons. And above that, a menubar.

The left-hand window is a side bar. It combines the Documents panel, Filesystem Browser and Sessions panel. Switch among the three by clicking on the tabs to the left of the window.

If you've started &kate; with a file, the right-hand window will show the file you are editing and the Documents on the side bar will show the name of the file. Use the Filesystem Browser window to open files.

You can toggle the Documents, Filesystem Browser and Sessions window on and off in WindowTool Views menu. This menu offers you your first glimpse into &kate;'s power and flexibility. In this section we'll look at four items:

Show/Hide Documents

  Toggles the Documents panel on and off. It will display the Documents panel in the side bar if another panel was shown or will toggle the side bar open or closed otherwise.

Show/Hide Filesystem Browser

  Toggles the Filesystem Browser on and off. It will display the Filesystem Browser in the side bar if another panel was shown or will toggle the side bar open or closed otherwise.

Show/Hide Sessions

  Toggles the Sessions panel on and off. It will display the Sessions panel in the side bar if another panel was shown or will toggle the side bar open or closed otherwise.

Show/Hide Terminal

  Toggles a terminal emulator on and off at the bottom of &kate;'s window. In other words, it gives you a command line within the application.

### Shortcuts

Many of &kate;'s keystroke commands (shortcuts) are configurable by way of the Settings menu. By default &kate; honors the following key bindings.

Insert | Toggle between Insert and Overwrite mode. When in insert mode the editor will add any typed characters to the text and push any previously typed data to the right of the text cursor. Overwrite mode causes the entry of each character to eliminate the current character.
Left Arrow | Move the cursor one character to the left
Right Arrow | Move the cursor one character to the right
Up Arrow | Move the cursor up one line
Down Arrow | Move the cursor down one line
Page Up | Move the cursor up one page
Page Down | Move the cursor down one page
Backspace | Delete the character to the left of the cursor
Home | Move the cursor to the beginning of the line
End | Move the cursor to the end of the line
Delete | Delete the character to the right of the cursor (or any selected text)
&Shift;Left Arrow | Mark text one character to the left
&Shift;Right Arrow | Mark text one character to the right
F1 | Help
&Shift;F1 | What's this?
&Ctrl;F | Find
F3 | Find again
&Ctrl;B | Set a Bookmark
&Ctrl;C | Copy the marked text to the clipboard.
&Ctrl;N | New document
&Ctrl;P | Print
&Ctrl;Q | Quit - close active copy of editor
&Ctrl;R | Replace
&Ctrl;S | Save your file.
&Ctrl;V | Paste.
&Ctrl;X | Delete the marked text and copy it to the clipboard.
&Ctrl;Z | Undo
&Ctrl;&Shift;Z | Redo

## Using Sessions

Sessions is how &kate; lets you keep more than one list of files and GUI configuration around. You can have as many named sessions as you want, and you can use unnamed or anonymous sessions for files you want to use only once. Currently &kate; can save the list of open files, and the general window configuration in the session, future versions of &kate; may add more features that can be saved in sessions. With the introduction of sessions, &kate; also allows you to open any number of instances of the application instead of just one as it used to do as the default behavior.

Sessions are supported in three areas:

- Command line options that lets you select and start sessions when launching kate from the command line.

- The Sessions menu that lets you switch, save, start and manage your sessions

- Configuration options that lets you decide how sessions generally should behave.

When starting a new session, the GUI configuration of Default Session is loaded. To save window configuration in the default session, you need to enable saving window configuration in the sessions configuration page of the configuration dialog and then load the default session, set up the window as desired and save the session again.

When a named session is loaded, &kate; will display the session name at the start of the window title, which then have the form "Session Name: Document name or &URL; - &kate;"

When opening files on the command line with `--start name` or if a session is selected using the session chooser, the specified session is loaded prior to the files specified on the command line. To open files from the command line in a new, unnamed session, configure kate to start a new session per default in the session page of the configuration dialog or use `--start` with an empty string: ''.

Since &kate; 2.5.1 the PID of the current instance is exported to the environment variable `KATE_PID`. When opening files from the built in terminal, Kate will automatically select the current instance if nothing else is indicated on the command line.

## Getting Help

This manual

  Offers detailed documentation on all menu commands, configuration options, tools, dialogs, plugins &etc; as well as a description of the &kate; window, the editor and various concepts used in the application.

  Press F1 or use the Help Kate handbook menu topic to view this manual.

What's This Help

  What's This Help offers immediate help with single elements of graphical windows, such as buttons or other window areas.

  We strive to provide What's This Help for any element for which it makes sense. It is available throughout the configuration dialog, and in many other dialogs as well.

  To employ What's This Help, press &Shift;F1 or use the Help What's This menu item to enable What's This mode. The cursor will turn into an arrow with a question mark, and you can now click any element in the window to read the What's This Help for that element, if it is available.

Help Buttons in Dialogs

  Some dialogs have a Help Button. Pressing it will start the &khelpcenter; and open the relevant documentation.