# The Fundamentals

If you have ever used a text editor, you will have no problem using &kate;. In the next two sections, Starting &kate; and in Working with &kate;, we'll show you everything you need to get up and running quickly.

## Starting &kate;

You can start &kate; from the K menu or from the command line.

### From the Menu

Open the &kde; program menu by clicking on the big K icon on the toolbar at the bottom left of your screen. This will raise the program menu. Move your cursor up the menu to the Editors menu item. A list of available editors will appear. Choose &kate;.

Unless you configure &kate; not to, it will load the last files you edited. See Configuring &kate; to learn how to toggle this feature on and off.

### From the Command Line

You can start &kate; by typing its name on the command line. If you give it a file name, as in the example below, it will open or create that file.

    %kate myfile.txt

If you have an active connection, and permission, you can take advantage of &kde;'s network transparency to open files on the internet.

    %kate ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/README_FIRST

#### Command Line Options

&kate; accepts following command line options:

``kate` `--help``

- This lists the most basic options available at the command line.

``kate` `--help-qt``

- This lists the options available for changing the way &kate; interacts with &Qt;.

``kate` `--help-kde``

- This lists the options available for changing the way &kate; interacts with &kde;.

``kate` `--help-all``

- This lists all of the command line options.

``kate` `--author``

- Lists &kate;'s authors in the terminal window.

``kate` `--version``

- Lists version information for &Qt;, &kde;, and &kate;. Also available through ``kate` `-V``

``kate` `--license``

- Shows licence information.

### Drag and Drop

&kate; uses the &kde; Drag and Drop protocol. Files may be dragged and dropped onto &kate; from the Desktop, &konqueror; or some remote ftp site opened in one of &konqueror;'s windows.

## Working with &kate;

Quick Start will show you how to toggle four simple options that will let you configure some of &kate;'s more powerful features right away. Keystroke Commands lays out some of the default keystroke shortcuts for those who can't or don't want to use a mouse.

### Quick Start

This section will describe some of the items on the Settings menu so that you can quickly configure &kate; to work the way you want it.

When you start &kate; for the first time you'll see two windows with white backgrounds. Above the two windows is a toolbar with the usual labelled icons. And above that, a menu bar.

The left-hand window is a dockable side bar. It combines the Filelist and Fileselector windows. Switch between the two by clicking on the tabs at the top of the window.

If you've started &kate; with a file, the right-hand window will show the file you are editing and the Filelist on the side bar will show the name of the file. Use the Fileselector window to open files.

You can toggle the Filelist and Fileselector window on and off in Settings menu. This menu offers you your first glimpse into &kate;'s power and flexibility. In this section we'll look at four items:

Show Toolbar

- Toggles the toolbar on and off.

Show Filelist

- Toggles the Filelist on and off. If the Filelist/Fileselector window is not open, &kate; launches the side bar as a separate, undocked, window. To dock the window grab the two thin parallel lines above the tabs by clicking on them with your &LMB; and holding the button down. Drag the the window into &kate;'s editing window and release the &LMB; when you have positioned the Filelist/Fileselector window as you prefer.

  If you have grabbed the two parallel lines successfully your mouse pointer will turn into two crossed arrows as you drag.

Show Fileselector

- Toggles the Fileselector on and off. This menu item is the same as Show Filelist with one difference. Toggling it on launches the window with the Fileselector on top.

Show Console

- Toggles a console emulator on and off at the bottom of &kate;'s window. In other words, it gives you a command line within the application.

### Keystroke Commands

Many of &kate;'s keystroke commands (shortcuts) are configurable by way of the Settings menu. By default &kate; honours the following key bindings.

Insert | Toggle between Insert and Overwrite mode. When in insert mode the editor will add any typed characters to the text and push any previously typed data to the right of the text cursor. Overwrite mode causes the entry of each character to eliminate the character immediately to the right of the text cursor.
Left Arrow | Move the cursor one character to the left
Right Arrow | Move the cursor one character to the right
Up Arrow | Move the cursor up one line
Down Arrow | Move the cursor down one line
Page Up | Move the cursor up one page
Page Down | Move the cursor down one page
Backspace | Delete the character to the left of the cursor
Home | Move the cursor to the beginning of the line
End | Move the cursor to the end of the line
Delete | Delete the character to the right of the cursor (or any selected text)
&Shift;Left Arrow | Mark text one character to the left
&Shift;Right Arrow | Mark text one character to the right
F1 | Help
&Shift;F1 | What's this?
&Ctrl;F | Find
F3 | Find again
&Ctrl;B | Set a Bookmark
&Ctrl;C | Copy the marked text to the clipboard.
&Ctrl;N | New document
&Ctrl;P | Print
&Ctrl;Q | Quit - close active copy of editor
&Ctrl;R | Replace
&Ctrl;S | Save your file.
&Ctrl;V | Paste.
&Ctrl;X | Delete the marked text and copy it to the clipboard.
&Ctrl;Z | Undo
&Ctrl;&Shift;Z | Redo

## Getting Help

### With &kate;

This manual

- Offers detailed documentation on all menu commands, configuration options, tools, dialogues, plugins &etc; as well as descriptions of of the &kate; window, the editor and various concepts used in the application.

  Press F1 or use the Help Contents menu topic to view this manual.

What's This Help

- What's This help offers immediate help with single elements of graphical windows, such as buttons or other window areas.

  We strive to provide What's This help for any elements for which it makes sense. It is available throughout the configuration dialogue, and in many other dialogues as well.

  To employ What's This help, press &Shift;F1 or use the Help What's This menu item to enable What's This mode. The cursor will turn into an arrow with a question mark, and you can now click any element in the window to read the What's This help for that element, if it is available.

Help Buttons in Dialogues

- Some dialogues have a Help Button. Pressing it will start the &khelpcenter; and open the relevant documentation.

### With Your Text Files

&kate; does not (yet!) provide any means for reading document related documentation. Depending on the file you are editing, you may find the Built in &konsole; helpful for viewing related &UNIX; manual pages or info documentation, or you can use &konqueror;.