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Introduction

The way that Hike works can be configured using a configuration file. This section will describe what can be configured and how.

Note

At the moment some configuration can be done via Hike's UI; other things require that you edit the configuration file using your preferred text editor. Eventually I aim to make everything that can be configured configurable within Hike itself.

The location of the configuration file will depend on how your system is configured; but by default it is looked for in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME, in a hike subdirectory. Mostly this will translate to the file being called ~/.config/hike/configuration.json.

Command line location

By default Hike's command line appears at the bottom of the screen, above the footer of the application. It can be moved to the top of the screen, below the application header, with the Change Command Line Location command (ChangeCommandLineLocation, bound to Ctrl+Up by default).

Command line on top Hike v0.10.0 > Enter a directory, file, path or command ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ │/Users/davep/develop/python/hike/README.md │━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ │Installing │ │pipx │ │The application can be installed using pipx: │▅ │ │pipxinstallhike │ │ │Homebrew │ │The package is available via Homebrew. Use the following commands to install: │ │ │brewtapdavep/homebrew │brewinstallhike▅ │ │ │Other installation methods │ │The following installation methods have been provided by third parties; please note that I can't vouch for them │myself so use them at your own risk. │ │X-CMD │ │The application can be installed using x-cmd: │ │ │xinstallhike │ │ │ │Using Hike  f1 Help  f2 Nav  f5 Edit  f10 Quit  ^[ Backward  ^] Forward ▏^p Commands

Keyboard bindings

Hike allows for a degree of configuration of its keyboard bindings; providing a method for setting up replacement bindings for the commands that appear in the command palette.

Bindable commands

The following commands can have their keyboard bindings set:

  • Backward - Move backward through history
    • Default: ctrl+left_square_bracket
  • BookmarkLocation - Bookmark the current location
    • Default: ctrl+b
  • ChangeCommandLineLocation - Swap the position of the command line between top and bottom
    • Default: ctrl+up, ctrl+down
  • ChangeNavigationSide - Change which side the navigation panel lives on
    • Default: shift+f2
  • ChangeTheme - Change the application's theme
    • Default: f9
  • CopyLocationToClipboard - Copy the location to the clipboard
    • Default: f4
  • CopyMarkdownToClipboard - Copy the Markdown source to the clipboard
    • Default: shift+f4
  • Edit - Edit the current markdown document
    • Default: f5
  • Forward - Move forward through history
    • Default: ctrl+right_square_bracket
  • Help - Show help for and information about the application
    • Default: f1, ?
  • JumpToBookmarks - Jump to the bookmarks in the navigation panel
    • Default: ctrl+o
  • JumpToCommandLine - Jump to the command line
    • Default: /
  • JumpToDocument - Jump to the markdown document
    • Default: ctrl+slash, ctrl+g
  • JumpToHistory - Jump to the history in the navigation panel
    • Default: ctrl+y
  • JumpToLocalBrowser - Jump to the local filesystem browser in the navigation panel
    • Default: ctrl+l
  • JumpToTableOfContents - Jump to the table of contents in the navigation panel
    • Default: ctrl+t
  • Quit - Quit the application
    • Default: f10, ctrl+q
  • Reload - Reload the current document
    • Default: ctrl+r
  • SaveCopy - Save a copy of the current document
    • Default: ctrl+s
  • SearchBookmarks - Search the bookmarks
    • Default: f3
  • ToggleNavigation - Show/hide the navigation panel
    • Default: f2

Changing a binding

If you wish to change the binding for a command, edit the configuration file and add the binding to the bindings value. For example, if you wanted to change the binding used to create a bookmark, changing it from ctrl+b to F6, and you also wanted to use Shift+F6 to jump to the bookmarks, you would set bindings to this:

"bindings": {
    "BookmarkLocation": "f6",
    "JumpToBookmarks": "shift+f6"
}

The designations used for keys is based on the internal system used by Textual; as such its caveats about what works where apply. The main modifier keys to know are shift, ctrl, alt, meta, super and hyper; letter keys are their own letters; shifted letter keys are their upper-case versions; function keys are simply f1, f2, etc; symbol keys (the likes of #, @, *, etc...) generally use a name (number_sign, at, asterisk).

Tip

If you want to test and discover all of the key names and combiantions that will work you may want to install textual-dev and use the textual keys command.

If you need help with keyboard bindings please feel free to ask.

Local file system start location

By default Hike's local file system browser (the tree that appears in the navigation panel) will always start out browsing the user's home directory. If you prefer that it starts viewing somewhere else, you can change this value in the configuration file.

"local_start_location": "~",

For example, if you wanted it to always start with the current directory, you could change it to this:

"local_start_location": ".",

Main forge branches

When Hike looks for the README file of a repository in a git forge, by default it first looks in the branch main and then as a backup in master. If you wish to change this you can edit the list in the configuration file.

For example, if you wanted to add staging and production to the list of branches checked, you could change this:

"main_branches": [
    "main",
    "master"
],

to be this:

"main_branches": [
    "main",
    "master",
    "staging",
    "production"
],

Markdown content types

When deciding what remote content is likely a Markdown document Hike considers the following content types as good candidates:

  • text/plain
  • text/markdown
  • text/x-markdown

If you wish to change this list you can edit this option in the configuration file and add to the list:

"markdown_content_types": [
    "text/plain",
    "text/markdown",
    "text/x-markdown"
],

Markdown file extensions

By default Hike considers files with either a .md or a .markdown extension to be Markdown files. If you wish to change that you can edit this option in the configuration file.

For example, if you also wanted to recognise files with the .mkdn extension as Markdown files, you could change this:

"markdown_extensions": [
    ".md",
    ".markdown"
],

to be this:

"markdown_extensions": [
    ".md",
    ".markdown",
    ".mkdn"
],

Visibility

You can show or hide the navigation panel. This can be done in Hike with the Toggle Navigation (ToggleNavigation) command (bound to F2 by default).

Tip

You can force nagivation visible or hidden via the command line. Note that this also configures the visability of the navigation panel for future runs of Hike.

Here is Hike with the navigation panel visible:

Visible navigation panel Hike v0.10.0 │ContentLocalBookmarksHistory│/Users/davep/develop/python/hike/README.md │╸━━━━━━━╺━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━│━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ││ │▼ Ⅰ Hike│ │├── Ⅱ Introduction│Installing │├── ▼ Ⅱ Installing│ ││   ├── Ⅲ pipx│pipx ││   ├── Ⅲ Homebrew│▇ ││   └── ▼ Ⅲ Other installation metho│The application can be installed using pipx: ││   └── Ⅳ X-CMD│ │├── Ⅱ Using Hike│ │├── ▼ Ⅱ Features│pipxinstallhike ││   └── Ⅲ Editing│ │├── Ⅱ File locations│ │├── Ⅱ Getting help│Homebrew │└── Ⅱ TODO│ ││The package is available via Homebrew. Use the following commands to ││install:▁ ││ ││ ││brewtapdavep/homebrew ││brewinstallhike ││ ││ ││Other installation methods ││ ││The following installation methods have been provided by third parties; ││please note that I can't vouch for them myself so use them at your own risk. ││ ││X-CMD ││ ││The application can be installed using x-cmd: ││ ││ ││xinstallhike ││ ││ > Enter a directory, file, path or command  f1 Help  f2 Nav  f5 Edit  f10 Quit  ^[ Backward  ^] Forward ▏^p Commands

and with it hidden:

Hidden navigation panel Hike v0.10.0 │/Users/davep/develop/python/hike/README.md │━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ │Installing │ │pipx │ │The application can be installed using pipx: │▄ │ │pipxinstallhike │ │ │Homebrew │ │The package is available via Homebrew. Use the following commands to install: │ │ │brewtapdavep/homebrew │brewinstallhike │▇ │ │Other installation methods │ │The following installation methods have been provided by third parties; please note that I can't vouch for them │myself so use them at your own risk. │ │X-CMD │ │The application can be installed using x-cmd: │ │ │xinstallhike │ │ │ │Using Hike │ > Enter a directory, file, path or command  f1 Help  f2 Nav  f5 Edit  f10 Quit  ^[ Backward  ^] Forward ▏^p Commands

Location

When visible, the navigation panel can be located on the left or the right of the screen; this is toggled using the Change Navigation Side command (ChangeNavigationSide) which is found to Shift+F2 by default.

Here is Hike with the navigation panel visible on the right:

Navigation panel on the right Hike v0.10.0 │/Users/davep/develop/python/hike/README.md│ContentLocalBookmarksHistory │━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━│╸━━━━━━━╺━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ││ ││▼ Ⅰ Hike │Installing│├── Ⅱ Introduction ││├── ▼ Ⅱ Installing │pipx││   ├── Ⅲ pipx │▇││   ├── Ⅲ Homebrew │The application can be installed using pipx:││   └── ▼ Ⅲ Other installation metho │││   └── Ⅳ X-CMD ││├── Ⅱ Using Hike │pipxinstallhike│├── ▼ Ⅱ Features │││   └── Ⅲ Editing ││├── Ⅱ File locations │Homebrew│├── Ⅱ Getting help ││└── Ⅱ TODO │The package is available via Homebrew. Use the following commands to│ │install:▁│ ││ ││ │brewtapdavep/homebrew│ │brewinstallhike│ ││ ││ │Other installation methods│ ││ │The following installation methods have been provided by third parties;│ │please note that I can't vouch for them myself so use them at your own risk.│ ││ │X-CMD│ ││ │The application can be installed using x-cmd:│ ││ ││ │xinstallhike│ ││ ││ > Enter a directory, file, path or command  f1 Help  f2 Nav  f5 Edit  f10 Quit  ^[ Backward  ^] Forward ▏^p Commands

Obsidian vaults location

The command for quickly browsing Obsidian vaults in the local filesystem will, by default, look in ~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents.

Note

I use Obsidian in the Apple ecosystem and use iCloud to sync my vaults; hence this default.

If you wish to change this to a default that makes sense for you, edit this setting in the configuration file:

"obsidian_vaults": "~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents",

Theme

Hike has a number of themes available. You can select a theme using the Change Theme (ChangeTheme) command (bound to F9 by default). The available themes include:

  • catppuccin-latte
  • catppuccin-mocha
  • dracula
  • flexoki
  • gruvbox
  • monokai
  • nord
  • solarized-light
  • textual-dark
  • textual-light
  • tokyo-night

Tip

You can also set the theme via the command line. This can be useful if you want to ensure that Hike runs up with a specific theme. Note that this also configures the theme for future runs of Hike.

Here's a sample of some of the themes:

textual-light Hike v0.10.0 │ContentLocalBookmarksHistory│/Users/davep/develop/python/hike/README.md │╸━━━━━━━╺━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━│━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ││ │▼ Ⅰ Hike│ │├── Ⅱ Introduction│Installing │├── ▼ Ⅱ Installing│ ││   ├── Ⅲ pipx│pipx ││   ├── Ⅲ Homebrew│▇ ││   └── ▼ Ⅲ Other installation metho│The application can be installed using pipx: ││   └── Ⅳ X-CMD│ │├── Ⅱ Using Hike│ │├── ▼ Ⅱ Features│pipxinstallhike ││   └── Ⅲ Editing│ │├── Ⅱ File locations│ │├── Ⅱ Getting help│Homebrew │└── Ⅱ TODO│ ││The package is available via Homebrew. Use the following commands to ││install:▁ ││ ││ ││brewtapdavep/homebrew ││brewinstallhike ││ ││ ││Other installation methods ││ ││The following installation methods have been provided by third parties; ││please note that I can't vouch for them myself so use them at your own risk. ││ ││X-CMD ││ ││The application can be installed using x-cmd: ││ ││ ││xinstallhike ││ ││ > Enter a directory, file, path or command  f1 Help  f2 Nav  f5 Edit  f10 Quit  ^[ Backward  ^] Forward ▏^p Commands

nord Hike v0.10.0 │ContentLocalBookmarksHistory│/Users/davep/develop/python/hike/README.md │╸━━━━━━━╺━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━│━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ││ │▼ Ⅰ Hike│ │├── Ⅱ Introduction│Installing │├── ▼ Ⅱ Installing│ ││   ├── Ⅲ pipx│pipx ││   ├── Ⅲ Homebrew│▇ ││   └── ▼ Ⅲ Other installation metho│The application can be installed using pipx: ││   └── Ⅳ X-CMD│ │├── Ⅱ Using Hike│ │├── ▼ Ⅱ Features│pipxinstallhike ││   └── Ⅲ Editing│ │├── Ⅱ File locations│ │├── Ⅱ Getting help│Homebrew │└── Ⅱ TODO│ ││The package is available via Homebrew. Use the following commands to ││install:▁ ││ ││ ││brewtapdavep/homebrew ││brewinstallhike ││ ││ ││Other installation methods ││ ││The following installation methods have been provided by third parties; ││please note that I can't vouch for them myself so use them at your own risk. ││ ││X-CMD ││ ││The application can be installed using x-cmd: ││ ││ ││xinstallhike ││ ││ > Enter a directory, file, path or command  f1 Help  f2 Nav  f5 Edit  f10 Quit  ^[ Backward  ^] Forward ▏^p Commands

catppuccin-latte Hike v0.10.0 │ContentLocalBookmarksHistory│/Users/davep/develop/python/hike/README.md │╸━━━━━━━╺━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━│━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ││ │▼ Ⅰ Hike│ │├── Ⅱ Introduction│Installing │├── ▼ Ⅱ Installing│ ││   ├── Ⅲ pipx│pipx ││   ├── Ⅲ Homebrew│▇ ││   └── ▼ Ⅲ Other installation metho│The application can be installed using pipx: ││   └── Ⅳ X-CMD│ │├── Ⅱ Using Hike│ │├── ▼ Ⅱ Features│pipxinstallhike ││   └── Ⅲ Editing│ │├── Ⅱ File locations│ │├── Ⅱ Getting help│Homebrew │└── Ⅱ TODO│ ││The package is available via Homebrew. Use the following commands to ││install:▁ ││ ││ ││brewtapdavep/homebrew ││brewinstallhike ││ ││ ││Other installation methods ││ ││The following installation methods have been provided by third parties; ││please note that I can't vouch for them myself so use them at your own risk. ││ ││X-CMD ││ ││The application can be installed using x-cmd: ││ ││ ││xinstallhike ││ ││ > Enter a directory, file, path or command  f1 Help  f2 Nav  f5 Edit  f10 Quit  ^[ Backward  ^] Forward ▏^p Commands

dracula Hike v0.10.0 │ContentLocalBookmarksHistory│/Users/davep/develop/python/hike/README.md │╸━━━━━━━╺━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━│━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ││ │▼ Ⅰ Hike│ │├── Ⅱ Introduction│Installing │├── ▼ Ⅱ Installing│ ││   ├── Ⅲ pipx│pipx ││   ├── Ⅲ Homebrew│▇ ││   └── ▼ Ⅲ Other installation metho│The application can be installed using pipx: ││   └── Ⅳ X-CMD│ │├── Ⅱ Using Hike│ │├── ▼ Ⅱ Features│pipxinstallhike ││   └── Ⅲ Editing│ │├── Ⅱ File locations│ │├── Ⅱ Getting help│Homebrew │└── Ⅱ TODO│ ││The package is available via Homebrew. Use the following commands to ││install:▁ ││ ││ ││brewtapdavep/homebrew ││brewinstallhike ││ ││ ││Other installation methods ││ ││The following installation methods have been provided by third parties; ││please note that I can't vouch for them myself so use them at your own risk. ││ ││X-CMD ││ ││The application can be installed using x-cmd: ││ ││ ││xinstallhike ││ ││ > Enter a directory, file, path or command  f1 Help  f2 Nav  f5 Edit  f10 Quit  ^[ Backward  ^] Forward ▏^p Commands