User guide / Configuration

Changing settings in the editor

Development reference · View source

Open the settings page with Space o o, :config, or :settings.

1. Move to a setting. The page is a read-only buffer, so motions, selections, search, splits, and your key bindings all work.
2. Press Enter anywhere on its line, including a wrapped continuation, to open a value popup.
3. Pick a value. For settings that apply immediately, moving through a list previews each choice live. Restart-required settings are not previewed.
4. Press Enter to save, or Escape to cancel and roll the preview back.

What the popups offer:

• Lists for booleans, themes, and settings with a fixed set of values.
• Typed input for numbers. The popup shows the allowed minimum and maximum and rejects anything outside them.

What saving does to your file:

• The file is patched atomically, and only the changed value changes. Comments, key order, and unknown fields stay as they were.
• Other YAML flow collections ({...} and [...]), even multiline ones, are kept.
• The setting being changed must be a plain value in a block mapping. Editing inside a flow mapping is not supported.
• YAML that cannot be patched without loss is refused, and the file is left untouched. A failed save also rolls back the preview and keeps the popup open so you can retry.

How the page looks:

• Three left-aligned columns: setting, saved value, and description. Setting names use the theme’s function colour, values its constant colour, and descriptions ordinary text.
• The setting and value columns are as wide as their content, two spaces apart. Descriptions have no inserted line breaks or trailing padding.
• Each setting is one line. It follows editor.soft_wrap: Space p s toggles wrapping, and horizontal scrolling reaches long lines when wrapping is off. Wrapped lines use ordinary buffer layout; they do not align under the description column.

Most changes apply at once. A few only take effect after a restart; the page says so when you save them:

The keys section is never written by this page. Edit it in the file.