Jump over end parenthesis/bracket/quotation in atom editor with TAB

Question

In atom editor, when I type console.log( for example, it becomes console.log() and the cursor stays between the two parenthesis. So I have to use End button or Right arrow key to jump out of there. Is there any way to use Tab instead (to jump out of ending parenthesis/brackets/quotation) ?

Answer 1

If you just keep typing, then the closing ) will be 'swallowed' by Atom's bracket matcher, so you don't need to press End or →.

However, there are some situations where Atom's bracket matcher doesn't swallow up keypresses and you can't just keep typing. For example, when you enter the following code, after pressing ; you might need to move the cursor past the closing curly brace (which Atom automatically inserted):

if (someCondition) {
    doSomething();
}

In situations like this, you can use a custom command and a custom keymap to jump the cursor forward. Here's how...

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Go to the file menu and select 'Open Your Init Script', then paste the following code into the file. This defines a command that can move the cursor forward, jumping over a single bracket, brace, or quotation mark.

SymbolRegex = /\s*[(){}<>[\]/'"]/
atom.commands.add 'atom-text-editor', 'custom:jump-over-symbol': (event) ->
  editor = atom.workspace.getActiveTextEditor()
  cursorMoved = false
  for cursor in editor.getCursors()
    range = cursor.getCurrentWordBufferRange(wordRegex: SymbolRegex)
    unless range.isEmpty()
      cursor.setBufferPosition(range.end)
      cursorMoved = true
  event.abortKeyBinding() unless cursorMoved

You have to close and re-open Atom to reload the init script.

Next, go to the file menu, select 'Open Your Keymap', and enter a keybinding for the new command. You could use the TAB key, but that would conflict with Atom's default keymap for snippets, so here I have used Alt+) instead:

'atom-text-editor:not([mini])':
  'alt-)': 'custom:jump-over-symbol'

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Another option is just to disable Atom's automatic insertion of closing brackets. I think you can do that by going to Settings → Packages → bracket-matcher → Settings, and clearing the option 'Autocomplete Brackets'.