moe - Man Page
My Own (text) Editor
Examples (TL;DR)
- Open moe and create a backup file (file~) when saving edits:
moe path/to/file - Open a file as read-only:
moe [-o|--read-only] path/to/file - Edit a file without creating backups:
moe [-B|--no-backup] path/to/file - Edit a file ignoring case in searches:
moe [-i|--ignore-case] path/to/file - Save and Quit:
<Ctrl x>
Synopsis
moe [global_options] [[+[line[,col]]] file_name [file_options]]...
Description
GNU moe is a console text editor for ISO-8859 and ASCII character encodings. It has a modeless, user-friendly interface, online help, multiple windows, global search/replace (on all buffers at once), block operations, automatic indentation, word wrapping, file name completion, directory browser, duplicate removal from prompt histories, delimiter matching, text conversion from/to UTF-8, romanization, etc. The file size, line length, number of buffers, and undo/redo capability are only limited by the amount of memory available and the size of the address space of your machine.
Moe respects your work. By default it won't automatically add, change, or remove a single byte in your files. Moe is a WYTIWYG (what you type is what you get) editor.
Moe can easily edit thousands of files at the same time.
'global_options' are a mix of editor options and default 'file_options'. Most long option names have a negative form: '--backup' '--no-backup'.
Each file name may be preceded by '+[line[,column]]' to start the cursor at the line, and optionally column, specified. 'line' and 'column' are applied to subsequent files until new values are specified for them. A '+' alone puts the cursor at end-of-buffer.
A hyphen '-' used as a file name argument means standard input. Directories are recursively descended into.
Editor options
- -h, --help
display this help and exit
- -V, --version
output version information and exit
- -b, --backup
create backup files (default)
- -B, --no-backup
don't create backup files
- -e, --exit-ask
make save-and-close ask always for confirmation
- -H, --smart-home
go home, then go to first non-blank character
- -i, --ignore-case
make search case insensitive by default
- -k, --keep-lines=<n>
number of lines to keep for PgUp/PgDn
- -m, --max-windows=<n>
max number of windows to show at once
- -n, --indent-step=<n>
number of spaces to add when indenting a block
- -s, --search-wrap
make search wrap at end of file
- -u, --auto-unmark
turn off highlighting after any block operation
- -x, --rectangle
rectangular block mode
File options
- -a, --auto-indent
enable auto indent
- -l, --lmargin=<col>
set left margin
- -r, --rmargin=<col>
set right margin
- -o, --read-only
make buffer read-only
- -O, --overwrite
disable insert mode
- -w, --word-wrap
enable word wrapping
- -W, --no-word-wrap
disable word wrapping
- -2, --two-spaces
make reformat put two spaces after period
Exit status: 0 for a normal exit, 1 for environmental problems (invalid command-line options, I/O errors, etc), 2 to indicate an invalid or unreadable input file, 3 for an internal consistency error (e.g., bug) which caused moe to panic.
Reporting Bugs
Report bugs to bug-moe@gnu.org
Moe home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/moe/moe.html
General help using GNU software: http://www.gnu.org/gethelp
Copyright
Copyright © 2025 Antonio Diaz Diaz. License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version 2 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
See Also
The full documentation for moe is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and moe programs are properly installed at your site, the command
info moe
should give you access to the complete manual.