By selecting this option, the user can view and change the key bindings (shortcuts) used to initiate various commands in KWrite. The sections that the preferences dialog displays to make this possible are described below.
This is a drop down box used to select which group of commands to display or change. The commands are grouped according to the type of action they entail such as Cursor Movement, Editing, and Bookmarking.
The commands belonging to the group selected in the above-mentioned drop down box are listed in this section. Clicking on a particular command causes any shortcuts associated with the command to be listed in the Current Keys display - detailed below.
In this box (located in the top right portion of the preferences dialog) the user can see a list of shortcut key combinations (if any) that are associated with the command selected above-mentioned Commands display. Clicking on any existing shortcut will select it and allow it to be eliminated with the Remove button just to the right.
Located just below the list of current keys this entry is used to associate a new shortcut with the currently selected command. By clicking in this box and then pressing the desired key combination, the new shortcut can be easily chosen. If the combination happens to be associated with another command the pertinent details will be displayed just below this entry. If there are no conflicts, the user may click the Assign button (located just to the right) to associate the newly created key combination with the command being considered.
Located on the right side of the dialog box, this button will reset KWrite's key bindings to what they were when KWrite was first installed. This will also cause the loss of any previous changes.
The Configure Highlighting dialog consists of two pages, Defaults and Highlighting Modes.
Items available on the Defaults are as follows:
Here you can configure the default appearance for syntax highlighted items.
This drop down list lets you choose from a variety of items that you might want to be highlighted. They include Normal for items that are not to be highlighted, Comment, String, Keyword and many more. Not all of these entries will need to be configured for every language, so you can select only the ones that you need. The options in the rest of this section apply to the entry you select in this box.
Which color the selected item should normally be.
If the selected item should be displayed in bold text.
If the selected item should be displayed in italic text.
How the selected item should look while you have it selected.
Here you can choose the default font for all text.
Choose the font family here. The default is Fixed. For most programming purposes, a monospaced font (one in which a w takes up the same amount of space as an i) is the best choice.
Choose the font size here. The default is 12 points.
Choose the character set you wish to work in.
Items on the Highlight Modes tab allow you to define more specific highlighting depending on the language style you select.
You do not need to set every available option, items not configured specifically will use the default configuration specified on the previous (Defaults tab.
This group of options allow you to choose the highlighting style that you are configuring in the rest of the dialog. Any changes you make in other areas of this dialog apply only to the selection in this group.
Choose the language style you wish to configure
Choose the syntax item you wish to configure. Remember this only configures this item for this language.
As an example, if you wish to configure how comments look while writing C++, you would choose C++ in the Highlight drop down list, and then choose Comment in the Item drop down list. If you want comments to look the same across all languages, then you would not configure them here, you would configure them in the Defaults tab of this dialog box, and leave comments unconfigured within the more specific Highlight Modes tab.
Here you can configure the general appearance of the item you have selected above. You can either check the Default checkbox, in which case the default style as configured on the previous tab is set, or you can configure the appearance directly. The options available are the same as on the Defaults tab: Normal, Selected, Bold and Italic.
KWrite can apply syntax highlighting automatically, depending on the file extension or mime-type of files you open. The defaults are comprehensive, but if you regularly edit files with non-standard extensions, you can add them here. Wildcards are allowed in the File Extensions text box. For example, the default entry for the C++ language is *.cpp;*.cc;*.C;*.h. Opening a file called foo.h would automatically apply the C++ style to it.
Here you can choose the font for the selected item.
You can either apply the default style, by checking the Default checkbox, or you can choose a specific font Family, Size and Charset. The options available are the same as those on the Defaults tab.