Configuring Howl

Init files

Howl looks for a startup file in the Howl user directory: ~/.howl. It searches for either ~/.howl/init.lua or ~/.howl/init.moon. Which one to pick depends on your preference with regards to language - init.moon for Moonscript and init.lua for Lua. Should a startup file be found, it is loaded after Howl is initialized, which includes loading all available bundles. Howl does not have any special configuration format for use with the startup file, instead it’s just plain Lua or Moonscript.

The startup file is typically used for various types of configuration, but there’s no restriction to what you can do in it - you have access to the entire Howl API. However, some parts of the API, such as running commands, can only be accessed after the application has fully initialized, and needs be run within an 'app-ready' signal handler, rather than at the top level. For instance, this code launches the file selection command on startup:

howl.signal.connect 'app-ready', ->
  howl.command.run 'open'

You can split up your startup code in multiple files if you like. Your local user files will be not found by an ordinary require, since the user directory is not part of the search path. However, there is a user_load helper available from your startup files that works the same way. For example, given init.moon and other.moon in the Howl user directory, you could load ‘other’ from init like so:

other = user_load 'other'

Just as with require, paths are given without any extension. Files are loaded only once, with subsequent loads returning the same value. The path passed to user_load can contain dots, which are translated to the directory separator before loading the file.

It is not allowed for the startup files to implicitly clobber the global environment, and Howl will raise an error upon startup if this is detected. Consider for instance this incorrect Lua startup file:

-- Oops, forgot the local keyword here
my_internal_var = 2

This would cause Howl to abort with an error upon startup. Should you for any reason want to set a global variable, you can do so by being explicit:

_G.my_explicit_global = 2

(Note: the user_load helper is only available when loading startup files.)

Configuration variables

Overview

Things that are meant to be configurable in Howl are exposed as “configuration variables”. Configuration variables can be set either interactively from within Howl, using the set command, or programmatically from code. To get an overview of currently available variables, type set and press space at the command line to view a list:

Configuration

For example, to change the current theme interactively you can open up the prompt, and type set theme. Pressing enter to choose the theme variable would then present you with a list of available themes - after choosing one you can press enter again to switch to the specified theme. See the sections below, Setting variables upon startup and Automatic persistence, for information on how to change a setting so that it persists across restarts.

Scopes and layers

The value for each configuration variable can be set at multiple levels, called scopes, and at multiple layers for each scope. The scope is the path for which the configuration value applies. For instance, a configuration value set at the global scope applies to all buffers. A configuration value at a file scope applies to a specific file only, overriding any global value for the same variable. A folder scope (similar to file scope, but referencing a folder) applies a value to all files under a specific folder.

Scopes work well when the same configuration value applies to all types of files within a scope. To use different values depending on the mode, configuration layers are used. A layer is a string such as 'mode:moonscript' and can by specified in addition to the scope for a variable. So a value set at global scope for layer 'mode:moonscript' is applied to all moonscript buffers. A value set for scope 'file/path/to/project' and layer 'mode:python' is applied to all python files under the path/to/project folder.

Interactive configuration

As seen above, the set command is used to specify values for configuration variables. When setting the theme, you did not have a choice for scope because the theme can only be specified for the global scope. For other variables, the set command allows you to specify the scope, and optionally, the layer.

The syntax for the set command is:

set name@scope_name[layer]=value

While you can type out the entire command by hand, a selection list for the scope_name and another for the value (if applicable) is displayed to make command entry easier. Let’s see a few examples of using this command to set the indent configuration variable for different scopes and layers. The indent variable specifies the number of characters to use for each level of indentation.

Once you type the full command, pressing enter makes it effective and pressing escape cancels, making no changes. You can also press backspace to go back and change the selected scope, or the originally selected variable.

Programmatic access

The Howl API can be used to update the configuration values as well. An easy way to set (and access) variables is using config objects. For the global scope, you can use the main config object in the howl namespace. For a specific mode, you access variables using the config object on a particular mode instance, and similarily for buffer variables you use the config object for a particular buffer.

The following code snippet illustrates the various ways of setting variables on different levels:

howl.config.my_var = 'foo'
howl.mode.by_name('ruby').config.my_var = 'foo'
howl.app:new_buffer().config.my_var = 'foo'

For more fine grained access to configuration variables, see the config API.

Setting variables upon startup

Let’s have a look at configuring the indent variable as discussed in Interactive configuration earlier, using the below example Moonscript init file (init.moon):

import config, mode from howl
import File from howl.io

-- Set indent globally to two spaces
config.indent = 2

-- Use four spaces for C files
mode.configure 'c', {
  indent: 4
}

-- Set it to three for this weird project
config.for_file('/home/nino/code/some_project').indent = 3

A few notes on the above example:

Automatic persistence

Howl does not automatically save any configuration variables updated via the command line or the API. One way to save your settings is to manually update the init.moon file as described in the previous section. Another way is to use the save_config_on_exit configuration variable which enables automatic persistence of global configuration variables.

A simple way to enable automatic persistence is to add the following line to your init.moon:

config.save_config_on_exit = true

Once save_config_on_exit is set to true, the current state of global configuration variables is automatically saved on exit and reloaded on startup. Note that automatic persistence applies to global variables and mode configuration only - configuration at other scopes such as files and buffer is not currently persisted.

Automatically persisted variables are stored in the file ~/.howl/system/config.lua. Any variables set via init.moon override the variables automatically loaded from config.lua.

Key bindings

Key bindings map keyboard presses to different actions within Howl. The nitty-gritty details on how this is handled is outlined in the documentation for the bindings module, and won’t be repeated here. Rather, the below Lua example illustrates how to add different kind of binding customizations from within your init file (init.lua).

howl.bindings.push {
  -- editor specific bindings
  editor = {
    -- bind ctrl_k to a named command
    ctrl_k = 'editor-cut-to-end-of-line',

    -- bind ctrl_shift_x to a closure
    ctrl_shift_x = function(editor)
      -- replace the active chunk with a reversed bracked enclosed version
      editor.active_chunk.text = "<" .. editor.active_chunk.text.ureverse .. ">"
    end
  },

  -- Bind the Emacs find-file binding (C-x C-f) to the open command
  ctrl_x = {
    ctrl_f = 'open'
  }
}

Running commands

You’ve seen how to invoke commands from a key binding (simply specify the command name as a string), but sometimes you’ll want to invoke commands programmatically from within your startup file. As an example, to enter VI mode automatically upon startup:

howl.command.vi_on!

Consult the documentation for the command module for more information.

Next: Using Howl completions