Kate (text editor)

The KDE Advanced Text Editor, or Kate, is a source code editor developed by the KDE free software community. It has been a part of KDE Software Compilation since version 2.2, which was first released in 2001. Intended for software developers, it features syntax highlighting, code folding, customizable layouts, multiple cursors and selections, regular expression support, and extensibility via plugins. The text editor's mascot is Kate the Cyber Woodpecker.

History

"Kate the Cyber Woodpecker" is the current mascot of Kate editor, designed by Tyson Tan in 2021<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and replacing the earlier version designed in 2014.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Kate has been part of the KDE Software Compilation since release 2.2 in 2001.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Because of KParts technology, it is possible to embed Kate as an editing component in other KDE applications. Major KDE applications which use Kate as an editing component include the integrated development environment KDevelop, the web development environment Quanta Plus, and the LaTeX front-end Kile.Template:Citation needed

Kate has won the advanced text editor comparison in Linux Voice magazine.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Template:As of, development had started to port Kate, along with Dolphin, Konsole, KDE Telepathy, and Yakuake, to KDE Frameworks 5.<ref> Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2022, the KDE text-editor KWrite was modified to use the same code base as Kate with deactivated features.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Features

Kate is a source code editor that features syntax highlighting for over 300 file formats with code folding rules.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The syntax highlighting is extensible via XML files.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It supports UTF-8, UTF-16, ISO-8859-1 and ASCII encoding schemes and can detect a file's character encoding automatically.Template:Citation needed Kate offers code completion and reference finding for various programming languages through its Language Server Protocol Client plugin. The default configuration supports C, C++, D, Fortran, Go, Latex, Python, Rust, and OCaml.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Kate's main text editor widget is called KatePart, which is reusable under the terms of the LGPL version 2 license.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It must not be confused with the KParts, a KDE plugin framework for user interface components that Kate also uses.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Kate can be used as a modal text editor through its vi input mode.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Kate features multiple document interface, window splitting, project editing<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and sessions to facilitate editing multiple documents. Using sessions, one can customize Kate for different projects by saving the list of open files, the list of enabled plug-ins and the window configuration.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Kate includes the KDE terminal emulator Konsole through its Terminal Tool View plugin.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Since version 23.04, the terminal is also available on windows.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The "quick open" feature allows searching opened files by name for quick recalling.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Line modification indicators highlight lines with unsaved changes and lines added in the current session.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Being a KDE application, Kate transparently opens and saves files over all protocols supported by KIO libraries. This includes HTTP, FTP, SSH, SMB and WebDAV, among others.Template:Citation needed

Template:As of, unlike Xed, Kate is equipped with a session manager which allows naming, saving, and restoring sessions, meaning a list of momentarily open file tabs. Saved sessions are stored as key-value-formatted *.katesession files into ~/.local/share/kate/sessions/.

Other features are a clipboard history with up to ten items, the ability to jump to a line number,<ref>"The editor holds a clipboard history that contains up to 10 clipboard entries."</ref> and source control integration using Git<ref name="Crume 2021">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• List of KDE applications
• List of text editors
• Comparison of text editors
• List of computing mascots
• Computing mascots

External links

• Template:Official website