Configuration Settings

Your .atom Directory

When you install Atom, an .atom directory is created in your home directory. If you press cmd-,, that directory is opened in a new window. For the time being, this serves as the primary interface for adjusting configuration settings, adding and changing key bindings, tweaking styles, etc.

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

core:
  hideGitIgnoredFiles: true
editor:
  fontSize: 18

Configuration is broken into namespaces, which are defined by the config hash's top-level keys. In addition to Atom's core components, each package may define its own namespace.

Glossary of Config Keys

core
- disablePackages: An array of package names to disable
- hideGitIgnoredFiles: Whether files in the .gitignore should be hidden
- ignoredNames: File names to ignore across all of Atom (not fully implemented)
- themes: An array of theme names to load, in cascading order
- autosave: Save a buffer when its view loses focus
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
- preferredLineLength: Identifies the length of a line (defaults to 80)
- showInvisibles: Whether to render placeholders for invisible characters (defaults to false)
fuzzyFinder
- ignoredNames: Files to ignore only in the fuzzy-finder
whitespace
- ensureSingleTrailingNewline: Whether to reduce multiple newlines to one at the end of files
wrapGuide
- columns: Array of hashes with a pattern and column key to match the the path of the current editor to a column position.

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'

".select-list .editor.mini":
  'enter': 'core:confirm',

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, any keymap files in your ~/.atom/keymaps directory are loaded in alphabetical order when Atom is started. They will always be loaded last, giving you the chance to override bindings that are defined by Atom's core keymaps or third-party packages.

Changing The Theme

Atom comes bundled with two themes atom-dark-* and atom-light-*.

Because Atom themes are based on CSS, it's possible to have multiple themes active at the same time.

For example, you'll usually select a theme for the UI and another theme for syntax highlighting. You can change themes from the preferences pane.

You install new themes by placing them in the ~/.atom/themes directory. A theme can be a single LESS file or a directory containing multiple LESS files.

Installing Packages

FIXME: Rewrite for the new dialog.

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. Please refer to the Atom Internals Guide for more information. If your 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;
}

4.7 KiB Raw Blame History