Smart Tab Navigation

VMark's Tab and Shift+Tab keys are context-aware — they help you navigate efficiently through formatted text, brackets, and links without reaching for arrow keys.

With the experimental workspace rail, tab cycling and the tab strip cover only the active workspace's tabs.

Quick Overview

Context	Tab Action	Shift+Tab Action
Inside brackets () [] {}	Jump past closing bracket	Jump before opening bracket
Inside quotes "" ''	Jump past closing quote	Jump before opening quote
Inside CJK brackets 「」 『』	Jump past closing bracket	Jump before opening bracket
Inside bold, italic, code, strike	Jump after the formatting	Jump before the formatting
Inside a link	Jump after the link	Jump before the link
In a table cell	Move to next cell	Move to previous cell
In a list item	Indent the item	Outdent the item (stops at the outermost level)

Bracket & Quote Escape

When your cursor is right before a closing bracket or quote, pressing Tab jumps over it. When your cursor is right after an opening bracket or quote, pressing Shift+Tab jumps back before it.

Supported Characters

Standard brackets and quotes:

• Parentheses: ( )
• Square brackets: [ ]
• Curly braces: { }
• Double quotes: " "
• Single quotes: ' '
• Backticks: `

CJK brackets:

• Fullwidth parentheses: （ ）
• Lenticular brackets: 【 】
• Corner brackets: 「 」
• White corner brackets: 『 』
• Double angle brackets: 《 》
• Angle brackets: 〈 〉

Curly quotes:

• Double curly quotes: " "
• Single curly quotes: ' '

How It Works

function hello(world|)
                    ↑ cursor before )

Press Tab:

function hello(world)|
                     ↑ cursor after )

This works with nested brackets too — Tab jumps over the immediately adjacent closing character.

Press Shift+Tab reverses the action — if cursor is right after an opening character:

function hello(|world)
               ↑ cursor after (

Press Shift+Tab:

function hello|(world)
              ↑ cursor before (

CJK Example

这是「测试|」文字
         ↑ cursor before 」

Press Tab:

这是「测试」|文字
          ↑ cursor after 」

Formatting Escape (WYSIWYG Mode)

In WYSIWYG mode, Tab and Shift+Tab can escape from inline formatting marks.

Supported Formats

• Bold text
• Italic text
• Inline code
• Strikethrough
• Links

How It Works

When your cursor is anywhere inside formatted text:

This is **bold te|xt** here
                 ↑ cursor inside bold

Press Tab:

This is **bold text**| here
                     ↑ cursor after bold

Shift+Tab works in reverse — it jumps to the start of the formatting:

This is **bold te|xt** here
                 ↑ cursor inside bold

Press Shift+Tab:

This is |**bold text** here
        ↑ cursor before bold

Link Escape

Tab and Shift+Tab also escape from links:

Check out [VMark|](https://vmark.app)
               ↑ cursor inside link text

Press Tab:

Check out [VMark](https://vmark.app)| and...
                                    ↑ cursor after link

Press Shift+Tab inside a link moves to the start:

Check out |[VMark](https://vmark.app) and...
          ↑ cursor before link

Link Navigation (Source Mode)

In Source mode, Tab provides smart navigation within Markdown link syntax.

Nested and Escaped Brackets

VMark handles complex link syntax correctly:

[text [with nested] brackets](url)     ✓ Works
[text \[escaped\] brackets](url)       ✓ Works
[link](https://example.com/page(1))    ✓ Works

Tab navigation correctly identifies link boundaries even with nested or escaped brackets.

Standard Links

[link text|](url)
          ↑ cursor in text

Press Tab → cursor moves to URL:

[link text](|url)
            ↑ cursor in URL

Press Tab again → cursor exits the link:

[link text](url)|
                ↑ cursor after link

Wiki Links

[[page name|]]
           ↑ cursor in link

Press Tab:

[[page name]]|
             ↑ cursor after link

Source Mode: Markdown Character Escape

In Source mode, Tab also jumps over Markdown formatting characters:

Characters	Used For
*	Bold/italic
_	Bold/italic
^	Superscript
~~	Strikethrough (jumped as a unit)
==	Highlight (jumped as a unit)

Example

This is **bold|** text
              ↑ cursor before **

Press Tab:

This is **bold**| text
                ↑ cursor after **

INFO

Source mode does not have Shift+Tab escape for markdown characters — Shift+Tab only outdents (removes leading spaces).

Source Mode: Auto-Pair

In Source mode, typing a formatting character auto-inserts its closing pair:

Character	Pairing	Behavior
*	*|* or **|**	Delay-based — waits 150ms to detect single vs double
~	~|~ or ~~|~~	Delay-based
_	_|_ or __|__	Delay-based
=	==|==	Always pairs as double
`	`|`	Single backtick pairs after delay
```	Code fence	Triple backtick at line start creates a fenced code block

Auto-pairing is disabled inside fenced code blocks — typing * in a code block inserts a literal * without pairing.

Backspace between a pair deletes both halves: *\|* → Backspace → empty.

Table Navigation

When cursor is inside a table:

Action	Key
Next cell	Tab
Previous cell	Shift + Tab
Add row (at last cell)	Tab

Tab at the last cell of the last row automatically adds a new row.

List Indentation

When cursor is in a list item:

Action	Key
Indent item	Tab
Outdent item	Shift + Tab

Outdent removes one level of nesting and stops at the outermost level — it will not lift an item out of the list. To leave a list entirely, use Remove List, or press the list button again to toggle it off.

Settings

Tab escape behavior can be customized in Settings → Editor:

Setting	Effect
Auto-pair Brackets	Enable/disable bracket pairing and Tab escape
CJK Brackets	Include CJK bracket pairs
Curly Quotes	Include curly quote pairs (“” ‘’); a typed straight quote becomes a curly pair

TIP

If Tab escape conflicts with your workflow, you can disable auto-pair brackets entirely. Tab will then insert spaces (or indent in lists/tables) as normal.

Comparison: WYSIWYG vs Source Mode

Feature	Tab (WYSIWYG)	Shift+Tab (WYSIWYG)	Tab (Source)	Shift+Tab (Source)
Bracket escape	✓	✓	✓	—
CJK bracket escape	✓	✓	✓	—
Curly quote escape	✓	✓	✓	—
Mark escape (bold, etc.)	✓	✓	N/A	N/A
Link escape	✓	✓	✓ (field navigation)	—
Markdown char escape (*, _, ~~, ==)	N/A	N/A	✓	—
Markdown auto-pair (*, ~, _, =)	N/A	N/A	✓ (delay-based)	N/A
Table navigation	Next cell	Previous cell	N/A	N/A
List indentation	Indent	Outdent	Indent	Outdent
Multi-cursor support	✓	✓	✓	—
Skipped inside code blocks	✓	✓	✓	N/A

Multi-Cursor Support

Tab escape works with multiple cursors — each cursor is processed independently.

How It Works

When you have multiple cursors and press Tab or Shift+Tab:

• Tab: Cursors inside formatting escape to the end; cursors before closing brackets jump over them
• Shift+Tab: Cursors inside formatting escape to the start; cursors after opening brackets jump before them
• Cursors in plain text stay in place

Example

**bold|** and [link|](url) and plain|
     ^1          ^2            ^3

Press Tab:

**bold**| and [link](url)| and plain|
        ^1               ^2         ^3

Each cursor escapes independently based on its context.

TIP

This is particularly powerful for bulk editing — select multiple occurrences with Mod + D, then use Tab to escape from all of them at once.

Priority & Code Block Behavior

Escape Priority

When multiple escape targets overlap, Tab processes them innermost-first:

**bold text(|)** here
               ↑ Tab jumps ) first (bracket is innermost)

Press Tab again:

**bold text()**| here
               ↑ Tab escapes bold mark

This means bracket jump always fires before mark escape — you can rely on Tab to exit brackets first, then formatting.

Code Block Guard

Tab and Shift+Tab bracket jumps are disabled inside code blocks — both code_block nodes and inline code spans. This prevents Tab from jumping over brackets in code, where brackets are literal syntax:

`array[index|]`
              ↑ Tab does NOT jump ] in inline code — inserts spaces instead

Auto-pair insertion is also disabled inside code blocks for both WYSIWYG and Source modes.

Tips

1. Muscle memory — Once you get used to Tab escape, you'll find yourself navigating much faster without arrow keys.

2. Works with auto-pair — When you type (, VMark auto-inserts ). After typing inside, just Tab to jump out.

3. Nested structures — Tab escapes one level at a time. For ((nested)), you need two Tabs to fully exit.

4. Shift + Tab — The mirror of Tab. Escapes backward from marks, links, and opening brackets. In tables, moves to the previous cell. In lists, outdents the item.

5. Multi-cursor — Tab escape works with all your cursors simultaneously, making bulk edits even faster.

Switching between open tabs

Tabs live in the status bar at the bottom of the window. Three ways to move between them:

Action	Shortcut	Notes
Last Used Tab	Ctrl + Tab	Jumps to the tab you were in before this one. Press it again to come straight back.
Next / Previous Tab	Mod + Shift + ] / Mod + Shift + [	Moves along the strip in order, regardless of what you used recently.
Quick Open	Mod + O	Type to filter. Open tabs are listed first, most recently used at the top.

Last Used Tab is a toggle, not a cycle. It takes you to the document you were in most recently, and pressing it a second time returns you to where you started — the fast way to work between two files. Next and Previous Tab walk the strip positionally instead, which is what you want when you are looking for something rather than going back to it.

It is a menu item as well as a shortcut (View → Last Used Tab), which is what lets it keep working while the embedded browser has keyboard focus.

When you have more tabs than fit

The tab strip scrolls. When there are tabs off either edge, the strip fades at that edge and a small arrow appears — click it to scroll a screenful. Switching tabs by any means also scrolls the new tab into view, so the highlighted tab is never hidden off-screen.

The strip itself is keyboard-reachable: Tab to it and use the arrow keys.

Two documents side by side

View → Split Editor — Two Documents (Alt + Mod + \) puts a second document beside the current one. To choose which document, right-click any tab and pick Open to the Side.

Action	Shortcut
Split Editor — Two Documents	Alt + Mod + \
Close Pane	Alt + Mod + Shift + \
Focus Other Pane	Alt + Mod + Shift + O
Sync Pane Scroll	(no default)

Notes on how it behaves:

• The tab showing in the other pane is marked in the tab strip with a faint underline, so you can always tell which two documents are on screen and which one your typing will go to.
• Closing one of the two collapses onto the other, rather than jumping you to an unrelated tab. Your remaining document stays put.
• Sync Pane Scroll ties the two panes' scrolling together proportionally. It is off by default and is per-split.
• Both panes share one view mode. Source mode (F6) switches both panes at once, and moving between the panes keeps the mode you are in.
• Splitting needs two documents open. Browser tabs are not documents, so the split does not apply to them.

The tab context menu

Right-click a tab to open its menu. Arrow keys, Home and End move through it; Enter or Space runs an item; Escape closes it.

Item	What it does	Available when
Move to New Window	Moves the tab into a new window, with an Undo in the confirmation. A secondary window left empty closes.	The document is loaded, and it is not the only tab of the main window
Pin / Unpin	Pins or unpins the tab — see Pinned tabs.	Always
Open to the Side	Shows the tab in the other split pane — see Two documents side by side.	Both this tab and the active one are documents, and this one is not the active tab (not shown for browser tabs)
Rename	Renames the file in place in the tab — see Renaming a file.	The document has been saved
Copy Path	Copies the file's absolute path.	The document has been saved
Copy Relative Path	Copies the path relative to the workspace folder.	A workspace is open and the file is inside it
Reveal in Finder	Shows the file in Finder (Show in Explorer on Windows, Show in File Manager on Linux).	The document has been saved
Restore to Disk	Writes the tab's content back to its path.	The file was deleted from disk while open
Revert to Saved	After a confirmation, discards your changes and reloads the file from disk.	The tab has unsaved changes and its file still exists
Close	Closes the tab (asks to save first if it has unsaved changes).	The tab is not pinned
Close Others	Closes every other unpinned tab.	Another unpinned tab exists
Close Tabs to the Right	Closes the unpinned tabs to its right.	One exists
Close All Unpinned Tabs	Closes every unpinned tab, this one included.	An unpinned tab exists
Close All	Closes every tab, pinned ones included. If a pinned tab would close, it asks first and names how many; cancelling closes nothing.	Always

Bulk closes act on the tabs of the current workspace and close them one at a time. Each tab with unsaved changes asks first, and cancelling any of those prompts stops the rest.

Pinned tabs

Pin a tab from its context menu to keep it at hand:

• It moves to the pinned group at the left of the strip, shows a pin icon, and loses its close button. Tabs cannot be dragged across the boundary between pinned and unpinned tabs ("Pinned tabs stay at the left. Drop blocked."), and a pinned tab cannot be dragged out of its window.
• It cannot be closed by any means — Mod + W, middle-click, Close, or a bulk close — until you unpin it; trying shows "Unpin tab before closing". Two deliberate closes are the exception: Close All closes pinned tabs too once you confirm, and closing a workspace from the rail closes its pinned tabs with the rest.
• Closing a window that holds pinned tabs asks for confirmation — "This window has N pinned tabs. Close anyway?" — unless a save dialog was already shown.
• A pin survives moving the tab to another window or workspace and an update restart, but not quitting VMark: tabs reopened at the next launch are unpinned.

There is no keyboard shortcut for pinning.

Renaming a file

Choose Rename in a tab's context menu. The name becomes editable in the tab, with the part before the extension selected. Enter or clicking away commits; Escape cancels. The file is renamed on disk and every open tab that points to it follows. VMark never overwrites: if the name is taken, a dialog says A file named “X” already exists. A name that is empty, unchanged, . or .., or contains / or \ is refused or ignored. What you type is the whole name — delete the extension and the file loses it.

On macOS, with Settings → Appearance → Show filename in titlebar on, you can also double-click the file name in the title bar to rename it. The same rules and messages apply; after a collision or error the name stays editable so you can try another. If Show file extensions is off, the original extension is kept when you type a name without one. Double-clicking the title of an unsaved document opens Save instead.

Closing tabs and windows

Nothing with unsaved changes is closed without asking.

• Closing one tab with unsaved changes (Mod + W, the tab's ×, or Close) asks "Do you want to save changes to …?" with Save, Don't Save and Cancel. Save on a never-saved document opens a save dialog in your default save folder, with the tab's title as the suggested name. Cancelling that dialog, or a failed save, keeps the tab open.
• Closing a window with one unsaved document asks the same question. With two or more, one dialog lists them all — never-saved documents are marked (new) — with Save All, Don't Save and Cancel.
• Save All saves every document that has a file. For never-saved documents it asks for a location: one save dialog if there is one, or one folder picker for several ("Choose folder for N new documents"). Each is then saved in that folder under its title, and a name that is already taken gets a number (Untitled 2.md), so nothing is overwritten.
• Quitting (Mod + Q) runs the same check in every window, one window at a time; cancelling in any window cancels the quit. With Settings → Files & Images → Confirm quit on (the default), the first press only shows "Press ⌘Q again to quit" — press it again within two seconds. A quit from the operating system (shutting down, say) skips the double press.
• Save All and Quit saves the unsaved documents in every window without the dialog — it still asks where to put never-saved ones (one save dialog, or one folder picker for several, in the window that holds them) — then quits. If a document cannot be saved, or you cancel that dialog, the quit stops: that window stays open, and a failed save says why.

On macOS, VMark keeps running after its last window closes; on Windows and Linux, closing the last window quits — unless, on Windows, Settings → Files & Images → Minimize to tray on close is on: then the last window is hidden in the system tray instead, with nothing closed and no save prompt (see Settings).