Editing Features

Comprehensive guide to Fresh’s powerful editing capabilities including multi-cursor, block selection, smart editing, and more

Fresh brings IDE-level editing features to the terminal with zero configuration. This guide covers all the editing capabilities available out of the box.

Some keybindings may not work or may differ on your system due to differences in keyboard layouts, terminal emulators, and operating systems. If a keybinding doesn’t work, check the command palette (Ctrl+P) for alternative bindings, or see the Keyboard Configuration guide to customize them.

Smart Editing

Fresh includes intelligent editing behaviors that adapt to your code:

Smart Home

The Home key toggles between the first non-whitespace character and column 0, making navigation more efficient.

Smart Backspace

Backspace in leading whitespace removes one indent level instead of a single character.

Auto-indent

Enter preserves the current indentation level. After {, (, or :, an extra indent level is automatically added.

Bracket Matching

Matching brackets are highlighted automatically. Use “Go to Matching Bracket” from the command palette to jump between them.

Bracket matching is enabled by default. You can toggle it via the highlight_matching_brackets setting in your config.

Undo and Redo

Fresh provides robust undo/redo functionality that intelligently handles multi-cursor edits:

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Z	Undo last change
Ctrl+Y	Redo last undone change

Atomic Multi-cursor Operations: All edits made with multiple cursors are treated as a single atomic operation. One undo restores all cursor positions and their changes simultaneously.

Smart Undo Behavior

Fresh’s undo system skips over readonly actions (like cursor movements) and only undos write actions:

1. Type characters

   Type abc in the editor

2. Move cursor

   Move the cursor with arrow keys (readonly action)

3. Undo

   Press Ctrl+Z — this undos both the cursor movement AND the last typed character

This means you never need multiple undo operations to get back to your actual edits.

Multi-Cursor Editing

Edit multiple locations simultaneously with Fresh’s powerful multi-cursor support. This is one of Fresh’s most powerful features, working exactly like VS Code or Sublime Text.

Creating Multiple Cursors

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+D	Add cursor at next occurrence of selection
Ctrl+Alt+↑	Add cursor above current position
Ctrl+Alt+↓	Add cursor below current position
Esc	Remove all secondary cursors

When you press Ctrl+D with no selection, Fresh automatically selects the word under the cursor first, then adds a cursor at the next occurrence.

Multi-Cursor Workflow Example

1. Select a word

   Position your cursor on a variable name like value

2. Add cursors at matches

   Press Ctrl+D repeatedly to add cursors at each occurrence of value

3. Edit simultaneously

   Type to replace all occurrences at once, or use arrow keys to move all cursors together

4. Clear cursors

   Press Esc to return to a single cursor

All multi-cursor edits (typing, deleting, pasting) are atomic — they can be undone with a single Ctrl+Z.

Block Selection

Block selection (also called column selection or rectangular selection) lets you select and edit a rectangular region of text across multiple lines.

Block Selection Controls

Shortcut	Action
Alt+Shift+↑	Extend block selection upward
Alt+Shift+↓	Extend block selection downward
Alt+Shift+←	Extend block selection left
Alt+Shift+→	Extend block selection right
Esc	Clear block selection

How Block Selection Works

1. Start selection

   Position your cursor where you want to start the block

2. Create rectangular region

   Press Alt+Shift+↓ to extend down and Alt+Shift+→ to extend right, creating a rectangular selection

3. Edit or copy

   Type to replace the block, or Ctrl+C to copy only the rectangular region

Converting to Multi-Cursor: When you type or perform an editing action with a block selection, Fresh automatically converts it to multiple cursors — one for each line in the block. This gives you the power of multi-cursor editing with the precision of rectangular selection.

Selection Commands

Fresh provides powerful selection commands for quickly selecting text:

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+W	Select word under cursor
Ctrl+L	Select current line
Ctrl+A	Select all text in buffer
Shift+Arrow	Extend selection by character
Ctrl+Shift+←/→	Select word left/right
Shift+Home/End	Select to line start/end
Ctrl+Shift+Home/End	Select to document start/end
Shift+PgUp/PgDn	Select page up/down

Basic Editing Operations

Clipboard Operations

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+C	Copy selection
Ctrl+X	Cut selection
Ctrl+V	Paste from clipboard

With block selections, Ctrl+C copies only the rectangular region, not the entire lines.

Deletion

Shortcut	Action
Backspace	Delete character backward
Del	Delete character forward
Ctrl+Backspace	Delete word backward
Ctrl+Del	Delete word forward
Ctrl+K	Delete from cursor to end of line

Ctrl+K works like Emacs/Bash — it deletes from the cursor position to the end of the line.

Indentation

Shortcut	Action
Tab	Indent selection or insert tab
Shift+Tab	Dedent selection

Code Comments

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+/	Toggle line comment (works with multi-cursor)

The comment syntax is automatically detected from the file type. Works with C-style //, Python #, and more.

Other Editing

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+T	Transpose characters (swap character before and after cursor)

Text Transformation

Transform selected text with these commands (available from the command palette):

Case Conversion

• Alt+U — Convert selection to UPPERCASE
• Alt+L — Convert selection to lowercase

Line Operations

• Sort Lines — Sort selected lines alphabetically
• Trim Trailing Whitespace — Remove trailing spaces from all lines

Automatic Cleanup on Save

You can configure Fresh to automatically clean up files when saving:

config.json

{
  "trim_trailing_whitespace_on_save": true,
  "ensure_final_newline_on_save": true
}

Code Folding

Collapse and expand code blocks to focus on what matters:

1. Enable LSP

   Code folding requires an LSP server that supports foldingRange. See LSP Configuration.

2. Click gutter indicator

   Click the fold indicator in the gutter to collapse a code block

3. Expand

   Click again to expand, or use “Toggle Fold” from the command palette

• Navigation (up/down arrows) automatically skips over folded regions
• Each split view maintains its own independent fold state

Vertical Rulers

Add visual column guides to enforce line length limits:

1. Add ruler

   Open the command palette (Ctrl+P) and search for “Add Ruler”

2. Enter column

   Enter the column number (e.g., 80 or 120)

3. Remove ruler

   Use “Remove Ruler” from the command palette

Rulers are per-buffer. You can also set default rulers in your config:

config.json

{
  "rulers": [80, 120]
}

Auto-Save

Fresh supports two types of auto-save:

User Auto-Save

Enable automatic saving at regular intervals:

config.json

{
  "auto_save_enabled": true,
  "auto_save_interval": 30  // seconds
}

Default interval is 30 seconds.

Crash Recovery

Fresh automatically saves recovery data every 2 seconds to a separate recovery directory. This runs independently of user auto-save and helps you recover work after unexpected crashes.

Recovery files are stored in your system’s temporary directory.

Keyboard Macros

Record and replay sequences of keystrokes to automate repetitive tasks:

Shortcut	Action
F5	Stop macro recording
F4	Play last recorded macro

Using Macros

1. Start recording

   Open command palette (Ctrl+P) and search for “Record Macro”. Enter a register name (0-9).

2. Perform actions

   Execute the keystrokes you want to record (typing, navigation, editing, etc.)

3. Stop recording

   Press F5 or use “Stop Recording” from the command palette

4. Play back

   Press F4 to replay the last macro, or use “Play Macro” to choose a specific register

Custom Macro Keybindings

Bind specific keys to play macros automatically:

config.json

{
  "keybindings": [
    {
      "key": "!",
      "modifiers": ["alt"],
      "action": "play_macro",
      "args": {"char": "1"},
      "when": "normal"
    },
    {
      "key": "@",
      "modifiers": ["alt"],
      "action": "play_macro",
      "args": {"char": "2"},
      "when": "normal"
    }
  ]
}

This binds Alt+Shift+1 to play macro 1 and Alt+Shift+2 to play macro 2.

Shell Integration

Run shell commands on your buffer or selection:

Shortcut	Action
Alt+|	Run shell command on buffer/selection (output shown)
Alt+Shift+|	Run shell command and replace selection with output

Examples

Sort

# Select lines, then Alt+Shift+|
sort

Markdown Editing

Smart editing features for Markdown files (provided by the built-in markdown_source plugin):

List Continuation

Pressing Enter on a list item automatically continues the list with the same marker (bullets, numbers, checkboxes)

Smart List Removal

Pressing Enter on an empty list marker removes it

List Indentation

Tab indents list items and cycles through bullet styles (-, *, +)

Quote Handling

Single-quote auto-close is disabled so apostrophes don’t interfere with typing

Compose Mode (Experimental)

Enable distraction-free Markdown writing:

1. Enable compose

   Open command palette and search for “Markdown: Toggle Compose”

2. Enjoy clean view

   Markup like **, *, []() is concealed, soft line breaks are applied, and tables are rendered

3. Adjust width

   Use “Markdown: Set Compose Width” to change the text width

4. Side-by-side view

   Open the same file in a vertical split to see source and composed views simultaneously

Related Documentation

Multi-Cursor Guide

Detailed multi-cursor editing workflows

Search & Replace

Find and replace text in files

Navigation

Moving around your codebase