Application Menus

The application menu provides mouse and keyboard access to editor actions, organized under File, Edit, Search, View, Tools, and Help. Plugins can add their own actions and submenus.

Show the menu bar

The menu bar is hidden by default. Press Alt+Shift+M to show or hide it. The treeview toolbar's menu button toggles the same setting. You can open the popup with Alt+M even when the bar is hidden. On macOS, use Option instead of Alt.

User Module

Open your user module and enable the bar:

local config = require "core.config"
config.show_menubar = true

Set it to false to hide the bar.

Settings UI

Open Settings with the ui:settings command, then enable Core > User Interface > Show Menu Bar. The visibility change applies immediately and saved preferences override the default on later starts.

When the labels cannot all fit, the bar displays a single Menu button containing the same groups.

Navigate and run actions

Click a group to open it. Move the pointer to another group to switch menus, or click the active group again to close it. Submenus expand from entries marked with an arrow.

Opening the menu keeps the document's selection and focus available for editing actions. Unavailable actions remain visible but disabled. Checkmarks show enabled options, and assigned keyboard shortcuts appear beside actions. Available plugin actions depend on which plugins are enabled.

Key	Action
Left/Right	Switch top-level groups when no submenu entry is selected.
Down	Select the first entry after opening a group.
Up/Down	Move through entries.
Right	Open the selected submenu.
Left	Return from a submenu to its parent.
Enter	Run the selected action or open its submenu.
Escape	Close one submenu at a time, then the main popup.

Click outside the popup to dismiss it. Opening or switching a top-level group leaves its entries unselected until you move into them.

Menu groups

Group	Common actions
File	Create, open, save, reload, rename, and close files; manage project folders.
Edit	Undo/redo, clipboard operations, line and selection editing, case conversion, line endings, and encodings.
Search	Find and replace, previous/next matches, and Go to Line.
View	Split panes, switch focus and tabs, toggle interface elements, and preview Markdown.
Tools	Open the command palette, log, user/project configuration, and enabled plugin tools.
Help	Open documentation, project links, and About.

Animations

Showing and hiding the bar follows the editor's animation settings. To disable just this height animation, add this to your user module:

local config = require "core.config"
config.disabled_transitions.menubar = true

You can also enable Menu Bar under Core > Graphics > Disable Transitions in Settings.

Commands and shortcuts

Command	Default shortcut	Action
menu-bar:open	Alt+M	Open or close the popup, including when the bar is hidden.
menu-bar:toggle	Alt+Shift+M	Toggle bar visibility.
menu-bar:show	None	Show the bar.
menu-bar:hide	None	Hide the bar.

See Command Palette for searching actions by name. Plugin authors can extend menus using the Application Menus developer guide.