Editing in Kate

The process of adding and editing document content is familiar to users of text editors (such as Notepad) or word processors (such as Word or WordPerfect). Insert text at the cursor by typing it. Delete text with <Backspace> or <Del>. Replace text by highlighting it and typing new text over it. The Kate Edit menu contains familiar items, such as copy, cut, paste, and find and replace. The undo command can undo up to 256 actions in a row.

Kate allows you to highlight rows, instead of columns. To change to column selection, click Edit and select Toggle Block Selection. Select it again to change back to row selection.

Plug-ins are available for Kate that add to its basic capabilities. For instance, a spell checker plug-in is available. You must activate a plug-in before you can use it. To do so, click Tools and select Configure Kate. Expand Applications (click the plus sign, +) and click Plugins. A list of plug-ins that you can check or uncheck displays. If you check the box by Spell Checker and click OK, a Spelling item is added to the Tools menu.

Kate provides a find command that allows you to find and open a file based on its content. Click Tools and select Find in File to see the window shown on the right. Enter the text you are searching for in the Pattern field. In the Files field, specify the filenames to be searched in. The Directory field specifies where to search. Check recursive to search subdirectories. The files found are shown in the list box. If you double-click a filename, the file opens in Kate.

The pattern field in this window allows you to enter a regular expressiona pattern that can be used to match text strings. For instance, you can search for numbers or words beginning with S. The Find and Find and Replace commands found on the Edit menu also allow you to search for regular expressions. Using regular expressions is explained in Appendix A.