Customizing Atom

To change a setting, configure a theme, or install a package just open the Settings pane in the current window by pressing cmd+,.

Changing The Theme

Because Atom themes are based on CSS, it's possible (and encouraged) to have multiple themes active at the same time. Atom comes with both light and dark interface themes as well as several syntax themes (you can also create your own).

To change the active themes just open the Settings pane (cmd-,) and select the Themes tab. You can install non-bundled themes by going to the Available Themes section on the Packages tab within the Settings panel.

Installing Packages

You can install non-bundled packages by going to the Available Packages section on the Packages tab within the Settings panel (cmd-,).

You can also install packages from the command line using the apm command:

apm install <package_name> to install the latest version.

apm install <package_name>@<package_version> to install a specific version.

For example apm install emmet@0.1.5 installs the 0.1.5 release of the Emmet package into ~/.atom/packages.

Customizing Key Bindings

Atom keymaps work similarly to stylesheets. Just as stylesheets use selectors to apply styles to elements, Atom keymaps use selectors to associate keystrokes with events in specific contexts. Here's a small example, excerpted from Atom's built-in keymaps:

'.editor':
  'enter': 'editor:newline'

'body':
  'ctrl-P': 'core:move-up'
  'ctrl-p': 'core:move-down'

This keymap defines the meaning of enter in two different contexts. In a normal editor, pressing enter emits the editor:newline event, which causes the editor to insert a newline. But if the same keystroke occurs inside of a select list's mini-editor, it instead emits the core:confirm event based on the binding in the more-specific selector.

By default, ~/.atom/keymap.cson is loaded when Atom is started. It will always be loaded last, giving you the chance to override bindings that are defined by Atom's core keymaps or third-party packages.

You'll want to know all the commands available to you. Open the Settings panel (cmd-,) and select the Keybindings tab. It will show you all the keybindings currently in use.

Advanced Configuration

Atom loads configuration settings from the config.cson file in your ~/.atom directory, which contains CoffeeScript-style JSON:

core:
  excludeVcsIgnoredPaths: true
editor:
  fontSize: 18

The configuration itself is grouped by the package name or one of the two core namespaces: core and editor.

Configuration Key Reference

core
- disabledPackages: An array of package names to disable
- excludeVcsIgnoredPaths: Don't search within files specified by .gitignore
- ignoredNames: File names to ignore across all of Atom
- projectHome: The directory where projects are assumed to be located
- themes: An array of theme names to load, in cascading order
editor
- autoIndent: Enable/disable basic auto-indent (defaults to true)
- autoIndentOnPaste: Enable/disable auto-indented pasted text (defaults to false)
- nonWordCharacters: A string of non-word characters to define word boundaries
- fontSize: The editor font size
- fontFamily: The editor font family
- invisibles: Specify characters that Atom renders for invisibles in this hash
  - tab: Hard tab characters
  - cr: Carriage return (for Microsoft-style line endings)
  - eol: \n characters
  - space: Leading and trailing space characters
- normalizeIndentOnPaste: Enable/disable conversion of pasted tabs to spaces
- preferredLineLength: Identifies the length of a line (defaults to 80)
- showInvisibles: Whether to render placeholders for invisible characters (defaults to false)
- showIndentGuide: Show/hide indent indicators within the editor
- showLineNumbers: Show/hide line numbers within the gutter
- softWrap: Enable/disable soft wrapping of text within the editor
- softWrapAtPreferredLineLength: Enable/disable soft line wrapping at preferredLineLength
- tabLength: Number of spaces within a tab (defaults to 2)
fuzzyFinder
- ignoredNames: Files to ignore only in the fuzzy-finder
whitespace
- ensureSingleTrailingNewline: Whether to reduce multiple newlines to one at the end of files
- removeTrailingWhitespace: Enable/disable striping of whitespace at the end of lines (defaults to true)
wrap-guide
- columns: Array of hashes with a pattern and column key to match the the path of the current editor to a column position.

Quick Personal Hacks

user.coffee

When Atom finishes loading, it will evaluate user.coffee in your ~/.atom directory, giving you a chance to run arbitrary personal CoffeeScript code to make customizations. You have full access to Atom's API from code in this file. If customizations become extensive, consider creating a package.

user.less

If you want to apply quick-and-dirty personal styling changes without creating an entire theme that you intend to distribute, you can add styles to user.less in your ~/.atom directory.

For example, to change the color of the highlighted line number for the line that contains the cursor, you could add the following style to user.less:

@highlight-color: pink;

.editor .line-number.cursor-line {
  color: @highlight-color;
}

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