Keyboard macros

Editora records and replays keyboard macros, Emacs-style. Recording captures the faithful interleaved stream of invoked commands and literally typed text, and replay reproduces the exact sequence, so replayed typing runs through the same auto-close and auto-indent assists as live typing.

Record and replay

The other keymaps bind a smaller set by default: Ctrl+Shift+R starts or stops a recording in the CUA keymap, and Ctrl+Shift+Q replays the last macro in the Sublime Text keymap. Every macro command is in the Tools → Macros submenu and the command palette, and can be given a key in Settings → Keymaps.

While you record, the status bar shows ● REC; click it to stop. Esc (or C-g in the Emacs keymap) with the focus in the document cancels the recording and keeps the previous macro. A recording with nothing in it also leaves the previous macro in place.

What is recorded

• Commands you invoke, by key, menu or palette.
• Text you type, including typing at several carets and text from an input method.
• Keys that act rather than type: Enter, Tab, Shift+Tab, Backspace, the arrows, Escape. They replay through the same path as the key, so a replayed Tab expands a snippet or indents exactly as it does live.
• Prompts. Text and keys typed into the find bar, an overlay prompt, or a picker are recorded and replayed into that prompt. Recording C-s, foo, Enter, Esc replays as a search for foo. Esc inside a prompt closes the prompt and is recorded; it does not cancel the recording.
• A numeric prefix: C-u 5 followed by a key is recorded as typed.

Mouse clicks are not recorded, so move the caret with the keyboard. A command that opens a blocking dialog cannot be scripted: what you do in the dialog is not recorded, and a replay waits at that step for you. Both cases show a hint in the status bar while you record.

Replaying

One replay is one undo step, and so is a replay with a count: a single Undo takes back everything it did. Give a count with Macro: Replay Last N Times or with a prefix argument (C-u 50 C-x e); the count is capped at 10,000.

A long replay runs in slices so the window stays responsive. The status bar shows the progress (Replaying macro… 120 of 500), and Esc stops it. When steps could not run, the status bar says why: typing is skipped in a read-only buffer, and a step whose command does not exist is skipped and named.

Saving and reusing

Saved macros persist across sessions (in macros.json in your config folder). Each saved macro becomes its own palette command, listed as Macro: ‹name›, so you can bind it to a shortcut in Settings → Keymaps like any other command. Saving under a name that is already taken asks before replacing it, and deleting a saved macro asks first and removes its key binding.

Settings → Macros lists your saved macros, where you can rename one, edit its steps, delete it, or assign its keybinding. Steps are edited by kind: a command step with a command picker, a text step as multi-line text, and a key step by pressing the key. A step can be marked as typed into a prompt rather than the document.

A macro can run another saved macro as one of its steps. A macro that would run itself, directly or through another, stops with a message.

macros.json is a versioned file (version 2). Each macro is stored with an id that its key binding refers to, so renaming a macro keeps its shortcut. A file written by an earlier Editora is migrated when it is first read, and existing key bindings are kept.

Notes

The recording hooks are inert when you’re not recording, so there’s no idle cost. Macros and their key bindings are not part of settings sync.