# kate-custom

A suite of Kate plugins for people who despise menus. The aim is a text editor
that is driven by the mouse at the cursor and by plain-letter keyboard input —
never by hunting through nested menubars or memorizing complex chords.

## Design constraints

These are hard constraints that shape every decision:

- **Mouse-heavy.** The fastest input is the mouse, used *locally* at the caret
  (radial / floating surfaces), not a trek to the menubar.
- **One-handed typing.** Keyboard input must work comfortably with one hand.
- **No complex chords.** Single modifier at most (`Ctrl`+letter). No leader-key
  chord trees, no multi-cursor keybinds.
- **Compact keyboard.** F-keys and nav clusters live on a layer toggle, so they
  carry extra cognitive cost and are avoided as primary triggers.
- **Emacs/Sublime fluency.** `M-x` (`Alt+x`) is comfortable and welcome as a
  primary keyboard entry point, as is a Sublime-style type-to-filter palette.

### Unifying principle

> **One action registry. Three doors onto it:**
> **`M-x` (keyboard), a radial caret menu (mouse), and the `:` command line (optional).**
> **No action requires an F-key or a chord.**

## Why not just use Kate's command bar?

Kate's `KCommandBar` is a sealed widget: it accepts a list of actions via
`setActions()` and exposes **no hook** to customize its matcher. Its matcher,
`KFuzzyMatcher`, is single-needle, strictly in-order subsequence, with **no typo
tolerance** — by KDE's own documentation, `"gti"` will not match `"git"`. There
is no "orderless" (space-separated tokens in any order) and no company-style
live completion.

So the project replaces the palette rather than extending it, built on a custom
matcher (`FuzzyRanker`).

## Environment

- Kate 25.12.3, KDE Frameworks 6, Qt 6
- C++20, CMake, extra-cmake-modules
- C++ is the only first-class plugin path on this install (no Python/Pâté binding present)

## Build

```sh
cmake -B build -S .
cmake --build build
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=offscreen ./build/bin/test_fuzzyranker   # run the matcher tests
ctest --test-dir build                                   # or via ctest
```

## Install the plugin into Kate

The plugin builds to `build/bin/kf6/ktexteditor/olliepalette.so`. Drop it where
Kate scans for KTextEditor plugins (a user path on `QT_PLUGIN_PATH`):

```sh
install -D build/bin/kf6/ktexteditor/olliepalette.so \
  ~/.local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt6/plugins/kf6/ktexteditor/olliepalette.so
```

Then in Kate: Settings → Configure Kate → Plugins → enable
**Ollie Command Palette**. Press **Alt+X** (M-x) to open the command palette;
type to filter, Enter or click to run. Press **Alt+R** to open the editing
radial menu at the caret; move the mouse toward a slice and release (or click) —
a branch slice (marked ▸) opens a submenu, the centre hub goes back/cancels.

## Status

See [docs/PLAN.md](docs/PLAN.md) for the full roadmap.

- **Milestone 1 — FuzzyRanker (keystone): DONE.** Orderless, layered scoring
  (exact / substring / word-initials / subsequence / bounded typo), merged
  highlight ranges. 14 unit tests, all green.
- **Milestone 2 — custom palette widget: DONE.** `PaletteModel` +
  `PaletteWidget` (frameless popup, live filtering, highlighted matches,
  keyboard + mouse activation). 10 model unit tests, all green.
- Milestone 3 — KTextEditor plugin + M-x: **DONE.** Loadable `olliepalette.so`;
  `Alt+X` opens the palette over every action in the window's GUI clients.
- Milestone 4 — radial caret menu: **DONE (first increment).** Multi-level
  radial menu (`Alt+R` default) at the caret, mouse-driven selection, config
  tree with per-radial triggers. Key/action triggers now; mouse-button and
  gesture triggers next.
- Milestone 5 — command vocabulary + project-as-directory + switchers: next.

## Layout

```
CMakeLists.txt            top-level KF6/Qt6/ECM project
src/
  fuzzy/
    fuzzyranker.{h,cpp}   orderless + layered fuzzy matcher
    test_fuzzyranker.cpp  QTest suite
  palette/
    palettemodel.{h,cpp}  ranked, filterable list model (headless)
    palettewidget.{h,cpp} frameless command-palette popup
    test_palettemodel.cpp QTest suite
  radial/
    radialmodel.{h,cpp}   radial tree + hit-test geometry (headless)
    radialmenu.{h,cpp}    frameless multi-level radial widget
    radialconfig.{h,cpp}  JSON → radial tree + built-in default
    test_radialmodel.cpp  QTest suite
    test_radialconfig.cpp QTest suite
  plugin/
    ollieplugin.{h,cpp}   KTextEditor::Plugin + M-x + radial wiring
    ollieplugin.json      plugin metadata
docs/
  PLAN.md                 goal, constraints, roadmap
```