Chapter 1: Getting Started
Chapter 2: Using Atom
- Atom Packages
- Moving in Atom
- Atom Selections
- Editing and Deleting Text
- Find and Replace
- Snippets
- Autocomplete
- Folding
- Panes
- Pending Pane Items
- Grammar
- Version Control in Atom
- GitHub package
- Writing in Atom
- Basic Customization
- Summary
Chapter 3: Hacking Atom
- Tools of the Trade
- The Init File
- Package: Word Count
- Package: Modifying Text
- Package: Active Editor Info
- Creating a Theme
- Creating a Grammar
- Creating a Legacy TextMate Grammar
- Publishing
- Iconography
- Debugging
- Writing specs
- Handling URIs
- Cross-Platform Compatibility
- Converting from TextMate
- Hacking on Atom Core
- Contributing to Official Atom Packages
- Creating a Fork of a Core Package in atom/atom
- Maintaining a Fork of a Core Package in atom/atom
- Summary
Chapter 4: Behind Atom
- Configuration API
- Keymaps In-Depth
- Scoped Settings, Scopes and Scope Descriptors
- Serialization in Atom
- Developing Node Modules
- Interacting With Other Packages Via Services
- Maintaining Your Packages
- How Atom Uses Chromium Snapshots
- Summary
Reference: API
- AtomEnvironment
- BufferedNodeProcess
- BufferedProcess
- Clipboard
- Color
- CommandRegistry
- CompositeDisposable
- Config
- ContextMenuManager
- Cursor
- Decoration
- DeserializerManager
- Directory
- DisplayMarker
- DisplayMarkerLayer
- Disposable
- Dock
- Emitter
- File
- GitRepository
- Grammar
- GrammarRegistry
- Gutter
- HistoryManager
- KeymapManager
- LayerDecoration
- MarkerLayer
- MenuManager
- Notification
- NotificationManager
- Package
- PackageManager
- Pane
- Panel
- PathWatcher
- Point
- Project
- Range
- ScopeDescriptor
- Selection
- StyleManager
- Task
- TextBuffer
- TextEditor
- ThemeManager
- TooltipManager
- ViewRegistry
- Workspace
- WorkspaceCenter
Appendix A: Resources
Appendix B: FAQ
- Is Atom open source?
- What does Atom cost?
- What platforms does Atom run on?
- How can I contribute to Atom?
- Why does Atom collect usage data?
- Atom in the cloud?
- What's the difference between an IDE and an editor?
- How can I tell if subpixel antialiasing is working?
- Why is Atom deleting trailing whitespace? Why is there a newline at the end of the file?
- What does Safe Mode do?
- I have a question about a specific Atom community package. Where is the best place to ask it?
- I’m using an international keyboard and keys that use AltGr or Ctrl+Alt aren’t working
- I’m having a problem with Julia! What do I do?
- I’m getting an error about a “self-signed certificate”. What do I do?
- I’m having a problem with PlatformIO! What do I do?
- How do I make Atom recognize a file with extension X as language Y?
- How do I make the Welcome screen stop showing up?
- How do I preview web page changes automatically?
- How do I accept input from my program or script when using the script package?
- I am unable to update to the latest version of Atom on macOS. How do I fix this?
- I’m trying to change my syntax colors from styles.less, but it isn’t working!
- How do I build or execute code I've written in Atom?
- How do I uninstall Atom on macOS?
- macOS Mojave font rendering change
- Why does macOS say that Atom wants to access my calendar, contacts, photos, etc.?
- How do I turn on line wrap?
- The menu bar disappeared, how do I get it back?
- How do I use a newline in the result of find and replace?
- What is this line on the right in the editor view?
Appendix C: Shadow DOM
Appendix D: Upgrading to 1.0 APIs
Appendix E: Atom server-side APIs
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Grammar
The "grammar" of a file is what language Atom has associated with that file. Types of grammars would include "Java" or "GitHub-Flavored Markdown". We looked at this a bit when we created some snippets in Snippets.
When you load a file, Atom does a little work to try to figure out what type of file it is. Largely this is accomplished by looking at its file extension (.md is generally a Markdown file, etc), though sometimes it has to inspect the content a bit to figure it out.
When you open a file and Atom can't determine a grammar for the file, it will default to "Plain Text", which is the simplest one. If it does default to "Plain Text", picks the wrong grammar for the file, or if for any reason you wish to change the selected grammar, you can pull up the Grammar Selector with Ctrl+Shift+L.
When the grammar of a file is changed, Atom will remember that for the current session.
The Grammar Selector functionality is implemented in the grammar-selector package.