configuration.md

ReText stores all of its configuration in a text file. A path to that file is printed to stdout during ReText startup.

Possible configuration options

Configuration options that you can set to improve your experience:

option name	type	description
appStyleSheet	file path	file containing a Qt stylesheet file
autoSave	boolean	whether to automatically save documents (default: false)
defaultCodec	string	name of encoding to use by default (default: use system encoding)
defaultMarkup	string	name of markup to use for unknown files
defaultPreviewState	string	mode for new tabs: editor, normal-preview or live-preview (default: editor)
detectEncoding	boolean	whether to automatically detect files encoding; needs chardet package (default: true)
directoryPath	string	the path to the root directory to display in the side panel if showDirectoryTree is true (default: ~)
documentStatsEnabled	boolean	whether to show document stats (word count, character count) (default: false)
editorFont	string	font to use for editor (comma-separated string as returned by QFont.toString())
font	string	font to use for previews (comma-separated string as returned by QFont.toString())
handleWebLinks	boolean	whether to use ReText preview area to open external links (default: false)
hideToolBar	boolean	whether to hide the toolbars from the UI (default: false)
highlightCurrentLine	string	current line highlight mode: disabled, cursor-line or wrapped-line (default: disabled)
iconTheme	string	name of the system icon theme to use (see below)
lineNumbersEnabled	boolean	whether to show column with line numbers in editor (default: false)
markdownDefaultFileExtension	string	default file extension for Markdown files (default: .mkd)
openFilesInExistingWindow	boolean	whether to open new files in the existing window (default: true)
openLastFilesOnStartup	boolean	whether to automatically open last documents on startup (default: false)
orderedListMode	string	editor behavior for lists continuation: increment or repeat (default: increment)
paperSize	string	name of default page size to use for print and export (e.g. A4, Letter)
pygmentsStyle	string	name of Pygments syntax highlighting style to use (default: default)
recentDocumentsCount	integer	number of recent files to show in the menu (default: 10)
relativeLineNumbers	boolean	whether to show line numbers as relative from the current line (default: false)
restDefaultFileExtension	string	default file extension for reStructuredText files (default: .rst)
rightMargin	integer	enable drawing of vertical line on defined position (or 0 to disable)
rightMarginWrap	boolean	enable soft wrap at specified margin line (default: false)
saveWindowGeometry	boolean	whether to restore window geometry from previous session (default: false)
showDirectoryTree	boolean	whether to show a directory tree on the left side of the window (default: false)
spellCheck	boolean	whether to enable spell checking
spellCheckLocale	string	spell check locale to use, possibly comma-separated (examples: pt_BR, ru,en_US)
styleSheet	file path	CSS file to use in preview area
syncScroll	boolean	whether to enable synchronized scrolling for Markdown (default: true)
tabBarAutoHide	boolean	whether to hide the tabs bar when only one tab is open (default: false)
tabInsertsSpaces	boolean	whether Tab key should insert spaces instead of tabs (default: true)
tabWidth	integer	the width of tab character (default: 4)
uiLanguage	string	short name of locale to use for interface (examples: en_US, ru, pt_BR)
useFakeVim	boolean	whether to use the FakeVim editor, if available (default: false)
useWebEngine	boolean	whether to use the WebEngine (Chromium) as HTML previewer (default: false)
wideCursor	boolean	make cursor as wide as characters (default: false)
windowTitleFullPath	boolean	whether the window title should show the full path of file (default: false)

If the type is 'file path', then the value should be an absolute path to a file.

There is also a separate file called cache.conf which contains options that are set internally by ReText and should never be set manually:

• lastFileList
• lastTabIndex
• recentFileList
• splitterState
• windowGeometry

Icon themes

If ReText starts and does not show icons, go to Preferences dialog and fill the "icon theme" field with the icon theme being used.

By default Qt (the toolkit used by ReText) can correctly detect icon theme only on KDE and on a fixed list of GTK-based environments (when the gtk platformtheme is used).

If you don't know name of your icon theme, look at the names of subdirectories in /usr/share/icons/ directory.

Color scheme setting

It is possible to configure ReText highlighter to use custom colors set, by providing these colors in a separate section in the configuration file.

The example of such section is:

[ColorScheme]
htmlTags=green
htmlSymbols=#ff8800
htmlComments=#abc

Color names for the text editor:

color name	main setting	description
marginLine	rightMargin	the vertical right margin line
currentLineHighlight	highlightCurrentLine	highlighting of the text line being edited
infoArea		the info box in the bottom-right corner
statsArea	documentStatsEnabled	the stats box in the bottom-right corner
lineNumberArea	lineNumbersEnabled	the line numbers area background
lineNumberAreaText	lineNumbersEnabled	the line numbers area foreground

Color names for the highlighter:

color name	description
htmlTags	HTML tags, e.g. <foo>
htmlStrings	string properties inside HTML tags, e.g. "baz" inside <foo bar="baz">
htmlSymbols	HTML symbols, e.g. &bar;
htmlComments	HTML comments, e.g. <!-- comment -->
markdownLinks	Markdown links and images text, e.g. foo inside [foo](http://example.com)
blockquotes	blockquotes, e.g. > quote in Markdown
codeSpans	code spans, e.g. `code` in Markdown
restDirectives	reStructuredText directives, e.g. .. math::
restRoles	reStructuredText roles, e.g. :math:
whitespaceOnEnd	whitespace at line endings