Modelines

Set settings local to a single buffer.
A more granular approach to settings than the per file type .sublime-settings files.

Inspired by Vim’s modelines feature.

Getting Started

Recommended Installation

Use Package Control and install Modelines (compatibility starts at Sublime Text 4).

Manual Installation

Download and install Modelines.

See the installation instructions for .sublime-packages.

Side Effects

Buffers will be scanned .on_load() and .on_post_save() (by default, customizable) for modelines and settings will be set accordingly. Settings will apply only to the buffer declaring them.

There is also a command to manually apply modelines.

Note: Application- and window-level options declared in modelines are obviously global.

Usage

How to Declare Modelines

Modelines must be declared at the top or the bottom of source code files with the following default syntax:

# ~*~ sublime: key=val; key2=val2; key3 ~*~

VIM and Emacs-style syntax are also supported.
See the settings file for (a lot) more info.

Example

This is a simple example, that disable tabs auto-translation to spaces, set the tab size to 3 and set the file syntax to Python.

# ~*~ sublime: syntax=Python; tab_size=3; translate_tabs_to_spaces=false ~*~

Developer Note

To get proper completion and errors in the editor when working on this repo, one can create a pyrightconfig.json file at the root of the repo, containing something like this (on macOS; adjust paths accordingly depending on your environment):

{
  "venvPath": ".",
  "venv": "sublime-modelines",
  "extraPaths": [
    /* Replace python314 by python38 if you’re on Sublime <4213 (Python 3.8 instead of 3.14). */
    "/Applications/Sublime Text.app/Contents/MacOS/Lib/python314",
    "/Users/YOUR_USER_NAME/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text/Lib/python314",
    "/Users/YOUR_USER_NAME/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text/Packages/UnitTesting",
  ]
}

⚠️ The tests require the UnitTesting package. I have not added it to dependencies.json because I don’t know how to add a dependency for tests only. A PR is welcome if there is a way to do it.

Contributors

François Lamboley (Frizlab)

Full rewrite featuring:

• Sublime Text 4 compatibility;
• A whole new modeline syntax;
• Better VIM syntax support;
• Emacs syntax support;
• Legacy syntax support (original modeline syntax from this repo, before the rewrite).

Kay-Uwe (Kiwi) Lorenz [email protected]

• Added VIM compatibility;
• Smart syntax matching;
• Modelines also parsed on save;
• Settings are erased from view, if removed from modeline.

Guillermo López-Anglada

• Implemented the first version of this package (for Sublime Text 2).