Notes
Building simplicidade.org: notes, projects, and occasional rants
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Sublime Text

This is a set of tips and tricks for my own use, to help me survive Sublime. I’m using Sublime 3, as an attempt to transition from TextMate 2 that for some reason stopped working on my old (10.8.x) Mac.

Configuration tweaks

I’ve added the following configurations to “Preferences > Settings - User”:

// Note that the font_face and font_size are overridden in the platform
// specific settings file, for example, "Preferences (Linux).sublime-settings".
// Because of this, setting them here will have no effect: you must set them
// in your User File Preferences.
"font_face": "Consolas",
"font_size": 14,

// Set to true to removing trailing white space on save
"trim_trailing_white_space_on_save": true,

// Set to true to ensure the last line of the file ends in a newline
// character when saving
"ensure_newline_at_eof_on_save": true,

// Columns in which to display vertical rulers
"rulers": [80, 100],

// The number of spaces a tab is considered equal to
"tab_size": 2,

// Set to true to insert spaces when tab is pressed
"translate_tabs_to_spaces": true,

// Always visualise the viewport on the minimap, as opposed to only
// showing it on mouse over
"always_show_minimap_viewport": true,

// Draw a border around the visible part of the minimap
"draw_minimap_border": true,

// If enabled, will highlight any line with a caret
"highlight_line": true,

// Valid values are "smooth", "phase", "blink" and "solid".
"caret_style": "blink",

// These settings control the size of the caret
"caret_extra_width": 4,

// Set to true to automatically save files when switching to a different file
// or application
"save_on_focus_lost": true,

// When auto_find_in_selection is enabled, the "Find in Selection" flag
// will be enabled automatically when multiple lines of text are selected
"auto_find_in_selection": true,

// Makes tabs with modified files more visible
"highlight_modified_tabs": true,

// I wonder if setting this to true would help with Hugo detecting files
// properly...
// Setting to true is *not* recommended though...
//   * https://github.com/SublimeTextIssues/Core/labels/C%3A%20Atomic%20Save
//   * https://forum.sublimetext.com/t/st3-problem-with-encoding/10556/2
//   * https://forum.sublimetext.com/t/why-is-atomic-save-useful/9291/12
// Save via writing to an alternate file, and then renaming it over the
// original file.
// "atomic_save": false,

// Theme support
"spacegray_sidebar_font_xlarge": true,
"theme": "Spacegray Eighties.sublime-theme",
"color_scheme": "Packages/Theme - Spacegray/base16-eighties.dark.tmTheme",

I also added some user defined key bindings:

// Show current file in the sidebar: via http://julianhigman.com/blog/2013/07/23/sublime-text-3-keyboard-shortcut-to-reveal-file-in-sidebar/
{ "keys": ["ctrl+shift+r"], "command": "reveal_in_side_bar"},

// Filter selection through external command
{ "keys": ["command+shift+\\"], "command": "filter_through_command" },

// Auto-format text selection
{ "keys": ["command+shift+t"], "command": "filter_through_command", "args": { "cmdline": "/Users/melo/.scripts.d/bin/x-text-autoformat" } },

// Perl Pretty Print
{ "keys": ["command+shift+h"], "command": "filter_through_command", "args": { "cmdline": "/Users/melo/.scripts.d/bin/x-perl-tidy-pipe" } },

// change single-quotes to double-quotes and vice-versa
{ "keys": ["command+shift+2"], "command": "change_quotes" }

Some require the External Command package, see below for Unix filters.

Markdown

I write a lot of Markdown. Install MarkdownEditing, it will help a lot.

I prefer a dark theme, so go to “Preferences > Settings - More > Syntax Specific - User” and add this setting:

        "color_scheme": "Packages/MarkdownEditing/MarkdownEditor-Dark.tmTheme"

I also like to have spell checking activated so on the same file add:

        "spell_check": true

An alternative to this package is Markdown Extended, but didn’t have the time to experiment, MarkdownEditing is good enough for me, and I found it first.

Unix filters

Support for calling an external command with the current selection or document is not something that ST includes out-of-the-box, strangely enough. Personally, I find this the most weird design decision of ST team, but I guess they prefer to push their Python-based plugin system. I rather prefer TextMate way of doing things here.

Not everything is lost though… The External Command package will give most of what is needed. The main issue that I have with it at this moment is that when the replacement text is inserted back into the page, the cursor location is lost.

Something like this, API: Set cursor position/view location?, but I don’t know enough of Python and ST plugin development to hack it in at the moment.

Other interesting packages

More tips and tricks