Leo’s Commands Reference

This chapter lists almost all of Leo’s commands. It starts with a discussion of the Emacs-like minibuffer.

Contents

Executing commands from the minibuffer

Leo’s minibuffer appears at the bottom of Leo’s main window. You use the minibuffer to execute commands by name, and also to accumulate arguments to commands.

Every Leo command has a command name. In this document, keystrokes that invoke a command will be followed by the command name in parentheses. For example, Ctrl-S (save-file) saves a Leo file.

Very Important: Leo has hundreds of commands, but because of tab completion you do not have to remember, or even know about any of them. Feel free to ignore commands that you don’t use. The following prefixes help find commands by name:

clone-find  clone-find commands
file-       file commands
find-       find commands
isearch-    incremental search commands
leo-        open .leo files
open-       open files or url's
print-      print commands
rectangle-  rectangle commands
sort-       sort commands
toggle-     toggle settings commands

Here are the commands that pertain to executing commands:

Alt-X (full-command)

Executes any other command by typing its full name.

Ctrl-P (repeat-complex-command

Repeats the last command entered by name in the minibuffer.

When in the minibuffer, the following keys are treated in special ways:

<Return>

Executes the command.

<Tab>

Shows all valid completions.

<BackSpace>

Shows more completions.

Ctrl-G

Exits the minibuffer and puts focus in the body pane.

UpArrow

Moves backward through command history. The first UpArrow is the same as Ctrl-P.

DownArrow

Moves forward through command history.

Typing completion

Very Important: Leo has hundreds of commands, but because of tab completion you do not have to remember, or even know about any of them. Feel free to ignore commands that you don’t use.

You could type the full command name in the minibuffer, followed by the <Return> key to invoke the command, but that would be way too much work. Instead, you can avoid most typing using tab completion. With tab completion, there is no need to remember the exact names of Leo’s commands.

For example, suppose you want to print out the list of Leo’s commands. You might remember only that there are several related commands and that they all start with “print”. Just type <Alt-X>pri<Tab>

You will see print- in the minibuffer. This is the longest common prefix of all the command names that start with pri. The Completion tab in the log pane shows all the commands that start with print-.

Now just type c<Tab> You will see the print-commands command in the minibuffer.

Finally, <Return> executes the print-commands command. The output of the print-commands command appears in the commands tab, and focus returns to the body pane.

Filename completion

file-open-by-name

Prompts for a filename. This command completes the name of files and directories as in command completion. As a result, this command can be very fast. You may want to bind this command to Ctrl-O instead of the default open-outline command.

Most important commands

File operations & sessions

Here are Leo’s basic file commands:

Ctrl-N (new)

Creates a new outline in a new tab.

Ctrl-O (open-outline)

Opens an existing .leo file.

Ctrl-S (save-file)

Saves the outline.

Ctrl-Q (exit-leo)

Exits Leo. Leo will prompt you to save any unsaved outlines.

A session specifies a list of .leo files that Leo opens automatically when Leo first starts. Leo will reload the last session provided that command-line arguments don’t contain any file names.

Switching focus

Here’s how to switch focus without using the mouse:

Alt-0 (vr-toggle)

Hides or shows the viewrendered pane.

Alt-T (focus-to-tree)

Puts focus in the outline pane, regardless of focus.

Ctrl-T (toggle-active-pane)

Toggles focus between the outline and body panes.

Ctrl-Tab (tab-cycle-next)

Switches between outline tabs. You may open multiple Leo outlines in different tabs within the same main window.

Ctrl-G (keyboard-quit)

Puts focus in the body pane. More effective than hitting Alt-Tab twice.

Outline commands

Ctrl-I or Insert (insert-node)

Inserts a new node into the outline.

Ctrl-H (edit-headline)

Begins editing the headline of the selected node.

Return

When focus is in the outline pane, <Return> ends editing (end-edit-headline) or switches focus to the body pane.

Ctrl-Shift-C (copy-node)

Copies the outline and all it’s descendants, placing the node on the clipboard.

Ctrl-Shift-X (cut-node)

Cuts the outline and all its descendants, placing the node on the clipboard.

Ctrl-Shift-V (paste-node)

Pastes a node (and its descendants) from the clipboard after the presently selected node.

Ctrl-M (mark)

Toggles the mark on a node. Marked nodes have a vertical red bar in their icon area.

Ctrl-} (demote)

Makes all following siblings of a node children of the node. Use demote to “gather” nodes so they can all be moved with their parent.

Ctrl-{ (promote)

Makes all the children of a node siblings of the node. Use demote to “scatter” the nodes after moving their parent.

Selecting outline nodes

You may select, expand and contract outline nodes with the mouse as usual, but using arrow keys is highly recommended. When focus is in the outline pane, plain arrows keys change the selected node:

Right-arrow (expand-and-go-right)

Expands a node or selects its first child.

Left-arrow (contract-or-go-left)

Contracts a node if its children are visible, and selects the node’s parent otherwise.

Up-arrow (goto-prev-visible)

Selects the previous visible outline node.

Down-arrow (goto-next-visible)

Selects the next visible outline node.

Regardless of focus, Alt-arrow select outline nodes:

Alt-Home (goto-first-visible-node)

Selects the first outline node and collapses all nodes.

Alt-End (goto-last-visible-node)

Selects the last visible outline node and collapses all nodes except the node and its ancestors.

Alt-arrow keys

Select the outline pane, and then act just like the plain arrow keys when the outline pane has focus.

Moving the cursor

When focus is in any of Leo’s text panes (body pane, log pane, headlines), Leo works like most text editors:

  • Plain arrow keys move the cursor up, down, left or right.

  • Ctrl-LeftArrow and Ctrl-RightArrow move the cursor by words.

  • Home and End move the cursor to the beginning or end of a line.

  • Ctrl-Home moves the cursor to the beginning of the body text.

  • Ctrl-End moves the cursor to the end of the body text.

  • PageDown and PageUp move the cursor up or down one page.

Note: As usual, adding the Shift key modifier to any of the keys above moves the cursor and extends the selected text.

Finding & replacing text

This section explains how to use Leo’s standard search/replace commands. Note: you can also use the Nav Tab (in the Log pane) to search for text.

Ctrl-F (start-search) shows the Find Tab and puts the focus in the text box labeled Find:.

Aside: You can select radio buttons and toggle check boxes in the Find Tab with Ctrl-Alt keys. The capitalized words of the radio buttons or check boxes indicate which key to use. For example, Ctrl-Alt-X (toggle-find-regex-option) toggles the regeXp checkbox.

After typing Ctrl-F, type the search string, say def, in the text box.

Start the find command by typing <Return>.

But suppose you want to replace def with foo, instead of just finding def.

Just type <Tab> before typing <Return>. Focus shifts to the text box labeled Replace:.

Finally, type <Return> to start the find-next command. When Leo finds the next instance of def, it will select it.

You may now type any command. The following are most useful:

  • Ctrl-minus (replace-then-find) replaces the selected text.

  • F3 (find-next) continues searching without making a replacement.

  • F2 (find-previous) continues the search in reverse.

  • Ctrl-G (keyboard-quit) ends the search.

Formatting text

rst3

Converts @rst nodes to restructured text. This command automatically creates underlining for rST sections. To reorganize a document, just reorganize the corresponding Leo outline: you don’t have to change markup by hand. Search or “rst” in leoSettings.leo to see the pertinent settings.

adoc

Converts @adoc nodes to asciidoc text. This command automatically creates markup for asciidoctor sections. To reorganize a document, just reorganize the corresponding Leo outline: you don’t have to change markup by hand.

Undoing and redoing changes

Leo has unlimited undo–Leo remembers all changes you make to outline structure or the contents of any node since you restarted Leo.

Ctrl-Z (undo)

Undoes the last change. Another Ctrl-Z undoes the previous change, etc.

Ctrl-Shift-Z (redo)

Undoes the effect of the last undo, etc.

The first two entries of the Edit menu show what the next undo or redo operation will be.

Clone-find commands

The clone find commands, cfa and cff are extraordinarily useful. These commands move clones of all nodes matching the search pattern under a single organizer node, created as the last top-level node. Flattened searches put all nodes as direct children of the organizer node:

cfa     clone-find-all
cff     clone-find-all-flattened

The clone-marked commands move clones of all marked nodes under an organizer node. Especially useful for gathering nodes by hand:

cfam    clone-find-marked
cffm    clone-find-flattened-marked

Syncing @clean files

The check-nodes command finds dubious nodes, that is, nodes that:

  • contain multiple defs.

  • start with leading blank lines.

  • are non-organizer nodes containing no body text.

This command is specially useful when using @clean nodes in a collaborative environment. Leo’s @clean update algorithm will update @clean nodes when others have added, deleted or moved code, but the update algorithm won’t assign changed code to the optimal nodes. This script highligts nodes that needed attention.

Settings: You can customize the behavior of this command with @data nodes:

  • @data check-nodes-ok-patterns

    The body of the @data node contains a list of regexes (strings), one per line. This command compiles each regex as if it were a raw string. Headlines matching any of these compiled regexes are not considered dubious. The defaults ignore unit tests:

    .*test_
    .*Test
    
  • @data check-nodes-ok-prefixes

    The body ot the @data node contains a list of strings, one per line. Headlines starting with any of these strings are not considered dubious. The defaults ignore top-level @<file> nodes and marker nodes:

    @
    **
    ==
    --
    
  • @data check-nodes-suppressions

    The body ot the @data node contains a list of strings, one per line. Headlines that match these suppressions exactly are not considered dubious. Default: None.

Help commands

F1 (help)

Shows a help message appears in the viewrendered pane. Alt-0 (vr-toggle) hides or shows this pane.

F11 (help-for-command)

Shows the documentation for any Leo command. F11 prompts for the name of a Leo command in the minibuffer. Use tab completion to see the list of all commands that start with a given prefix.

F12 (help-for-python)

Shows the documentation from Python’s help system. Typing completion is not available: type the full name of any Python module, class, function or statement.

These commands clarify which settings are in effect, and where they came from:

print-bindings
print-settings

These commands discuss special topics:

help-for-abbreviations
help-for-autocompletion
help-for-bindings
help-for-creating-external-files
help-for-debugging-commands
help-for-drag-and-drop
help-for-dynamic-abbreviations
help-for-find-commands
help-for-minibuffer
help-for-regular-expressions
help-for-scripting

Debugger commands

xdb

Start a Leo’s integrated debugger in a separate thread.

Start the debugger from any part of any @<file> tree. Now you are ready to execute all the db-* commands.

You can execute these commands from the minibuffer, or, if the xdb_pane.py plugin is enabled, from the the Debug pane.

The following commands correspond to the pdb commands:

db-b

Set a breakpoint at the line shown in Leo. It should be an executable line.

db-c

Continue, that is, run until the next breakpoint.

db-h

Print the help message (in the console, for now)

db-l

List a few lines around present location.

db-n

Execute the next line.

db-q

End the debugger.

db-r

Return from the present function/method.

db-s

Step into the next line.

db-w

Print the stack.

There are two additional commands:

db-again

Run the previous db-command.

db-input

Prompt for any pdb command, then execute it.

The db-input command allows you can enter any pdb command at all. For example: “print c”.

But you don’t have to run these commands from the minibuffer, as discussed next.

Setting breakpoints in the gutter

When @bool use_gutter = True, Leo shows a border in the body pane. By default, the line-numbering.py plugin is enabled, and if so, the gutter shows correct line number in the external file.

After executing the xdb command, you can set a breakpoint on any executable line by clicking in the gutter to the right of the line number. You can also set a breakpoint any time the debugger is stopped.

Using the gutter is optional. You can also set breakpoints with the db-b command or by typing “d line-number” or “d file-name:line-number using the db-input command, or by using the Debug pane (see below)

The Debug pane

The xdb_pane.py plugin creates the Debug pane in the Log pane. The pane contains buttons corresponding to all the commands listed above. In addition, there is an input area in which you can enter pdb commands. This is a bit easier to use than the db-input command.

Settings

When @bool use_xdb_pane_output_area is True, all debugger output is sent to an output area in the Debug pane. The default is True, so you need this setting only if you don’t want output set to the Debug pane.

Operations on reference .leo files

These commands make it easier to use Leo’s reference .leo files. From time to time, developers needs to open reference Leo file and copy its content to and from their personal file. These commands use a separation node, a top-level node whose headline is:

---begin-private-area---

The body of the separation node contains the .leo reference, a path to the reference .leo file. Everything above this node is the public part of the outline. Everything below this node is the private part of the outline.

set-reference-file selects the reference .leo file corresponding to the local .leo file. It creates the separation node if it doesn’t exists, changing the .leo reference as needed.

read-ref-file reads the public part of this outline from the reference .leo file given in the separation node. Warning: This command deletes all nodes above separation node, recreating them from the reference file.

update-ref-file saves public part of this outline to reference .leo file.

Developers will typically execute the read-ref-file command after any git pull that changes any reference .leo file. Similarly, devs will typically execute the update-ref-file command before doing a git commit that changes a reference .leo file.

All other commands

Clone-find commands

The clone find commands, cfa and cff, move clones of all nodes matching the search pattern under a single organizer node, created as the last top-level node. Flattened searches put all nodes as direct children of the organizer node:

cfa     clone-find-all
cff     clone-find-all-flattened

The clone-marked commands move clones of all marked nodes under an organizer node. Especially useful for gathering nodes by hand:

cfam    clone-find-marked
cffm    clone-find-flattened-marked

The clone-find-parents command creates clones of all parent nodes of c.p.

The clone-find-tag aka (cft) command creates clones of all nodes having a given tag.

The tag-children applies a given tag to all the children of the selected node.

Debug commands

Running External debuggers

flake8

Run flake8 on all nodes of the selected tree, or the first ancestor @<file> node.

pyflakes

Runs pyflakes on the Python source files in the selected tree, or the first ancestor @<file> node. Prints results in the console window and Leo’s log pane.

pylint

Runs pylint on the Python source files in the selected tree, or the first ancestor @<file> node. This command is also available from the popup menus created by the contextmenu plugin.

Printing settings and other data

The following print information to Leo’s log pane:

print-bindings
print-commands
print-focus
print-plugin-handlers
print-plugins-info
print-settings
print-style-sheet
show-colors
show-find-options

Other debugging commands

check-derived-file

Makes sure an external file written by Leo can be read properly.

check-leo-file

Performs a full check of the consistency of a .leo file. As of Leo 5.1, Leo performs checks of gnx’s and outline structure before writes and after reads, pastes and undo/redo.

check-outline

Checks the outline for consistency. Leo automatically checks the syntax of Python external files when Leo writes the external file.

clear-all-caches

Clear all file caches in g.app.leoHomeDir/db

clear-cache

Clear the outline’s file cache.

escape

Enter watch escape mode.

find-long-lines

Report lines longer than specified by: @bool max-find-long-lines-length = 110

find-missing-docstrings

Report python classes, functions and methods lacking python docstrings. Does not report nodes that are descendants of @nopylint.

pdb

Drops into debugger, in the middle of the command-handling logic. Get the commander by stepping out into k.masterKeyHandler or k.masterCommandHandler. Using c, one can then get all other info.

show-buttons

Show all @button and @command commands, their bindings and their source.

Dumping Leo’s internal data:

dump-all-objects
dump-new-objects
dump-outline
verbose-dump-objects

Python’s garbage collector:

gc-collect-garbage
gc-dump-all-objects
gc-dump-objects-verbose
gc-print-summary
gc-trace-disable
gc-trace-enable

Idle time:

disable-idle-time-events
enable-idle-time-events
toggle-idle-time-events
print-window-state

This command is for Leo’s developers.

Edit commands

Cutting, pasting and selecting text

cut-text (Ctrl-X)

Cut the selected text and put it to the clipboard.

copy-text (Ctrl-C)

Copy the selected text to the clipboard.

paste-text (Ctrl-V)

Paste test from the clipboard.

select-all(Ctrl-A)

Select all text in the text pane.

These commands work with either headline or body text.

Indenting body text

always-indent-region

Shift selected lines right one tab position. Inserts one unit of indentation if no text is selected.

indent-region (Tab)

Shift selected lines right one tab position. Inserts a tab (or spaces) if no text is selected.

unindent-region (Shift-Tab)

Shifts selected lines left one tab position. Deletes one unit of indentation if no text is selected.

Notes:

  • These commands shift the entire line if any characters in that line are selected. If no text is selected.

  • The @tabwidth directive determines which characters these commands insert or delete.

  • Leo auto indents unless @nocolor is in effect. Typing a newline automatically inserts the same leading whitespace present on the previous line.

  • If Python is the present language, Leo inserts an additional tab if the previous line ends with a colon. When the smart_auto_indent setting is True, Leo uses Emacs-style auto-indentation instead. This style of auto-indent aligns newly created lines with unmatched ( [{ brackets in the previous line.

Adding and deleting comments in body text

add-comments (Ctrl-))

Adds comments to the selected lines, according to the @language directive in effect. These commands use single-line comments if possible. It’s not necessary to select all of the first or last lines.

delete-comments (Ctrl-()

Deletes comments in the selected lines.

Moving the cursor

goto-global-line (Alt-G)

Selects the locations in your outlines corresponding to a line in a external file.

match-brackets

Enabled if the cursor is next to one of these characters in the body pane: ( ) [ ] { } < > The command looks for the matching character, searching backwards through the body text if the cursor is next to ) ] } or > and searching forward through the text otherwise. If the cursor is between two brackets the search is made for the bracket matching the leftmost bracket. If a match is found, the entire range of characters delimited by the brackets is highlighted and the cursor is placed just to the left of the matching characters. Thus, executing this command twice highlights the range of matched characters without changing the cursor.

Text formatting commands

clean-lines

Removes trailing whitespace from all lines, preserving newlines.

clear-selected-text

Delete the selected text.

convert-tabs

Converts leading tabs to blanks in a single node.

convert-blanks

Converts blanks to tabs in a single node.

convert-all-tabs

Converts leading tabs to blanks throughout the selected tree.

convert-all-blanks

Converts leading blanks to tabs throughout the selected tree.

@tabwidth: The convert-* commands convert between tabs and blanks using the @tabwidth setting presently in effect.

insert-body-time and insert-headline-time

Insert formatted time and date into body or headline text. You must be editing a headline to be able to insert the time/date into the headline. The body_time_format_string and headline_time_format_string settings specify the format of the inserted text. These settings are the format string passed to time.strftime.

Time format: For format options see Python’s time module. By default, the commands use %m/%d/%Y %H:%M:%S, giving timestamps like 1/30/2003 8:31:55.

pretty-print-python-code and pretty-print-all-python-code

Pretty prints body text. You can customize this code by overriding the following methods of class prettyPrinter in leoCommands.py:

putOperator:      puts whitespace around operators.
putNormalToken:   puts whitespace around everything else.
reformat-paragraph (Ctrl-Shift-P)

Rearranges the words in a text paragraph to fill each line as full as possible, up to the @pagewidth setting. A paragraph is delimited by blank lines, Leo directives, and (of course) start and end of text in a node. The width of the line used by the reformatting operation is governed by @pagewidth and the indentation that would be applied to the node when Leo writes the file.

The command operates on the paragraph containing the insert cursor. If the insert cursor is on a blank line or directive, nothing happens. If the cursor is on a line containing text, then the paragraph containing that text line is reformatted and the insert cursor is moved to the next paragraph.

Note: Hanging indentation is preserved. This is most useful for bulleted or numbered lists, such as:

1. This is the first paragraph,
   and it has a hanging indentation.

2. This is the second paragraph,
   and it too has a hanging indentation.
replace-current-character

Replace the selected character with the next character typed.

toggle-angle-brackets

Adds or removes double angle brackets from the headline of the selected node.

unformat-paragraph (Ctrl-Shift-U)

Removes all extra whitespace from a paragraph, including leading whitespace. This command is useful when @wrap is in effect.

Creating nodes from body text

extract (Ctrl-Shift-D)

Creates a new node whose headline is the first line of selected body text and whose body is all other lines of selected text. Previously selected text is deleted from the original body text.

extract-names (Ctrl-Shift-N)

Creates one or more child nodes, one for each section name in the selected body text. The headline of each created node is the section name.

line-to-headline

Creates a new node whose headline is the selected body line.

Executing Python scripts in body text

execute-script (Ctrl-B)

Executes body text as a Python script. Leo execute the selected text, or the entire body text if no text is selected. The Execute Script command pre-defines the values c, g and p as follows:

  • c is the commander of the outline containing the script.

  • g is the leoGlobals modules.

  • p is c.p, that is, c.currentPosition().

Important: Body text may contain Leo directives and section references. You can use all of Leo’s features to organize scripts that you execute interactively. Section definitions must appear in the node containing the script or in descendant nodes.

Leo preprocesses all scripts by simulating the writing of a external file to a string. The execute-script command sets app.scriptDict[“script1”] to the value of the script before preprocessing, and sets app.scriptDict[“script2”] to the value of the script after preprocessing. Scripts may examine and change app.scriptDict as they please.

Multiple body editors

add-editor

Adds a new editor in the body pane and gives it the body editor focus.

delete-editor

Deletes the editor with body editor focus.

cycle-editor-focus

Cycles body editor focus between editors in the body text. The editor that has focus shows the content of the selected outline node; the other body editors continue to show the node contents they last had when they had the body editor focus.

Undoing changes

Leo supports unlimited undo and redo with the undo (Ctrl-Z) and redo (Ctrl-Shift-Z) commands. Think of actions that may be undone or redone as a string of beads. A “bead pointer” points to the present bead. Performing an operation creates a new bead after the present bead and removes all following beads. Undoing an operation moves the bead pointer backwards; redoing an operation moves the bead pointer forwards. The undo command is disabled when the bead pointer moves in front of the first bead; the redo command is disabled when the bead pointer points to the last bead.

The @string undo_granularity setting controls the granularity of undo. There are four possible values:

node

Starts a new undo unit when typing moves to a new node.

line (default)

Starts a new undo unit when typing moves to new line.

word

Starts a new undo unit when typing starts a new word.

char (not recommended)

Starts a new undo unit for each character typed. This wastes lots of computer memory.

Emacs-like commands

Abbreviation commands

Important: The following describes Leo’s new abbreviation scheme. Such abbreviations fire immediately whenever they are completed. You do not have to execute a command! By convention, abbreviations end with ;;, something you are not likely to type by accident, but you can pick any abbreviation you like.

Note:

  1. The @data abbreviations-subst-env node contains a script defining the environment in which all abbreviations execute. This allows helper functions to be defined. Very handy.

  2. Scripts may span multiple lines. Line starting with “:” (2 characters) continue a script. This allows abbreviations to define multi-line templates. Helpers defined in @data abbreviations-subst-env can fill in templates with calculated (not predefined) data.

  3. Templates may contain placeholders that the user can fill in. By default, the double comma binding selects the next placeholder.

  4. Added a new setting: @bool scripting-abbreviations, default False. Scripting abbreviations will be enabled if either of the following is True:

    @bool scripting-abbreviations
    @bool scripting-at-script-nodes
    

This is a safety feature: it allows scripting abbreviations to be enabled without enabling the (very dangerous in general) scripting-at-script-nodes setting.

  1. Added a new example node: @@data abbreviations examples. This contains several extremely useful scripts.

Leo also supports Emacs-like abbreviation commands:

dabbrev-completion
dabbrev-expands

Cursor movement commands

Smart cursor moves: Many editors allow you to jump over, select and delete words, especially those containing or surrounded by special characters, in a smarter way than just “going to the beginning of the word before” (back-word) or “going to the end of the next word” (forward-word):

back-word-smart
back-word-smart-extend-selection
forward-word-smart
forward-word-smart-extend-selection
delete-word-smart
backward-delete-word-smart

The following commands work much like the Emacs cursor commands:

back-char
back-char-extend-selection
back-page
back-page-extend-selection
back-paragraph
back-paragraph-extend-selection
back-sentence
back-sentence-extend-selection
back-to-home
back-to-home-extend-selection
back-to-indentation
back-word-extend-selection
backward-delete-char
backward-find-character
backward-find-character-extend-selection
backward-kill-paragraph
backward-kill-sentence
backward-kill-word
beginning-of-buffer
beginning-of-buffer-extend-selection
beginning-of-line
beginning-of-line-extend-selection
end-of-buffer
end-of-buffer-extend-selection
end-of-line
end-of-line-extend-selection
find-character
find-character-extend-selection
find-word-in-line
forward-char
forward-char-extend-selection
forward-end-word
forward-end-word-extend-selection
forward-page
forward-page-extend-selection
forward-paragraph
forward-paragraph-extend-selection
forward-sentence
forward-sentence-extend-selection
forward-word-extend-selection
move-past-close
move-past-close-extend-selection
next-line
next-line-extend-selection
previous-line
previous-line-extend-selection

Emacs text formatting

The following commands typically work like the corresponding Emacs command. For details about any command use F11 (help-for-command):

add-space-to-lines
add-tab-to-lines
align-eq-signs
auto-complete
auto-complete-force
capitalize-word
center-line
center-region
clear-kill-ring
count-pages
count-region
delete-char
delete-indentation
delete-spaces
downcase-region
downcase-word
exchange-point-mark
extend-to-line
extend-to-paragraph
extend-to-sentence
extend-to-word
fill-paragraph
fill-region
fill-region-as-paragraph
hide-invisibles
how-many
indent-relative
indent-rigidly
indent-to-comment-column
insert-child
insert-file-name
insert-file-name
insert-hard-tab
insert-newline
insert-parentheses
insert-soft-tab
join-node-above
join-node-below
join-selection-to-node-below
line-number
move-lines-down
move-lines-up
newline-and-indent
open-url
open-url-under-cursor
remove-blank-lines
remove-newlines
remove-space-from-lines
remove-tab-from-lines
reverse-region
reverse-sort-lines
reverse-sort-lines-ignoring-case
select-to-matching-bracket
set-fill-column
set-fill-prefix
shell-command
shell-command-on-region
show-invisibles
set-comment-column
sort-columns
sort-fields
sort-lines
sort-lines-ignoring-case
split-line
tabify
transpose-chars
transpose-lines
transpose-words
untabify
upcase-region
upcase-word
view-lossage
what-line

Rectangle commands

The following commands emulate the Emacs rectangle commands:

rectangle-clear
rectangle-close
rectangle-delete
rectangle-kill
rectangle-open
rectangle-string
rectangle-yank

Given:

I'm really glad the docs are being updated. I know that's a
monumental task. I only use a fraction of Leo's commands, mostly
because I don't even know what they're supposed to accomplish. A few
examples:

Placing the cursor immediately before the first “I”, holding shift and moving it to immediately before the word``examples`` selects a zero width rectangle from the beginning to the end of the selection (zero width because the selection starts and ends in the same column. Then running rectangle-string [largo]<space><enter> yields:

[largo] I'm really glad the docs are being updated. I know that's a
[largo] monumental task. I only use a fraction of Leo's commands, mostly
[largo] because I don't even know what they're supposed to accomplish. A few
[largo] examples:

Scrolling the outline pane

scroll-down
scroll-down-extend-selection
scroll-up
scroll-up-extend-selection

scroll-down-half-page
scroll-down-line
scroll-down-page
scroll-up-half-page
scroll-up-line
scroll-up-page

scroll-outline-down-line
scroll-outline-down-page
scroll-outline-up-line
scroll-outline-up-page
scroll-outline-left
scroll-outline-right

Yank, kill & delete commands

The following commands typically work like the corresponding Emacs command. For details about any command use F11 (help-for-command):

backward-delete-char
backward-find-character
backward-find-character-extend-selection
backward-kill-paragraph
backward-kill-sentence
backward-kill-word
kill-line
kill-paragraph
kill-region
kill-region-save
kill-sentence
kill-to-end-of-line
kill-word
kill-ws
yank
yank-pop
zap-to-character

File commands

Loading, saving & reverting files

file-open-by-name

Gets the name of a Leo outline from the minibuffer and opens it. File name completion is supported.

new (Ctrl-N)

Creates a new Leo main window.

open-outline (Ctrl-O)

Opens an existing .leo file. Selecting a non-.leo file loads the file into an @edit node in the present outline.

open-outline-by-name

Opens the file given by typing the filename in the minibuffer. Supports filename completion.

read-outline-only

Reads only the .leo file, not any external files.

revert

Reloads the outline, discarding any changes made since it was last saved.

save-all

Saves all open tabs windows/tabs.

save-buffers-kill-leo

Quits Leo, prompting to save any unsaved files first.

save-file or file-save (Ctrl-S)

Saves the Leo window to a file.

save-file-as

Saves a copy of the Leo outline, changing outline’s file name.

save-file-to

Saves a copy of the Leo outline, without changing the outline’s file name

save-file-as-zipped

Same as save-file-as, compressing the .leo file with Python’s zipfile module.

save-file-as-unzipped

Same as save-as, suppressing compression.

About compression: The save-file, save-file-as and save-file-to commands compress the file if it was originally compressed. Leo always uses the .leo extension, regardless of whether the file is zipped. Zipped .leo files contain a single archive, whose name is the same as the .leo file itself. Outside of Leo you can change the extension to .leo.zip and use stuffit or other program to expand the .leo file contained within.

Opening specific files:

open-cheat-sheet-leo

Opens CheatSheet.leo in a new tab or window.

open-leoDocs-leo

Opens LeoDocs.leo in a new tab or window.

open-scripts-leo

Opens scripts.leo in a new tab or window.

open-leoSettings-leo

Opens LeoSettings.leo in a new tab or window.

Writing external files without saving the outline:

write-at-auto-nodes

Writes all @auto nodes in the selected tree.

write-outline-only

Saves the outline without writing any @<file> trees.

write-at-file-nodes

Writes all @<file> trees.

write-at-shadow-nodes

Writes all @shadow nodes in the selected tree.

write-dirty-at-file-nodes

Writes all modified @<file> trees.

write-dirty-at-shadow-nodes

Writes all modified @shadow trees.

write-missing-at-file-nodes

Write all @<file> nodes for which the corresponding external file does not exist.

Closing outlines & quitting Leo

close-others

Closes all windows except the present window.

close-window (Ctrl-F4)

Closes the selected Leo window, prompting you to save your work if necessary.

exit-leo (Ctrl-Q or Alt-F4)

Exits Leo, prompting you to save any changed outline. Closing the last outline tab also exits Leo.

Importing & exporting files

export-headlines

Exports all headlines to an external file.

file-insert

Prompts for the name of a file and put the selected text into it.

flatten-outline

Creates a text file in MORE format from the selected outline.

import-file

Import a file into an @file node. This command handles files regardless of whether they contain sentinels. This command can also read files in MORE outline format.

import-MORE-file

Import one or MORE files into @file nodes.

import-tabbed-files

Import one or more tab-or-space-delimited files into @file nodes.

import-zim-folder

Imports a zim folder, http://zim-wiki.org/, as the last top-level node of the outline. This command uses the following Leo settings:

@int rst_level = 0
@string rst_type
@string zim_node_name
@string path_to_zim
outline-to-cweb

Creates a CWEB file from the selected outline.

outline-to-noweb

Creates a noweb file from the selected outline.

read-at-auto-nodes

Reads all @auto nodes in the presently selected outline.

read-at-shadow-nodes

Reads all @shadow nodes in the presently selected outline.

read-at-file-nodes

Updates all @<file> nodes in an outline.

read-file-into-node

Prompts for a filename, creates a new node and puts the contents of the file into its body text.

refresh-from-disk

Refreshes an @<file> node from disk.

remove-sentinels

Removes all sentinel lines from a file derived from an @file node.

weave

Formats the selected text and writes it to a file.

write-file-from-node

Writes the body text of the selected node to a file. The command prompts for a file name if the node is not an @<file> node.

Using sessions

session-clear

Closes all tabs except the presently selected tab.

session-create

Creates a new @session node.

session-refresh

Refreshes the current @session node.

session-restore

Opens a tab for each item the selected @session node.

session-snapshot-load

Loads a snapshot of a session from the leo.session file.

session-snapshot-save

Saves a snapshot of the present session to the leo.session file.

A session specifies a list of .leo files that Leo opens automatically when Leo first starts. Leo will reload the last session provided that command-line arguments don’t contain any file names.

Communicating with external editors

cm-external-editor

Open the selected node in the external editor specified by the LEO_EDITOR/EDITOR environment variable.

open-with-idle

Open the selected node in Idle.

open-with-open office

Open the selected node in Open Office.

open-with-scite

Open the selected node in SciTe.

open-with-word

Open the selected node in Word.

About open-with:

  1. Leo creates a temporary file and invokes an external program. Leo periodically checks whether this temporary file has changed; Leo changes the corresponding node in the outline if so. You must create the entries using an @openwith node in myLeoSettings.leo. See the documentation there.

  2. All open-with commands require that the corresponding @openwith node correctly specifies an editor.

Creating & deleting directories & files

directory-make

Prompts for the name of a directory and creates it.

directory-remove

Prompts for the name of a directory and deletes it.

file-delete

Prompts for the name of a file and delete it.

Managing recent files

clean-recent-files

Removes duplicate entries from entries in the Recent Files menu.

clear-recent-files

Deletes all entries in the Recent Files except the most recent file. The files themselves are not affected.

sort-recent-files

Sorts the recent files list in the File menu.

Help commands

about-leo

Puts up a dialog box showing the version of Leo.

help

Shows an introduction to Leo’s help system.

help-for-command (F11)

Prompts for a Leo command name in the minibuffer (tab completion is allowed) and shows the docstring for the command.

help-for-python (F12)

Prompts for a Python module or function and shows its docstring.

help-for-<topic>

Opens a discussion of a topic:

help-for-abbreviations
help-for-autocompletion
help-for-bindings
help-for-creating-external-files
help-for-debugging-commands
help-for-drag-and-drop
help-for-dynamic-abbreviations
help-for-find-commands
help-for-minibuffer
help-for-regular-expressions
help-for-scripting
open-online-home

Opens Leo’s home page at http://leoeditor.com.

open-online-toc

Opens Leo’s table of contents at http://leoeditor.com/leo_toc.html.

open-online-tutorials

Opens Leo’s tutorials page at http://leoeditor.com/tutorial.html.

open-online-videos

Opens Leo’s video page at http://leoeditor.com/screencasts.html.

open-quickstart-leo

Opens Leo’s quickstart guide in a new tab or window.

open-users-guide

Opens Leo’s Users Guide at http://leoeditor.com/usersguide.html.

Language conversion commands

c-to-python

Converts c or c++ text to python text. The conversion is not perfect, but it eliminates a lot of tedious text manipulation. This command is a rewrapping of the first Python script I ever wrote.

import-free-mind-files

Prompts for FreeMind files and imports them.

typescript-to-py

Converts typescript text to python text. The conversion is not perfect, but it eliminates a lot of tedious text manipulation.

Minibuffer commands

eval-expression

Evaluate an expression entered in the minibuffer.

full-command (Alt-X)

Execute a command by name. Tab completion is supported.

keyboard-quit

Exits the minibuffer, putting focus in the body pane.

repeat-complex-command

Execute the last command entered from the minibuffer.

Miscellaneous commands

at-file-to-at-auto
clean-persistence
cls
join-leo-irc
open-python-window
script-button

# Auto-completion
- show-calltips
- show-calltips-force

# Fonts.
set-font
show-fonts

# Icons.
insert-icon
delete-first-icon
delete-last-icon
delete-node-icons

# Layout.
free-layout-context-menu
free-layout-load
free-layout-load-alternate
free-layout-load-detached-body
free-layout-load-no-log
free-layout-load-standard
free-layout-restore
free-layout-zoom

# Modes.
enter-quick-command-mode
exit-named-mode

# uA's.
clear-all-uas
clear-node-uas
show-all-uas
show-node-uas
set-ua

Mouseless Leo commands

Event simulation commands

The following commands trigger event hooks:

click-click-box
click-headline
click-icon-box
ctrl-click-at-cursor
ctrl-click-icon
double-click-headline
double-click-icon-box # Invokes vim or xemacs plugin if enabled.
simulate-begin-drag
simulate-end-drag

Focus commands

activate-cmds-menu
activate-edit-menu
activate-file-menu
activate-help-menu
activate-outline-menu
activate-plugins-menu
activate-window-menu
cycle-focus
cycle-log-focus
focus-to-body
focus-to-find
focus-to-log
focus-to-minibuffer
focus-to-nav
focus-to-tree
gui-all-hide
gui-all-show
gui-all-toggle
gui-iconbar-hide
gui-iconbar-show
gui-iconbar-toggle
gui-menu-hide
gui-menu-show
gui-menu-toggle
gui-minibuffer-hide
gui-minibuffer-show
gui-minibuffer-toggle
gui-statusbar-hide
gui-statusbar-show
gui-statusbar-toggle
gui-tabbar-hide
gui-tabbar-show
gui-tabbar-toggle
tab-cycle-next
tab-cycle-previous
toggle-active-pane

Pane commands

contract-body-pane
contract-log-pane
contract-outline-pane
contract-pane
delete-script-button-button
detach-editor-toggle
detach-editor-toggle-max
equal-sized-panes
expand-body-pane
expand-log-pane
expand-outline-pane
expand-pane
fully-expand-body-pane
fully-expand-log-pane
fully-expand-outline-pane
fully-expand-pane
hide-body-pane
hide-log-pane
hide-outline-pane
hide-pane
iconify-frame
resize-to-screen
tab-detach

Outline commands

Creating, cloning & destroying nodes

clone-node (Ctrl-\`) (Grave accent, not a single quote)

Creates a clone as the immediate sibling of a selected node.

clone-node-to-last-node

Creates a clone as the last top-level node of the outline.

insert-node (Ctrl-I or Insert)

Inserts a new node into the outline. The new node becomes the first child of the present node if the present node is expanded. Otherwise, the new node becomes the next sibling of the present node.

insert-node-before

Inserts a node before the presently selected node.

delete-node

Deletes a node and all its descendants.

Expanding & contracting nodes

contract-all (Alt-hyphen)

Contracts every node in the outline.

contract-all-other-nodes

Contract all nodes except the parents of the selected node.

contract-node

Contracts a node.

contract-or-go-left (Alt-Left)

Contract the node if it is expanded. Otherwise, select the node’s parent.

contract-parent

Select the parent of the selected node and contract it.

expand-all

Expands every node in the outline.

expand-node

Expands a node.

expand-and-go-right (Alt-Right)

Expands a node if not expanded. Otherwise, selects the first child if there is one.

expand-all-subheads

Expand all the direct children of the selected node.

expand-ancestors-only

Expand all the ancestors of the selected node.

These commands expand all descendants of the selected nodes:

expand-next-level
expand-prev-level (reverses expand-next-level)
expand-to-level-1
expand-to-level-2
expand-to-level-3
expand-to-level-4
expand-to-level-5
expand-to-level-6
expand-to-level-7
expand-to-level-8
expand-to-level-9

Editing headlines

abort-edit-headline

Ends editing of the headline, discarding any changes.

edit-headline

Begins editing of the headline of the presently-selected node.

end-edit-headline

Ends editing of the headline.

Selecting nodes

Arrow keys: When focus is in the outline pane, you can move about the outline using plain arrow keys. Regardless of focus, Alt-Arrow keys select nodes in the outline pane.

goto-first-sibling

Select the first sibling of the selected node.

goto-last-sibling

Select the last sibling of the selected node.

Similarly, these commands select various nodes in the outline:

go-back
go-forward
goto-char
goto-first-node
goto-first-visible-node
goto-last-node
goto-last-visible-node
goto-line
goto-next-changed
goto-next-clone
goto-next-history-node
goto-next-node
goto-next-sibling
goto-next-visible
goto-parent
goto-prev-history-node
goto-prev-node
goto-prev-sibling
goto-prev-visible
leoscreen-jump-to-error (Unix only)

Jumps to the python error reported in the shell window, if the file’s loaded in the current Leo session. Just looks for a line:

File "somefile.py", line NNN, in xxx

and looks for a node starting with “@” and ending with “somefile.py”, then jumps to line NNN in that file.

Cutting, pasting & deleting nodes

copy-node (Ctrl-Shift-C)

Copies a node and all its descendants to the clipboard

cut-node (Ctrl-Shift-X)

Copies a node and all its descendants to the clipboard and then delete them.

delete-node

Deletes a node and all its descendants.

paste-node (Ctrl-Shift-V)

Pastes a node and its descendants from the outline. This commands creates copies of nodes, not clones.

past-retaining-clones

Pastes a node and its descendants from the outline. This command preserves the identify (gnx’s) of the pasted nodes, thereby preserving any clone links. This command ensures that no newly-pasted node is an ancestor of itself.

Outline representation: When cutting or copying an outline to the clipboard, Leo writes the outline in the same xml (text) format used in .leo files. You may copy this text representation into a body pane (or into any other text editor) using Ctrl-V.

Moving & reorganizing nodes

move-outline-down (Ctrl-D or Shift-Down or Alt-Shift-Down)

Move the selected node down, if possible.

move-outline-left (Ctrl-L or Shift-Left or Alt-Shift-Left)

Move the selected node left, if possible.

move-outline-right (Ctrl-R or Shift-Right or Alt-Shift-Right)

Move the selected node right, if possible.

move-outline-up (Ctrl-U or Shift-Up Alt-Shift-Up)

Move the selected node up, if possible.

Alt Modifiers not needed in the outline pane: When focus is in the outline pane, you can move nodes without adding the Alt modifier. Shift-Up moves the select node up, etc.

Important: The following commands reorganize groups of nodes:

de-hoist

Undoes the effect of the previous hoist command.

demote (Ctrl-])

Makes all following siblings of a node children of the node.

hoist

Redraws the screen so presently selected tree becomes the only visible part of the outline. You may hoist an outline as many times as you wish.

promote (Ctrl-[)

Makes all the children of a node siblings of the node.

sort-children

Sort all children of the children of the present node by their headlines.

sort-siblings (Alt-A)

Sort the present node and all its siblings by their headlines.

Converting between outlines and text

code-to-rst

Format the presently selected node as computer code.

flatten-outline-to-node

Appends the headline and body text of all descendants of the selected node to the body text of the selected node.

parse-body

Parse p.b as source code, creating a tree of descendant nodes. This is essentially an import of p.b.

Dragging nodes

You may drag a node (including all its descendants) from one place to another in an outline. To start a drag, press the main (left) mouse button while the cursor is over the icon for a node. The cursor will change to a hand icon. If you release the mouse button while the hand cursor is above another node, Leo will move the dragged node after that node. If you release the mouse button when the hand cursor is not over a node, Leo will leave the outline pane as it is. Leo scrolls the outline pane as the result of mouse-moved events, so to continue scrolling you must keep moving the mouse.

If the recipient node has children and is expanded, the dropped node will be inserted as the first child of the recipient node, otherwise the dropped node will be inserted after the recipient node.

Holding down Alt before releasing the node will force insertion as a child of the recipient node, even if the recipient node is not expanded. Holding down Control before releasing the node will cause a clone to be dropped, leaving the original where it was.

Marking nodes

copy-marked

Copies all marked nodes as children of a new node.

diff-marked-nodes

When exactly two nodes are marked, this command creates a diff node as the last top-level node whose children are clones of the marked nodes.

goto-next-marked

Selects the next marked node.

mark (Ctrl-M)

Marks node if it is unmarked, and unmarks the node if it is already marked.

mark-changed-items

Marks all nodes whose headline or body text has been changed since the file was last saved.

mark-subheads

Marks all children of the presently selected node.

marked-list

Lists all marked nodes in the Nav pane.

unmark-all

Unmarks all marked nodes in the outline.

Marking groups of nodes: Leo’s find and change commands mark nodes if the “Mark Changes” and “Mark Finds” checkboxes are checked. You can change these checkboxes with the toggle-find-mark-changes-option and toggle-find-mark-finds-option commands.

Operations on marked nodes

clone-marked-nodes

Makes clones of all marked nodes and moves them to be children of the present position.

delete-marked-nodes

Deletes all marked nodes.

move-marked-nodes

Moves all nodes to be children of the present position.

Comparing outlines

file-compare-leo-files

Prompts for another (presumably similar) .leo file that will be compared with the presently selected outline file (main window). It then creates clones of all inserted, deleted and changed nodes.

file-diff-files

Creates a node and puts the diff between 2 files into it.

Using Chapters

@chapter trees define chapters. Selecting a chapter makes only those nodes in the chapter visible, much like a hoist. The main chapter represents the entire outline. Selecting the main chapter shows all outline nodes.

chapter-select-main

Selects the main chapter.

chapter-select-<chapter-name>

Each @chapter node in the outline creates a corresponding chapter-select command.

chapter-next

Selects the next chapter.

chapter-back

Selects the previous chapter.

Associated settings:

@bool use_chapters

True: chapters are enabled.

Plugins commands

act-on-node

Executes node-specific action, typically defined in a plugins as follows:

import leo.core.leoPlugins

def act_print_upcase(c,p,event):
    if not p.h.startswith('@up'):
        raise leo.core.leoPlugins.TryNext
    p.h = p.h.upper()

g.act_on_node.add(act_print_upcase)

This will upcase the headline when it starts with @up.

Plugins create the following commands:

# bookmarks.py
bookmarks-bookmark
bookmarks-bookmark-child
bookmarks-level-decrease
bookmarks-level-increase
bookmarks-mark-as-target
bookmarks-open-bookmark
bookmarks-open-node
bookmarks-show
bookmarks-switch
bookmarks-use-other-outline

# printing.py
preview
preview-node
preview-tree
print-expanded-node
print-expanded-node-body
print-marked-node-bodies
print-marked-nodes
print-preview-expanded-node
print-preview-expanded-node-body
print-preview-marked-node-bodies
print-preview-marked-nodes
print-preview-selected-node
print-preview-selected-node-body
print-preview-selected-node-body-html
print-selected-node
print-selected-node-body
print-selected-node-body-html

# quicksearch.py
find-quick
find-quick-changed
find-quick-selected
find-quick-test-failures
find-quick-timeline
focus-to-nav
go-anywhere
history
marked-list

# richtext.py
cke-text-close
cke-text-open
cke-text-switch
cke-text-toggle-autosave
richtext-close-editor
richtext-open-editor
richtext-switch-editor
richtext-toggle-autosave

# viewrendered.py
vr-contract
vr-expand
vr-hide
vr-lock
vr-pause-play-movie
vr-show
vr-toggle (Alt-0)
vr-unlock
vr-update

Search & spell commands

Basic searches

Basic searches:

start-search (Ctrl-F)

Prompts for a search string. Typing the Return key puts the search string in the Find tab and executes a search based on all the settings in the Find tab. Type Tab to enter replacement text.

find-next (F3)

Continues a search started with Ctrl-F.

find-previous (F2)

Searches backwards using the present search options.

replace (Ctrl-=)

Replaces the selected text with the ‘change’ text in the Find tab.

replace-then-find (Ctrl--)

Replaces the selected text with the ‘change’ text in the Find tab, then executes the find command again.

Batch searches:

find-all

Prints all matches in the log pane.

replace-all

Changes all occurrences of the ‘find’ text with the ‘change’ text. When using the minibuffer to specify search and replace patterns, first enter then search pattern, then type Tab and enter the replacement pattern:

<Alt-x>replace-all<return>find-pattern<tab>replacement-pattern<return>

Searches creating clones:

clone-find-all-flattened aka (cfaf)

Prompts for a find, then creates clones of all found nodes in an organizer node.

clone-find-all aka (cfa)

Same as clone-find-all-flattened, but does not create duplicate cloned nodes. If a node is a descendant of another found node, no duplicate top-level node (in the organizer) is created.

clone-find-marked aka (cfm) and clone-find-marked-flattened aka (cfmf)

Creates clones of all marked nodes.

clone-find-parents

Creates an organizer node containing clones of all the parents of the selected node.

Incremental find commands

Incremental find commands move through the text as you type individual characters. Typing BackSpace backtracks the search. To repeat an incremental search, type the shortcut for that command again. Here are Leo’s incremental find commands:

Alt+R isearch-backward
      isearch-backward-regexp
Alt+I isearch-forward
      isearch-forward-regexp
      isearch-with-present-options

Word search and regex search commands

The following commands work like F3 (start-search) with various options set:

search-backward

Searches in the reverse direction.

word-search-backward and word-search-forward

Sets ‘Whole Word’ checkbox to True.

re-search-forward and re-search-backward

Set the ‘Regexp’ checkbox to True.

Check boxes and their commands

The following check boxes options appear in the Find pane:

Ignore Case

When checked, the Find and Change commands ignore the case of alphabetic characters when determining matches.

Alt+Ctrl+I (toggle-find-ignore-case-option) toggles this checkbox.

Mark Changes

When checked, the Change command marks all headlines whose headline or body text are changed by the command.

Alt+Ctrl+C (toggle-find-mark-changes-option) toggles this checkbox.

Mark Matches

When checked, the Find and Change commands mark all headlines in which a match is found with the pattern.

Alt+Ctrl+F (toggle-find-mark-finds-option) toggles this checkbox.

Pattern Match

When checked, the Find and Change commands treat several characters specially in the find pattern.

Alt+Ctrl+X (toggle-find-regex-option) toggles this checkbox.

'*'  matches any sequence of zero or more characters.
'.'  matches any single character.
'^'  matches a newline at the start of a pattern.
'$'  matches a newline at the end of a pattern.

Examples::

"^abc$" matches lines that only contain "abc".
"^a" matches any line starting with "A".
"a$" matches any line ending with "a".
"^*$" matches any line at all.
Search Body Text

When checked, the Find and Change commands search body text.

Alt+Ctrl+B (toggle-find-in-body-option) toggles this checkbox.

Search Headline Text

When checked, the Find and Change commands search headline text.

Alt+Ctrl+H (toggle-find-in-headline-option) toggles this checkbox.

Whole Word

When selected, the find pattern must match an entire word. Words consist of an alphabetic character or underscore, followed by zero or more alphabetic characters, numbers or underscores.

Alt+Ctrl+W (toggle-find-word-option) toggles this checkbox.

Wrap Around

When checked, the Find and Change commands continues at the top of the file when the command reaches the bottom of the file. For reverse searches, the find or change command continues at the bottom of the file when the command reaches the top of the file.

Alt+Ctrl+A (toggle-find-wrap-around-option) toggles this checkbox.

Radio buttons and their commands

The following radio buttons appear in the Find pane:

Entire Outline

When selected, Find commands search the entire outline.

Alt+Ctrl+E (set-find-everywhere) sets this radio button.

Node Only

When selected, Find commands search only the selected node.

Alt+Ctrl+N (set-find-node-only) sets this radio button

Suboutline Only

When selected, the Find and Change commands search only the currently selected headline and its offspring.

Alt+Ctrl+S (set-find-suboutline-only) sets this radio button.

Spell commands

The following commands refer to spell-as-you-type mode:

spell-as-you-type-next

Cycle the word behind (left of, for ltr languages) the cursor through the full list of suggestions.

spell-as-you-type-toggle

Toggle spell as you type mode. When enabled, word ending keystrokes will put a short list of suggestions in the log window, if the word is unknown to the speller. Only shows the first 5 suggestions, even if there are more.

spell-as-you-type-undo

Undo the last spelling correction.

spell-as-you-type-wrap

Toggle wrapping in spell-as-you-type mode.

The following commands refer to the Spell Tab:

focus-to-spell-tab

Put focus in the Spell tab.

spell-change

Same as clicking the “Change” button in the Spell Tab.

spell-change-then-find

Same as clicking the “Change, Find” button in the Spell Tab.

spell-find

Same as clicking the “Find” button in the Spell Tab.

spell-ignore

Same as clicking the “Ignore” button in the Spell Tab.

spell-tab-hide

Hide the Spell tab.

spell-tab-open

Show the Spell tab.

Settings commands

open-local-settings

Select the @settings node in the present file, if any.

open-myLeoSettings-leo

Open myLeoSettings.leo in a new window.

style-reload

Reloads all visual setting, but not themes.

Example: Change the @string font-size setting, then do style-reload and see what happens.

style-set-selected

Set the global stylesheet to c.p.b.

The following commands enable, disable or toggle various settings:

clear-extend-mode
disable-autocompleter
disable-calltips
enable-autocompleter
enable-calltips
set-colors
set-command-state
set-extend-mode
set-insert-state
set-overwrite-state
set-replace-string
set-search-string
set-silent-mode
toggle-abbrev-mode
toggle-autocompleter
toggle-calltips
toggle-case-region
toggle-extend-mode
toggle-find-collapses-nodes
toggle-input-state
toggle-invisibles
toggle-sparse-move
toggle-split-direction

Code beautification commands

beautify-node

Beautifies the Python code in the selected node.

beautify-tree

Beautifies all the Python code in the selected tree.

beautify-c

Reformats all C code in the selected tree.

These commands skip any nodes for which @language python (or c) is not in effect.

The Python beautifier (beautify-tree and beautify-node) is safe. It can never alter the meaning of a program because it compare the parse trees of the original and beautified code. The code remains unchanged if there is a mismatch. Such beautifier errors produce debugging dumps. Please report any such errors to Leo’s developers.

The Python beautifier works only on syntactically correct code. It issues a warning and does nothing for syntactically incorrect code.

The Python beautifier converts Leonine syntax (directives, section references and @doc parts) to comments, possibly with a trailing pass statement. Usually this produces syntactically correct text. As discussed below, the trailing pass can create SyntaxError’s.

The following sections describe how the beautify-tree and beautify-node commands work in more detail.

What the Python beautifier does

The beautifier will just work for most people.

The beautifier follows the Pep 8 recommendations for whitespace. It ensures that names, operators, strings and comments are separated by zero or one blanks:

def spam(a, b, c=5, *args, **keys):
    foo(a, 25, b=2)
    a = b + c - 5
    b = -d
    if 0 < b < 26:
        ...

Leo follows the pep 8 recommendations for blank lines between classes and defs, with minor variations due to Leo’s node structure.

Optionally, the beautifier can remove blank lines within classes and defs, controlled by the setting @bool tidy-keep-blank-lines.

What the Python beautifier doesn’t do

The Python beautifier never creates new lines! The beautifier never adds or changes:

  • Line breaks for “long” lines.

  • Line breaks in function argument lists.

  • Leading whitespace in continued argument lines.

  • Line breaks call arguments.

  • Leading whitespace in continue function call arguments.

  • Whitespace (including line breaks) within statements.

Pep 8 allows considerable flexibility regarding continued lines. The beautifier will leave all of the following unchanged, whether or not they conform to the pep 8 recommendation:

def function1 (a, b, c):
    pass

def function2 (
a = 2, # a comment
b = 3, # another comment
):
    pass

def function3 (
    a = 2, # a comment
    b = 3, # another comment
):
    pass

def function4(
              a = 2, # a comment
              b = 3, # another comment
             ):
    pass

Similarly, the beautifier will not touch arguments in function calls.

Beautifier directives

@killbeautify

This directive completely disables beautification for an entire tree. This is typically required for files containing @all.

@beautify and @nobeautify

These directives apply to a node and its descendants, until overridden later in a descendants. Both these directives may appear in the same node. Such ambiguous directives do not affect the beautification of descendant nodes. If both @beautify and @nobeautify appear in a node, the first directive determines whether the node will be beautified.

For example:

@beautify
...
@nobeautify

beautifies the entire node. Otoh:

@nobeautify
...
@beautify

skips beautification of the entire node. Yes, this is less precise than one could imagine, but it’s good enough for now.

Beautifier settings

@bool tidy-autobeautify = False

When True, Leo beautifies all changed files when saving an outline. The default must always be False in leoSettings.leo and in unitTest.leo.

@bool tidy-keep-blank-lines = False

When True, the beautifier retains blank lines within classes, functions and methods.

Beautifier rough edges

The following 5 problems are relatively minor. They apply only to the Python beautifier. The workaround in most cases is to use @nobeautify.

1. Syntax Errors

The pass hack converts:

if 1:
    << a section >>

to:

if 1:
    #!!!!! << a section >>
    pass

which is usually, but not always, syntactically correct Python. Here is an example from Leo’s core:

patterns = [
    << Sherlock patterns for pylint >>
]

The pass hack produces syntactically incorrect code:

patterns = [
    #!!!!! << Sherlock patterns for pylint >>
    pass
]

2. Alignment

The beautifier eliminates blanks used to align code. For example:

d = {
    key1:     value1,
    longKey2: value2,
}

The beautifier might preserve such lines, but there are no plans at present to do so.

The regular expression: =([ ])*\{([^}])*$ will discover complex dictionaries that you may want to protect with @nobeautify.

3. Operator priority

Pep 8 suggests considering eliminating blanks around higher-priority operators. The beautifier puts blank lines about all operators, except unary operators.

This is a difficult problem of style, for which no approach works in all cases. Surprisingly, retaining blanks around * usually looks best in Leo’s own code.

4. @clean & @auto

Consider adding @nobeautify for all @auto and @clean nodes, on the theory that such nodes are not primarily your responsibility. But adding @nobeautify is completely up to you.

5. Extra blank lines

The beautifier will sometimes insert extra spaces between class/def lines and preceding comments.

Stand-alone beautifier

You may invoke a lightly tested stand-alone version the Python beautifier from the command line.

You can run leoBeautify.py from any directory, provided that a copy of leoGlobals.py exists in the same directory.

Run the stand-alone beautifier as follows:

python -m leoBeautify file1, file2, ...

To get a usage message, do:

python -m leoBeautify -h

This produces:

Usage: python leoBeautify -m file1, file2, ...

Options:
  -h, --help             show this help message and exit
  -d, --debug            print the list of files and exit
  -k, --keep-blank-lines keep-blank-lines

Enough is enough

The following could be done only at the cost of more settings and debates about what the default settings should be.

  • Splitting long lines.

  • Improving spacing around operators.

  • Moving or indenting comment lines.

All these involve significant personal judgments and preferences. Pep 8 explicitly allows various approaches.

Summary of the beautifier

Except for dictionary definitions, the beautifier does what is expected, leaving difficult or idiosyncratic cases completely at the user’s discretion.

  • For the first time ever, Leo’s beautify commands work properly with Leonine syntax.

  • All files in leoPy.leo can now be beautified without fuss.

  • Except for spacing around operators, the beautifier mostly leaves your code as it is.

  • The beautifier makes no difficult choices. It preserves your choices.

Vim mode commands

:!
:%s
:e
:e!
:gT
:gt
:print-dot
:q
:q!
:qa
:r
:s
:tabnew
:toggle-vim-mode
:toggle-vim-trace
:toggle-vim-trainer-mode
:w
:wq
:xa

Key Reference

print-bindings prints a complete list of the bindings in effect.

Selecting outline nodes

When focus is in the outline pane:

Right-arrow (expand-and-go-right)
Left-arrow (contract-or-go-left)
Up-arrow (goto-prev-visible)
Down-arrow (goto-next-visible)

Regardless of focus:

Alt-Home (goto-first-visible-node)
Alt-End (goto-last-visible-node)
Alt-Right-arrow (expand-and-go-right)
Alt-Left-arrow (contract-or-go-left)
Alt-Up-arrow (goto-prev-visible)
Alt-Down-arrow (goto-next-visible)

Moving outline nodes

When focus is in the outline:

Shift-Down-arrow (move-outline-down)
Shift-Left-arrow (move-outline-left)
Shift-Right-arrow (move-outline-right)
Shift-Up-arrow (move-outline-up)

Regardless of focus:

Alt-Shift-Down-arrow (move-outline-down)
Alt-Shift-Left-arrow (move-outline-left)
Alt-Shift-Right-arrow (move-outline-right)
Alt-Shift-Up-arrow (move-outline-up)
Ctrl-D (move-outline-down)
Ctrl-L (move-outline-left)
Ctrl-R (move-outline-right)
Ctrl-U (move-outline-up)

Moving the cursor

When focus is in any of Leo’s text panes (body pane, log pane, headlines):

Arrows            move one character
Ctrl-LeftArrow    back one word
Ctrl-RightArrow   forward one word
Home              beginning of line
End               end of line
Ctrl-Home         beginning of the body
Ctrl-End          end of body
PageDown          down one page
PageUp            up one page

Shift keys: Adding the Shift key modifier to any of the keys above moves the cursor and extends the selected text.