Configure
Selecting Settings Configure Application... from the menu brings up the Configure dialog box. This dialog can be used to alter a number of different settings. The settings available for change vary according to which category the user chooses from a vertical list on the left side of the dialog. By means of three buttons along the bottom of the box the user can control the process.
You may invoke the Help system, accept the current settings and close the dialog by means of the OK button, or Cancel the process. The categories Appearance, Fonts & Colors, Editing, Open/Save and Extensions are detailed below.

The Editor Component Configuration
This group contains all pages related to the editor component of . Most of the settings here are defaults, they can be overridden by defining a filetype, by Document Variables or by changing them per document during an editing session.

Appearance

General
Dynamic Word Wrap 	 If this option is checked, the text lines will be wrapped at the view border on the screen.
Dynamic word wrap indicators (if applicable) 	Choose when the Dynamic word wrap indicators should be displayed, either Off, Follow Line Numbers or Always on.
Align dynamically wrapped lines to indentation depth: 	Enables the start of dynamically wrapped lines to be aligned vertically to the indentation level of the first line. This can help to make code and markup more readable.
Additionally, this allows you to set a maximum width of the screen, as a percentage, after which dynamically wrapped lines will no longer be vertically aligned. For example, at 50%, lines whose indentation levels are deeper than 50% of the width of the screen will not have vertical alignment applied to subsequent wrapped lines.
Whitespace Highlighting 	
Highlight tabulators 	The editor will display a » symbol to indicate the presence of a tab in the text.
Highlight trailing spaces 	The editor will display dots to indicate the presence of extra whitespace at the end of lines.
Highlight marker size 	Use the slider to change the size of the visible highlight marker.
Advanced 	
Show indentation lines 	If this is checked, the editor will display vertical lines to help identifying indent lines.
Highlight range between selected brackets 	If this is enabled, the range between the selected matching brackets will be highlighted.
Animate bracket matching 	If enabled, moving on the brackets ({, [, ], },( or )) will quickly animate the matching bracket.
Fold first line 	If enabled, the first line is folded, if possible. This is useful, if the file starts with a comment, such as a copyright
Show Word Count 	Displays the number of words and characters in the document and in the current selection.

Borders
Borders 	
Show folding markers 	If this option is checked, the current view will display marks for code folding, if code folding is available.
Show preview of folded code 	If checked, hovering over a folded region shows a preview of the folded text in a popup.
Show icon border 	If this is checked, you will see an icon border on the left hand side. The icon border shows bookmark signs for instance.
Show line numbers 	If this is checked, you will see line numbers on the left hand side.
Show line modification markers 	If this is checked, line modification markers will be visible. For more information, see .
Show scrollbar marks 	If this option is checked the current view will show marks on the vertical scrollbar. These marks will for instance show bookmarks.
Show text preview on scrollbar 	If this option is checked, and you hover the scrollbar with the mouse cursor a small text preview with several lines of the current document around the cursor position will be displayed. This allows you to quickly switch to another part of the document.
Show scrollbar mini-map 	If this option is checked, every new view will show a mini map of the document on the vertical scrollbar.
For more information on the scrollbar minimap, see
Minimap Width 	Adjusts the width of the scrollbar mini-map, defined in pixels.
Scrollbars visibility 	Switch the scrollbar on, off or show the scrollbar only when needed. Click with the on the blue rectangle to display the line number range of the document displayed on the screen. Keep the pressed outside the blue rectangle to automatically scroll through the document.
Sort Bookmarks Menu 	
By creation 	Each new bookmark will be added to the bottom, independently from where it is placed in the document.
By position 	The bookmarks will be ordered by the line numbers they are placed at.

Fonts & Colors
This section of the dialog lets you configure all fonts and colors in any color scheme you have, as well creating new schemes or deleting existing ones. Each scheme has settings for colors, fonts and normal and highlight text styles.
will preselect the currently active scheme for you, if you want to work on a different scheme start by selecting that from the Schema combobox. With the New and Delete button you can create a new scheme or delete existing ones.
At the bottom of the page you can select the Default schema for .
By default, will base its color scheme on the current color scheme. You can reset an individual color back to default by clicking the reset arrow to the right of the entry in the color editor, or you can reset all colors back to default by clicking the Use Color Scheme at the bottom of the panel.
You can adjust the color scheme in the Colors module in .

Colors
Editor Background Colors 	
Text Area 	This is the default background for the editor area, it will be the dominant color on the editor area.
Selected Text 	This is the background for selected text. The default is the global selection color, as set in your color preferences.
Current Line 	Set the color for the current line. Setting this a bit different from the Normal text background helps to keep focus on the current line.
Search Highlight 	Set the color for the text that matches your last search.
Replace Highlight 	Set the color for the text that matches your last replace operation.
Icon Border 	
Background Area 	This color is used for the marks, line numbers and folding marker borders in the left side of the editor view when they are displayed.
Line Numbers 	This color is used to draw the line numbers on the left side of the view when displayed.
Word Wrap Marker 	This color is used to draw a pattern to the left of dynamically wrapped lines when those are aligned vertically, as well as for the static word wrap marker.
Code Folding 	This color is used to highlight the section of code that would be folded when you click on the code folding arrow to the left of a document. For more information, see the code folding documentation.
Modified Lines 	This color is used to highlight to the left of a document lines that have been modified but not yet saved. For more information, see
Saved Lines 	This color is used to highlight to the left of a document lines that have been modified this session and saved. For more information, see
Text Decorations 	
Spelling Mistake Line 	This color is used to indicate spelling mistakes.
Tab and Space Markers 	This color is used to draw white space indicators, when they are enabled.
Indentation Line 	This color is used to draw a line to the left of indented blocks, if that feature is enabled.
Bracket Highlight 	This color is used to draw the background of matching brackets.
Marker Colors 	
Bookmark 	This color is used to indicate bookmarks. For more information, see .
Active Breakpoint 	This color is used by the GDB plugin to indicate an active breakpoint. For more information, see the GDB Plugin documentation.
Reached Breakpoint 	This color is used by the GDB plugin to indicate a breakpoint you have reached while debugging. For more information, see the GDB Plugin documentation.
Disabled Breakpoint 	This color is used by the GDB plugin to indicate an inactive breakpoint. For more information, see the GDB Plugin documentation.
Execution 	This color is used by the GDB plugin the line presently being executed. For more information, see the GDB Plugin documentation.
Warning 	This color is used by the build plugin to indicate a line that has caused a compiler warning. For more information, see the Build Plugin documentation.
Error 	This color is used by the build plugin to indicate a line that has caused a compiler error. For more information, see the Build Plugin documentation.
Text Templates & Snippets 	
Background 	This color is used by the Snippets plugin to mark the background of a snippet.
Editable Placeholder 	This color is used by the Snippets plugin to mark a placeholder that you can click in to edit manually.
Focused Editable Placeholder 	This color is used by the Snippets plugin to mark the placeholder that you are presently editing.
Not Editable Placeholder 	This color is used by the Snippets plugin to mark a placeholder that cannot be edited manually, such as one that is automatically populated. For more information, see the Snippets documentation.
Use Color Scheme 	 Clicking this button will set all the above defined colors to match the current color scheme defined in 's . For more information, see the documentation for the Colors Control Module.
If you do not use the Workspaces, this button will have no effect, and may not be present.

Font
Here you can choose the font for the schema. You can choose from any font available on your system, and set a default size. A sample text displays at the bottom of the dialog, so you can see the effect of your choices.
For more information about selecting a font, see the Choosing Fonts section of the Fundamentals documentation.

Default Text Styles
The default text styles are inherited by the highlight text styles, allowing the editor to present text in a very consistent way, for example comment text is using the same style in almost all of the text formats that can highlight.
The name in the list of styles is using the style configured for the item, providing you with an immediate preview when configuring a style.
Each style lets you select common attributes as well as foreground and background colors. To unset a background color, right-click to use the context menu.

Highlighting Text Styles
Here you can edit the text styles used by a specific highlight definition. The editor preselects the highlight used by your current document. To work on a different highlight, select one in the Highlight combobox above the style list.
The name in the list of styles is using the style configured for the item, providing you with an immediate preview when configuring a style.
Each style lets you select common attributes as well as foreground and background colors. To unset a background color, right-click to use the context menu. In addition you can see if a style is equal to the default style used for the item, and set it to that if not.
You will notice that many highlights contain other highlights represented by groups in the style list. For example most highlights import the Alert highlight, and many source code formats imports the Doxygen highlight. Editing colors in those groups only affects the styles when used in the edited highlight format.

Editing

General
Static Word Wrap 	 Word wrap is a feature that causes the editor to automatically start a new line of text and move (wrap) the cursor to the beginning of that new line. will automatically start a new line of text when the current line reaches the length specified by the Wrap Words At: option.
Enable static word wrap 	 Turns static word wrap on or off.
Show static word wrap marker (if applicable) 	 If this option is checked, a vertical line will be drawn at the word wrap column as defined in the Settings Configure Editor... in the Editing tab. Please note that the word wrap marker is only drawn if you use a fixed pitch font.
Wrap words at: 	 If the Enable static word wrap option is selected this entry determines the length (in characters) at which the editor will automatically start a new line.
Input Mode 	 The selected input mode will be enabled when opening a new view. You can still toggle the vi input mode on/off for a particular view in the Edit menu.
Auto brackets 	When the user types a left bracket ([, (, or {) automatically enters the right bracket (}, ), or ]) to the right of the cursor.
When text is selected, typing one of the characters wraps the selected text.
Copy and Paste 	
Copy/Cut the current line if no selection 	 If this option is enabled and the text selection is empty, copy and cut action are performed for the line of text at the actual cursor position.

Text Navigation
Text Cursor Movement 	
Smart home and smart end 	 When selected, pressing the home key will cause the cursor to skip white space and go to the start of a line's text.
PageUp/PageDown moves cursor 	 This option changes the behavior of the cursor when the user presses the Page Up or Page Down key. If unselected the text cursor will maintain its relative position within the visible text in as new text becomes visible as a result of the operation. So if the cursor is in the middle of the visible text when the operation occurs it will remain there (except when one reaches the beginning or end.) With this option selected, the first key press will cause the cursor to move to either the top or bottom of the visible text as a new page of text is displayed.
Autocenter cursor: 	 Sets the number of lines to maintain visible above and below the cursor when possible.
Text Selection Mode 	
Normal 	 Selections will be overwritten by typed text and will be lost on cursor movement.
Persistent 	 Selections will stay even after cursor movement and typing.
Allow scrolling past the end of the document 	 This option lets you scroll past the end of the document. This can be used to vertically centre the bottom of the document, or put it on top of the current view.
Backspace key removes character’s base with its diacritics 	 When selected, composed characters are removed with their diacritics instead of only removing the base character. This is useful for Indic locales.

Indentation
Default indentation mode: 	 Select the automatic indentation mode you want to use as default. It is strongly recommended to use None or Normal here, and use filetype configurations to set other indentation modes for text formats like C/C++ code or .
Indent using 	
Tabulators 	 When this is enabled the editor will insert tabulator characters when you press the key or use automatic indentation.
Spaces 	 When this is enabled the editor will insert a calculated number of spaces according to the position in the text and the tab-width setting when you press the key or use automatic indentation.
Tabulators and Spaces 	 When this is enabled, the editor will insert spaces as describe above when indenting or pressing at the beginning of a line, but insert tabulators when the key is pressed in the middle or end of a line.
Tab width: 	 This configures the number of spaces that are displayed in place of a tabulator character.
Indentation width: 	 The indentation width is the number of spaces which is used to indent a line. If configured to indent using tabulators, a tabulator character is inserted if the indentation is divisible by the tab width.
Indentation Properties 	
Keep extra spaces 	If this option is disabled, changing the indentation level aligns a line to a multiple of the width specified in Indentation width.
Adjust indentation of text pasted from the clipboard 	 If this option is selected, text pasted from the clipboard is indented. Triggering the Undo action removes the indentation.
Indentation Actions 	
Backspace key in leading blank space unindents 	 If this option is selected, the key decreases the indentation level if the cursor is located in the leading blank space of a line.
Tab key action (if no selection exists) 	 If you want to align the current line in the current code block like in emacs, make a shortcut to the action Align.
Always advance to the next tab position 	 If this option is selected, the key always inserts white space so that the next tab position is reached. If the option Insert spaces instead of tabulators on the General tab in the Editing page is enabled, spaces are inserted; otherwise, a single tabulator is inserted.
Always increase indentation level 	 If this option is selected, the key always indents the current line by the number of character positions specified in Indentation width.
Increase indentation level if in leading blank space 	 If this option is selected, the key either indents the current line or advances to the next tab position. If the insertion point is at or before the first non-space character in the line, or if there is a selection, the current line is indented by the number of character positions specified in Indentation width. If the insertion point is located after the first non-space character in the line and there is no selection, white space is inserted so that the next tab position is reached: if the option Insert spaces instead of tabulators on the General tab in the Editing page is enabled, spaces are inserted; otherwise, a single tabulator is inserted.

Auto Completion
General 	
Enable auto completion 	 If enabled, a word completion box automatically pops up during typing showing a list of text entries to complete the current text under the cursor.
Minimal word length to complete 	While typing text, the word completion searches for words in the document starting with the already typed text. This option configures the minimal amount of characters that are needed to make the word completion active and pop up a completion box.
Remove tail on complete 	Remove the tail of a previous word when the completion item is chosen from a list.
Keyword completion 	If enabled, the built-in autocompletion uses the keywords defined by the syntax highlighting.

Spellcheck
These configuration options are described in the documentation for the module Spell Checker.

Vi Input Mode
General 	
Let Vi commands override Kate shortcuts 	 When selected, Vi commands will override 's built-in commands. For example: R will redo, and override the standard action (showing the search and replace dialog).
Display relative line numbers 	if this is enabled, the current line always refers to line 0. Lines above and below increase the line number relatively.
Key Mapping 	 Key mapping is used to change the meaning of typed keys. This allows you to move commands to other keys or make special keypresses for doing a series of commands.
Example:
F2 -> I--
This will prepend I-- to a line when pressing F2.

Open/Save

General
File Format 	
Encoding 	 This defines the standard encoding to use to open/save files, if not changed in the open/save dialog or by using a command line option.
Encoding Detection 	 Select an item from the drop down box, either to disable autodetection or use Universal to enable autodetection for all encodings. But as this may probably only detect utf-8/utf-16, selecting a region will use custom heuristics for better results. If neither the encoding chosen as standard above, nor the encoding specified in the open/save dialog, nor the encoding specified on command line match the content of the file, this detection will be run.
Fallback Encoding 	 This defines the fallback encoding to try for opening files if neither the encoding chosen as standard above, nor the encoding specified in the open/ save dialog, nor the encoding specified on command line match the content of the file. Before this is used, an attempt will be made to determine the encoding to use by looking for a byte order mark at start of file: if one is found, the right unicode encoding will be chosen; otherwise encoding detection will run, if both fail fallback encoding will be tried.
End of line 	 Choose your preferred end of line mode for your active document. You have the choice between , DOS/ or Macintosh.
Automatic end of line detection 	 Check this if you want the editor to autodetect the end of line type. The first found end of line type will be used for the whole file.
Enable byte order mark (BOM) 	 The byte order mark is a special sequence at the beginning of unicode encoded documents. It helps editors to open text documents with the correct unicode encoding. For more information see Byte Order Mark.
Line Length Limit 	 Unfortunately, due to deficiencies in , experiences poor performance when working with extremely long lines. For that reason, will automatically wrap lines when they are longer than the number of characters specified here. To disable this, set this to 0.
Automatic Cleanups on Save 	
Remove trailing spaces 	 The editor will automatically eliminate extra spaces at the ends of lines of text while saving the file. You can select Never to disable this functionality, On Modified Lines to do so only on lines that you have modified since you last saved the document, or In Entire Document to remove them unconditionally from the entire document.
Append newline at end of file on save 	 The editor will automatically append a newline to the end of the file if one is not already present upon saving the file.

Advanced
Backup on Save 	Backing up on save will cause to copy the disk file to <prefix><filename><suffix> before saving changes. The suffix defaults to ~ and prefix is empty by default.
Local files 	 Check this if you want backups of local files when saving.
Remote files 	 Check this if you want backups of remote files when saving.
Prefix 	 Enter the prefix to prepend to the backup file names.
Suffix 	 Enter the suffix to add to the backup file names.
Swap file options 	 is able to recover (most of) what was written after last save in case of a crash or power failure. A swap file (.swp.<filename>) is created after the first editing action on a document. If the user doesn’t save the changes and crashes, the swap file remains on the disk. When opening a file, checks if there is a swap file for the document and if it is, it asks the user whether he wants to recover the lost data or not. The user has the possibility to view the differences between the original file and the recovered one, too. The swap file is deleted after every save and on normal exit.
syncs the swap files on the disk every 15 seconds, but only if they have changed since the last sync. The user can disable the swap files syncing if he wants, by selecting Disable, but this can lead to more data loss.
When enabled, the swap files are saved in the same folder as the file. When Alternative Directory is chosen, swap files are created in the specified folder. This is useful for network file systems to avoid unnecessary network traffic.

Modes & Filetypes
This page allows you to override the default configuration for documents of specified mimetypes. When the editor loads a document, it will try if it matches the file masks or mimetypes for one of the defined filetypes, and if so apply the variables defined. If more filetypes match, the one with the highest priority will be used.
Filetype: 	The filetype with the highest priority is the one displayed in the first drop down box. If more filetypes were found, they are also listed.
New 	This is used to create a new filetype. After you click on this button, the fields below get empty and you can fill the properties you want for the new filetype.
Delete 	To remove an existing filetype, select it from the drop down box and press the Delete button.
Properties of current filetype 	The filetype with the highest priority is the one displayed in the first drop down box. If more filetypes were found, they are also listed.
Name: 	The name of the filetype will be the text of the corresponding menu item. This name is displayed in the Tools Filetypes
Section: 	The section name is used to organize the file types in menus. This is also used in the Tools Filetypes menu.
Variables: 	This string allows you to configure 's settings for the files selected by this mimetype using variables. You can set almost any configuration option, such as highlight, indent-mode, etc.
Press Edit to see a list of all available variables and their descriptions. Select the checkbox on the left to enable a particular variable and then set the value of the variable on the right. Some variables provide a drop-down box to select possible values from while others require you to enter a valid value manually.
For complete information on these variables, see Configuring with Document Variables.
Highlighting: 	If you create a new file type, this drop down box allows you to select a filetype for highlighting.
Indentation Mode: 	The drop down box specifies the indentation mode for new documents.
File extensions: 	The wildcards mask allows you to select files by filename. A typical mask uses an asterisk and the file extension, for example *.txt; *.text. The string is a semicolon-separated list of masks.
MIME types: 	Displays a wizard that helps you easily select mimetypes.
Priority: 	Sets a priority for this file type. If more than one file type selects the same file, the one with the highest priority will be used.
Download Highlighting Files... 	 Click this button to download new or updated syntax highlight descriptions from the website.

Configuring With Document Variables
variables is 's implementation of document variables, similar to and vi modelines. In katepart, the lines have the following format: kate: VARIABLENAME VALUE; [ VARIABLENAME VALUE; ... ] The lines can of course be in a comment, if the file is in a format with comments. Variable names are single words (no whitespace), and anything up to the next semicolon is the value. The semicolon is required.
Here is an example variable line, forcing indentation settings for a C++, java or javascript file:

// kate: replace-tabs on; indent-width 4; indent-mode cstyle;

Only the first and last 10 lines are searched for variable lines.
Additionally, document variables can be placed in a file called .kateconfig in any directory, and the configured settings will be applied as if the modelines were entered on every file in the directory and its subdirectories. Document variables in .kateconfig use the same syntax as in modelines, but with extended options.
There are variables to support almost all configurations in , and additionally plugins can use variables, in which case it should be documented in the plugin's documentation.
has support for reading configurations from .editorconfig files, when the editorconfig library is installed. automatically searches for a .editorconfig whenever you open a file. It gives priority to .kateconfig files, though.

How uses Variables
When reading configuration, katepart looks in the following places (in that order):
The global configuration.
Optional session data.
The "Filetype" configuration.
Document variables in .kateconfig.
Document variables in the document itself.
Settings made during editing from menu or command line.
As you can see, document variables are only overridden by changes made at runtime. Whenever a document is saved, the document variables are reread, and will overwrite changes made using menu items or the command line.
Any variable not listed below is stored in the document and can be queried by other objects such as plugins, which can use them for their own purpose. For example, the variable indent mode uses document variables for its configuration.
The variables listed here documents version 5.38. More variables may be added in the future. There are 3 possible types of values for variables, with the following valid expressions:
BOOL - on|off|true|false|1|0
INTEGER - any integer number
STRING - anything else

Available Variables
auto-brackets BOOL
	Enable automatic insertion of brackets.
auto-center-lines INT
	Set the number of autocenter lines.
background-color STRING
	Set the document background color. The value must be something that can be evaluated to a valid color, for example #ff0000.
backspace-indents BOOL
	Enable or disable unindenting when is pressed.
block-selection BOOL
	Turn block selection on or off.
bom | byte-order-mark | byte-order-marker BOOL
	Enable/disable the byte order mark (BOM) when saving files in Unicode format (utf8, utf16, utf32).
Since: 3.4 ( 4.4)
bracket-highlight-color STRING
	Set the color for the bracket highlight. The value must be something that can be evaluated to a valid color, for example #ff0000.
current-line-color STRING
	Set the color for the current line. The value must be something that can be evaluated to a valid color, for example #ff0000.
default-dictionary STRING
	Sets the default dictionary used for spellchecking.
Since: 3.4 ( 4.4)
dynamic-word-wrap BOOL
	Turns dynamic word wrap on or off.
eol | end-of-line STRING
	Set the end of line mode. Valid settings are unix, mac and dos.
folding-markers BOOL
	Set the display of folding markers on or off.
folding-preview BOOL
	Enable folding preview in the editor border.
font-size INT
	Set the point size of the document font.
font STRING
	Set the font of the document. The value should be a valid font name, for example courier.
hl | syntax STRING
	Set the syntax highlighting. Valid strings are all the names available in the menus. For instance, for C++ simply write C++.
icon-bar-color STRING
	Set the icon bar color. The value must be something that can be evaluated to a valid color, for example #ff0000.
icon-border BOOL
	Set the display of the icon border on or off.
indent-mode STRING
	Set the auto-indentation mode. The options none, normal, cstyle, haskell, lilypond, lisp, python, ruby and xml are recognized. See the section for details.
indent-pasted-text BOOL
	Enable/disable adjusting indentation of text pasted from the clipboard.
Since: 3.11 ( 4.11)
indent-width INT
	Set the indentation width.
keep-extra-spaces BOOL
	Set whether to keep extra spaces when calculating indentation width.
line-numbers BOOL
	Set the display of line numbers on or off.
newline-at-eof BOOL
	Add an empty line at the end of the file (EOF) when saving the document.
Since: 3.9 ( 4.9)
overwrite-mode BOOL
	Set overwrite mode on or off.
persistent-selection BOOL
	Set persistent selection on or off.
replace-tabs-save BOOL
	Set tab to space conversion on save on or off.
replace-tabs BOOL
	Set dynamic tab to space conversion on or off.
remove-trailing-spaces STRING
	Removes trailing spaces when saving the document. Valid options are:
none, - or 0: never remove trailing spaces.
modified, mod, + or 1: remove trailing spaces only in modified lines. The modified lines are marked by the line modification system.
all, * or 2: remove trailing spaces in the entire document.
Since: 4.10.
scrollbar-minimap BOOL
	Show scrollbar minimap.
scrollbar-preview BOOL
	Show scrollbar preview.
scheme STRING
	Set the color scheme. The string must be the name of a color scheme that exists in your configuration to have any effect.
selection-color STRING
	Set the selection color. The value must be something that can be evaluated to a valid color, for example #ff0000.
show-tabs BOOL
	Set the visual tab character on or off.
smart-home BOOL
	Set smart home navigation on or off.
tab-indents BOOL
	Set key indentation on or off.
tab-width INT
	Set the tab character display width.
undo-steps INT
	Set the number of undo steps to remember.
Note: Deprecated since 3 in 4. This variable is ignored. The maximal count of undo steps is unlimited.
word-wrap-column INT
	Set the static word wrap width.
word-wrap-marker-color STRING
	Set the word wrap marker color. The value must be something that can be evaluated to a valid color, for example #ff0000.
word-wrap BOOL
	Set static word wrapping on or off.

Extended Options in .kateconfig files
always search for a .kateconfig file for local files (not remote files). In addition, it is possible to set options based on wildcards (file extensions) as follows:

kate: tab-width 4; indent-width 4; replace-tabs on;
kate-wildcard(*.xml): indent-width 2;
kate-wildcard(Makefile): replace-tabs off;

In this example, all files use a tab-width of 4 spaces, an indent-width of 4 spaces, and tabs are replaced expanded to spaces. However, for all *.xml files, the indent width is set to 2 spaces. And Makefiles use tabs, tabs are not replaced with spaces.
Wildcards are semicolon separated, you can also specify multiple file extensions as follows:

kate-wildcard(*.json;*.xml): indent-width 2;

Further, you can also use the mimetype to match certain files, ⪚ to indent all C++ source files with 4 spaces, you can write:

kate-mimetype(text/x-c++src): indent-width 4;

Next to the support in .kateconfig files, wildcard and mimetype dependent document variables are also supported in the files itself as comments.