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ᚱune

rune.input

Read and modify the input buffer from scripts — pickers, binds, and completion are all built on these. For the interactive side (default keys, the multiline composer, history navigation, and tab completion), see Input & History.

Quick reference

Section titled “Quick reference”
rune.input.get()                  -- current input text
rune.input.set(text)              -- replace the input text
rune.input.get_cursor()           -- zero-based UTF-8 byte offset
rune.input.set_cursor(pos)        -- move to a UTF-8 byte offset
rune.input.open_editor(initial?)  -- edit in $EDITOR; returns edited_text, ok
rune.input.word_left()            -- move cursor to the previous word boundary
rune.input.word_right()           -- move cursor to the next word boundary
rune.input.delete_word()          -- delete the word before the cursor

get/set operate on the whole buffer; the word operations combine them with cursor moves and are what the default ctrl+w, alt+left/alt+right binds call. Setting the input fires the "input_changed" hook event, same as typing.

Cursor positions are zero-based UTF-8 byte offsets, using the same byte units as Lua 5.1 string operations. set_cursor clamps positions to the input and snaps an offset inside a multibyte sequence to the preceding UTF-8 code point boundary.

Setting text containing a newline, tab, or terminal control byte activates the visible verbatim composer. Once active, replacing the draft with one non-empty plain line keeps it verbatim; setting it to "" clears the composer. See Multiline verbatim composer for its submission semantics and limits.

rune.input.open_editor

Section titled “rune.input.open_editor”
rune.input.open_editor(initial?) -> edited_text, ok
  • initial (string, optional) — text to seed the editor buffer with.

Opens $EDITOR (falling back to vi/notepad) on a temp file; the client suspends until the editor exits. On success, CRLF and bare CR are normalized to LF and exactly one final LF (the conventional text-file terminator) is removed. All other authored whitespace — indentation, tabs, trailing spaces, and additional blank lines — is preserved. The function returns that text and true, including "", true for an intentionally empty file. It returns "", false when the editor could not run or exited with an error.

The default ctrl+e bind is a thin wrapper. A multiline result enters the verbatim composer instead of being converted to semicolon-separated commands:

rune.bind("ctrl+e", function()
    local text, ok = rune.input.open_editor(rune.input.get())
    if ok then
        rune.input.set(text)
    end
end)

rune.history

Section titled “rune.history”
rune.history.get()     -- submitted text, oldest first
rune.history.add(cmd)  -- append a normal command entry

The buffer is Go-owned, so it survives /reload. Everything the user submits lands here automatically with its command or verbatim mode. Arrow navigation and ctrl+r restore that mode, so even a one-line verbatim entry returns to the composer. Consecutive entries are deduplicated only when both their text and mode match.

get() is the compatibility text view: it returns strings and does not expose the stored mode. add(cmd) adds a normal command entry for scripts that want a synthetic command (one sent by an alias, say) to be recallable.

Related: Input & History guide · rune.bind · rune.ui.picker