nano: Settings
7.1 Settings
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The supported settings in a nanorc file are:
‘set allow_insecure_backup’
When backing up files, allow the backup to succeed even if its
permissions can’t be (re)set due to special OS considerations. You
should NOT enable this option unless you are sure you need it.
‘set atblanks’
When soft line wrapping is enabled, make it wrap lines at blank
characters (tabs and spaces) instead of always at the edge of the
screen.
‘set autoindent’
Use auto-indentation.
‘set backup’
When saving a file, back up the previous version of it, using the
current filename suffixed with a tilde (‘~’).
‘set backupdir "DIRECTORY"’
Make and keep not just one backup file, but make and keep a
uniquely numbered one every time a file is saved — when backups are
enabled with ‘set backup’ or ‘--backup’ or ‘-B’. The uniquely
numbered files are stored in the specified directory.
‘set backwards’
Obsolete option. Recognized but ignored. ‘^Q’ is available to
start a backward search.
‘set boldtext’
Use bold instead of reverse video for the title bar, status bar,
key combos, function tags, line numbers, and selected text. This
can be overridden by setting the options ‘titlecolor’,
‘statuscolor’, ‘keycolor’, ‘functioncolor’, ‘numbercolor’, and
‘selectedcolor’.
‘set brackets "STRING"’
Set the characters treated as closing brackets when justifying
paragraphs. This may not include blank characters. Only closing
punctuation (see ‘set punct’), optionally followed by the specified
closing brackets, can end sentences. The default value is "')>]}".
‘set casesensitive’
Do case-sensitive searches by default.
‘set constantshow’
Constantly display the cursor position on the status bar. Note
that this overrides ‘quickblank’.
‘set cutfromcursor’
Use cut-from-cursor-to-end-of-line by default, instead of cutting
the whole line. (The old form of this option, ‘set cut’, is
deprecated.)
‘set errorcolor FGCOLOR,BGCOLOR’
Use this color combination for the status bar when an error message
is displayed. 
set functioncolor for valid color names.
‘set fill NUMBER’
Hard-wrap lines at column number NUMBER. If NUMBER is 0 or less,
the maximum line length will be the screen width less NUMBER
columns. The default value is -8. This option conflicts with
‘nowrap’; the last one given takes effect.
‘set functioncolor FGCOLOR,BGCOLOR’
Use this color combination for the concise function descriptions in
the two help lines at the bottom of the screen. Valid names for
foreground and background color are: ‘white’, ‘black’, ‘blue’,
‘green’, ‘red’, ‘cyan’, ‘yellow’, ‘magenta’, and ‘normal’ — where
‘normal’ means the default foreground or background color. The
name of the foreground color may be prefixed with ‘bright’. And
either FGCOLOR or ,BGCOLOR may be left out.
‘set historylog’
Save the last hundred search strings and replacement strings and
executed commands, so they can be easily reused in later sessions.
‘set keycolor FGCOLOR,BGCOLOR’
Use this color combination for the shortcut key combos in the two
help lines at the bottom of the screen. set functioncolor
for valid color names.
‘set linenumbers’
Display line numbers to the left of the text area.
‘set locking’
Enable vim-style lock-files for when editing files.
‘set matchbrackets "STRING"’
Set the opening and closing brackets that can be found by bracket
searches. This may not include blank characters. The opening set
must come before the closing set, and the two sets must be in the
same order. The default value is "(<[{)>]}".
‘set morespace’
Use the blank line below the title bar as extra editing space.
‘set mouse’
Enable mouse support, so that mouse clicks can be used to place the
cursor, set the mark (with a double click), or execute shortcuts.
‘set multibuffer’
When reading in a file with ‘^R’, insert it into a new buffer by
default.
‘set noconvert’
Don’t convert files from DOS/Mac format.
‘set nohelp’
Don’t display the help lists at the bottom of the screen.
‘set nopauses’
Don’t pause between warnings at startup. This means that only the
last one will be visible (when there are multiple ones).
‘set nonewlines’
Don’t add newlines to the ends of files.
‘set nowrap’
Don’t hard-wrap text at all. This option conflicts with ‘fill’;
the last one given takes effect.
‘set numbercolor FGCOLOR,BGCOLOR’
Use this color combination for line numbers. set
functioncolor for valid color names.
‘set operatingdir "DIRECTORY"’
‘nano’ will only read and write files inside "directory" and its
subdirectories. Also, the current directory is changed to here, so
files are inserted from this directory. By default, the operating
directory feature is turned off.
‘set positionlog’
Save the cursor position of files between editing sessions. The
cursor position is remembered for the 200 most-recently edited
files.
‘set preserve’
Preserve the XON and XOFF keys (‘^Q’ and ‘^S’).
‘set punct "STRING"’
Set the characters treated as closing punctuation when justifying
paragraphs. This may not include blank characters. Only the
specified closing punctuation, optionally followed by closing
brackets (see ‘set brackets’), can end sentences. The default
value is "!.?".
‘set quickblank’
Do quick status-bar blanking: status-bar messages will disappear
after 1 keystroke instead of 25. Note that ‘constantshow’
overrides this.
‘set quiet’
Obsolete option. Recognized but ignored.
‘set quotestr "STRING"’
The email-quote string, used to justify email-quoted paragraphs.
This is an extended regular expression if your system supports
them, otherwise a literal string. The default value is "^([
\\t]*[#:>\\|}])+" if you have extended regular expression support,
and "> " otherwise. Note that ‘\t’ stands for a literal Tab
character.
‘set rebinddelete’
Interpret the Delete key differently so that both Backspace and
Delete work properly. You should only need to use this option if
Backspace acts like Delete on your system.
‘set rebindkeypad’
Interpret the numeric keypad keys so that they all work properly.
You should only need to use this option if they don’t, as mouse
support won’t work properly with this option enabled.
‘set regexp’
Do extended regular expression searches by default.
‘set selectedcolor FGCOLOR,BGCOLOR’
Use this color combination for selected text. set
functioncolor for valid color names.
‘set showcursor’
Put the cursor on the highlighted item in the file browser, to aid
braille users.
‘set smarthome’
Make the Home key smarter. When Home is pressed anywhere but at
the very beginning of non-whitespace characters on a line, the
cursor will jump to that beginning (either forwards or backwards).
If the cursor is already at that position, it will jump to the true
beginning of the line.
‘set smooth’
Use smooth scrolling by default.
‘set softwrap’
Enable soft line wrapping for easier viewing of very long lines.
‘set speller "PROGRAM"’
Use the given program to do spell checking and correcting.
--speller for details.
‘set statuscolor FGCOLOR,BGCOLOR’
Use this color combination for the status bar. set
functioncolor for valid color names.
‘set suspend’
Allow ‘nano’ to be suspended.
‘set tabsize NUMBER’
Use a tab size of NUMBER columns. The value of NUMBER must be
greater than 0. The default value is 8.
‘set tabstospaces’
Convert typed tabs to spaces.
‘set tempfile’
Save automatically on exit, don’t prompt.
‘set titlecolor FGCOLOR,BGCOLOR’
Use this color combination for the title bar. set
functioncolor for valid color names.
‘set trimblanks’
Remove trailing whitespace from wrapped lines when automatic
hard-wrapping occurs or when text is justified.
‘set unix’
Save a file by default in Unix format. This overrides nano’s
default behavior of saving a file in the format that it had. (This
option has no effect when you also use ‘set noconvert’.)
‘set view’
Disallow file modification.
‘set whitespace "STRING"’
Set the two characters used to indicate the presence of tabs and
spaces. They must be single-column characters. The default pair
for a UTF-8 locale is "»·", and for other locales ">.".
‘set wordbounds’
Detect word boundaries differently by treating punctuation
characters as part of a word.
‘set wordchars "STRING"’
Specify which other characters (besides the normal alphanumeric
ones) should be considered as parts of words. This overrides the
option ‘wordbounds’.
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