Bookmarks

A bookmark marks a line in Text view, or a byte in Hex view, with a letter from a to z. Press two keys to jump back to it from anywhere in the file. Vaste saves the bookmarks of each file and restores them the next time you open it.

Set a bookmark

1. In Text view, click the line you want to mark. Without a selected line, the bookmark goes on the first line on screen.

2. Press m. A hint at the top of the viewer asks for a letter.

3. Press a lowercase letter from a to z.

You can also right-click a line, select Set bookmark here…, and press a letter.

Each file can have up to 26 bookmarks, one for each letter. Pressing m, then a letter that is already in use, moves that bookmark to the active line without asking. Any key other than a to z, including uppercase letters and digits, cancels without setting a bookmark. The hint disappears after 3 seconds if you press nothing.

Bookmarks work in Text view and Hex view. In Table and NDJSON views, pressing m shows Bookmarks work in Text and Hex views.

Jump to a bookmark

Press ' (apostrophe), then the bookmark’s letter. This works in every view:

• A line bookmark switches to Text view if needed, leaves Grep view if it is open, and scrolls the line to the top of the view as the active line.
• A byte bookmark switches to Hex view if needed, scrolls the byte to the middle of the view, and puts the byte cursor on it.

If no bookmark has that letter, Vaste shows No bookmark “x” with the letter.

Bookmarks in Hex view

In Hex view, m, then a letter, marks the byte under the byte cursor, or the first byte on screen if there is no cursor. A byte bookmark records the byte’s offset in the file. Hex view shows byte bookmarks in the markers beside its scrollbar, but not in the rows. See Hex view.

See bookmarks in Text view

When line numbers are on, the gutter shows a bookmark icon on each bookmarked line. Hover over the icon to see the letter. If one line has several bookmarks, the gutter shows one icon and the Bookmarks panel lists them all. With line numbers off, the gutter and its icons are hidden.

The markers beside the scrollbar include bookmarks when the Overview markers setting is on. See Overview markers. Grep view does not show bookmark icons.

The Bookmarks panel

Press Ctrl + B, select the bookmark icon in the sidebar rail, or select More actions (…) → Bookmarks to open the Bookmarks panel. It lists the bookmarks of the open file: line bookmarks first, ordered by line (Ln 1204), then byte bookmarks, ordered by offset (@0x1F40). Select a bookmark to jump to it.

• Delete a bookmark: select the trash icon on its row, then confirm Delete bookmark?.
• Delete every bookmark of the file: select Clear all, then confirm Clear all bookmarks?. Vaste shows All bookmarks cleared.

The panel lists and deletes bookmarks. To set one, use m.

How bookmarks are saved

Vaste saves a file’s bookmarks as soon as you set or delete one, and restores them when you open the file again, in any window. For a compressed file, the bookmarks belong to the archive.

Vaste keeps bookmarks by the file’s path and line number:

• If you move or rename a file, its bookmarks stay with the old path.
• If another file later takes that path, it gets the old bookmarks.
• When a file changes and Vaste reloads it, each bookmark keeps its line number. If lines were added or removed above it, the bookmark then marks a different line.

Bookmarks belong to one file. There are no bookmarks that point into other files. For where Vaste stores them, see Data and cache locations.

Next steps

• Go to line: jump to a line by its number
• Selecting and copying: select and copy lines