Command Line Options

Though KWrite may most often be started from the Plasma™ application starter, or a desktop icon, it can also be opened at the command line prompt of a terminal window. There are a few useful options that are available when doing this.

Many other applications that use KatePart offer similar command line options.

Specify a File

By specifying the path and name of a particular file the user can have KWrite open (or create) that file immediately upon startup. This option might look something like the following:

% kwrite
/home/myhome/docs/myfile.txt

Specify a file on the Internet

The above-mentioned method could even be used to open files on the Internet (if the user has an active connection at the time.) An example of this might look like the following:

% kwrite
ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/README

Other Command Line Options

The following command line help options are available

kwrite --help

This lists the most basic options available at the command line.

kwrite --author

Lists KWrite's authors in the terminal window.

kwrite -v, --version

Lists version information for the application.

kwrite --license

Shows license information.

kwrite --desktopfile filename

The base file name of the desktop entry for this application.

This is in particular useful for wrapper applications and applications having in general multiple desktop files. Thus each desktop file can have its own command line for the Exec entry.

kwrite -e, --encoding encoding

Causes KWrite to use the specified encoding for the document.

kwrite -l, --line line

Navigate to the specified line after opening the document.

kwrite -c, --column column

Navigate to the specified column after opening the document.

kwrite -i, --stdin

Causes KWrite to read the document content from STDIN. This is similar to the common option - used in many command line programs, and allows you to pipe command output into KWrite.