Changing Your Keybindings

Maybe you're moving to micro from another text editor – one that uses a different set of keystrokes to access commands. You can change micro's keybindings by editing a file named bindings.json in the folder config/micro/ in your /home directory.

As with micro's configuration options, you use a set of attribute/value pairs to change the editor's keybindings. In this case, the attribute is the keystroke combination that you want to change, and the value is the name of the command for that keystroke.

Let's say you're used to pressing Ctrl+Y to paste text (remember that out of the box, micro does that when you press Ctrl+V). To change the command, add this to the file bindings.json:

"Ctrl-y": "Paste"

Final Thoughts

Editing text at the Linux command line doesn't need to be intimidating. It doesn't need to involve using arcane keystroke combinations to access the editor's commands. Micro brings the ease of using a desktop text editor to the command line.

Micro not only packs a solid set of features, it wraps those features in a small package. It's one of the fastest and easiest-to-use command-line text editors that I've used over the years.

Micro lives up to its billing as an intuitive terminal-based text editor. It's definitely worth having around for those times when you need to edit text files at the command line.