Settings & Keybindings

Open Settings by clicking the gear icon (⚙) in the titlebar. An orange badge appears on the icon when a Kova update is available.

Appearance

Setting	Options	Default
UI theme	Dark · Light	Dark

Toggles between Dark and Light mode for the interface, editor, and panels. Changes take effect immediately — no restart required.

Saving

Setting	Options	Default
Autosave	Off · 15 sec · 30 sec · 1 min · 5 min	30 sec

When enabled, Kova saves the file automatically after the first manual save. Autosave does not trigger on an unsaved new document.

Workspace

Setting	Options	Default
Confirm before closing	On · Off	On

When enabled, Kova shows a confirmation dialog if you try to close a file with unsaved changes.

Presentation

Controls for the ▶ Present feature. See Presenting for a full explanation of each mode.

Setting	Options	Default
Display mode	Auto · Single · Dual · Mirror	Auto
Show next slide	On · Off	On
Show timer	On · Off	On
Notes font size	Small · Medium · Large	Medium

Themes

Shows the path to the custom themes folder (~/.kova/themes/) with an Open folder button. If Kova finds any .yaml files with syntax errors in that folder, the filenames and error details are listed here.

See Themes — Custom themes for the theme file format.

Updates

Setting	Options	Default
Check for updates on startup	On · Off	Off

When enabled, Kova checks the GitHub Releases page for new versions and shows an orange badge on the gear icon when one is available. No data is sent to Kova's servers — only a public GitHub API call is made.

Use the Check now button for an on-demand check without enabling automatic checks.

Keybindings

Five file-level shortcuts can be remapped by editing a YAML file.

File location

~/.kova/keybindings.yaml

Format

new_file:   ctrl+n
open_file:  ctrl+o
save:       ctrl+s
save_as:    ctrl+shift+s
focus_mode: ctrl+shift+f

Modifiers and keys

Modifiers: ctrl · shift · alt

Keys: single characters (n, s, f, …) or named keys:

Named key	Description
`escape`	Escape
`tab`	Tab
`space`	Space bar
`enter`	Enter / Return
`backspace`	Backspace
`delete`	Delete
`f1` – `f12`	Function keys
`up`, `down`, `left`, `right`	Arrow keys
`page_up`, `page_down`	Page Up / Page Down
`home`, `end`	Home / End

Combine modifiers and keys with +: ctrl+shift+s, alt+f4, ctrl+f1.

Example remapping

# Change Save As to Ctrl+Alt+S
save_as: ctrl+alt+s

# Remap focus mode to F11
focus_mode: f11

Omitted keys retain their defaults. Edit the file and restart Kova for changes to take effect.

Limitations

Editor shortcuts (Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, heading toggles) and presentation navigation keys are not currently remappable via the keybindings file. See Keyboard Shortcuts for the full list.