2 min read

Some useful keyboard shortcuts for Atom editor

Daijiang Li · 2015/04/10

I am trying to switch to Github’s new editor Atom. Here is a note about things I found useful for me.

Packages

To see all packages installed, run apm list in your terminal. I used the following packages so far:

  • atom-material-syntax # great syntax highlighting
  • atom-material-ui # great user interface
  • autocomplete-bibtex # autocomplete citations
  • autocomplete-paths # autocomplete path of files
  • file-icons # show file icons in the tree view
  • git-time-machine # compare git files
  • ink # for julia language
  • julia-client #
  • language-julia #
  • language-latex #
  • language-markdown #
  • markdown-preview-plus # render math equations
  • markdown-writer # make writing in markdown easier
  • minimap # show minimap of your file
  • minimap-find-and-replace # show finded items in minimap
  • pen-paper-coffee-syntax #
  • project-manager #
  • terminal-panel # run terminal within Atom
  • typewriter #
  • vim-mode # I like the vim mode of moving cursor
  • wordcount #
  • Zen # distraction free

To install all of them: apm install atom-material-syntax atom-material-ui autocomplete-bibtex autocomplete-paths file-icons git-time-machine ink julia-client language-julia language-latex language-markdown language-r markdown-preview-plus markdown-writer minimap minimap-find-and-replace pen-paper-coffee-syntax project-manager terminal-panel typewriter vim-mode wordcount Zen

Shortcuts

Multi-cursor

I also like the multi-cursor feature from sublime text, which I feel is a must for me. Shortcuts within Atom:

  • ctrl-D if you select a world, then you hit ctrl-D and Atom will select next same word for you. Then you can either type directly (which will replace the old word) or use left or right arrow to append things.
  • ctrl-leftclick you can use this to select locations for multi-cursor wherever you want.
  • shift-alt-down or shift-alt-up to put multi-cursor at multiple lines. Or you can select multiple lines first, then selection -- split into lines (in Mac, you can use cmd-shift-L, sadly, for windows and linux so far, no similar shortcut for this [in sublime, we can use ctrl-shift-L].).

These pretty much cover most of usage of multi-cursor, but I still missing shift-rightclick_and_drag feature from sublime text.

Spell check

To enable spell check for Latex files, go to setting and find the spell-check package, add text.tex.latex in the grammer filed.

Common used

  • shift + f11: full screen, distration free from the Zen package.
  • ctrl + \: toggle tree view.
  • ctrl + /: toggle comment.
  • ctrl + shift + up/down: move line up/down.

update soon