# 7.4. Edit Windows Settings

The editor inside KDevelop can be configured towards special editing needs with a global effect on all editing windows. Thereby you can set the color modes, highlighting colors (also configurable in reference to the programming language of the file) and automatic text settings like tab-with and selection modes. The following describes how to set these options by the configuration dialogs provided in the "Options"-menu.

## 7.4.1. General Settings

The editor 's general settings can be configured with the "Editor" entry in the "Options"-menu. Select the according values and press OK after you finished with your configuration.

### 7.4.1.1. Edit Options

Auto Indent:

  this sets the editor to place the cursor below the first literal when a new line is entered.

Backspace Indent:

  this option sets the cursor below the first literal of the line above when backspace is pressed.

Word Wrap:

  words are taken into the next line after the column set in "Wrap Words At:"

Replace Tabs:

  tabulators in the current text are replaced with tabulators of the "Tab Width:" value

Remove Trailing Spaces:

  removes trailing spaces

Wrap Cursor:

  sets the cursor to the end of the last line when backspace enters the beginning of a line

Auto Brackets:

  creates a closing bracket in front of the cursor when a bracket (any kind) is opened.

### 7.4.1.2. Select Options

Persistent Selections:

  selections made stay marked after setting the cursor to a different place

Multiple Selections:

  allows multiple independent selections within the text

Vertical Selections:

  allows vertical selections of text

Delete On Input:

  deletes a selection when writing in the selection.

Toggle Old:

  allows only one selection. A selection made gets deselected when another selection is made.

Wrap Words At:

  sets the maximum columns that a line can have. The word that contains a letter that reaches over this value will be automatically broken into the next line.

## 7.4.2. Colors

For changing the editor 's general appearance, you can define a set of colors that the editor uses by selecting "Editor Colors" from the "Options"-menu. You can configure colors for:

- background: the editor's background

- text background: the background of displayed text

- selected: the color of selected text

- found: the color of text found by a search via the menu "Edit"-"Search", "Repeat search" and "Replace".

- selected + found: the color of text selected to search for and found

## 7.4.3. Syntax Highlighting

The syntax-highlighting mode of KDevelop's editor can be configured by two dialogs; first you can set default colors for syntax-highlighting by the "Editor Defaults" entry in the "Options"-menu. There, you can set colors and fonts as well as the fontsize for e.g. keywords. Select the default item and set all needed options.

The second configuration dialog is accessed by the "Syntax-Highlighting" entry in the "Options"-menu. This allows you to set the file filters for the programming language, e.g. *.cpp, *.h for C++. Then select the item that you want to configure. If you wish to use the default values you've set in the "Editor Defaults" dialog, select the "default" checkboxes in the Item-style and Item-Font sections. This reads the default settings for the selected item. After pressing OK, your new values will be enabled and used by the editor .