Posts tagged: vim Archive

tpope vim-speeddating

2026-01-04T16:59:33Z

Today I discovered vim-speeddating by tpope. I’m sure I’ve seen years ago but it did not click for my workflow until today. I often go through pictures from my phone for the past few days and make Posts tagged: shots posts, but I want to date them to about when the image was taken most of the time. This allows me to quickly bump days up and down using c-a and c-x even around the new year.

Your browser does not support the video tag.

Sound on, listen to those new switches.

vim noa

2025-08-29T08:32:44Z

Vim :noa is a command that runs what you call without autocommands on. This is typically used when you have some BufWritePre commands for formatting, most auto formatters are implemented this way in vim. It can be super useful if you have something like a yaml/json file that you have crafted perfectly how you want it, maybe it has some source code for a small script or sql embeded and your formatter wants to turn it into one line. You could get a better formatter, but for these one off cases that aren’t a big bother to me I run :noa w.

:noa w

fixed long standing nvim startup error

2025-02-13T08:41:39Z

Here’s the diff, this is it.

  local M = {}


  M.setup = require("waylonwalker.setup")
  M.settings = require("waylonwalker.settings")
+ M.lazy = require("waylonwalker.lazy")
  M.options = require("waylonwalker.options")
  M.globals = require("waylonwalker.globals")
  M.keymap = require("waylonwalker.keymap")
- M.lazy = require("waylonwalker.lazy")
  M.autocmds = require("waylonwalker.autocmds")
  M.util = require("waylonwalker.util")
  M.plugins = require("waylonwalker.plugins")
  M.snippets = require("waylonwalker.snippets")

  return M

The error #

On first install of my dotfiles I’m presenting with this flashbang of an error filling the screen with red background. Its kinda hard to read, I’m not deep into lua and reading their tracebacks. It pops up in this pager that if I scroll too far it quits and the error is gone before I know what it is or how it got there.

For the longest time it just felt like it randomly showed up without much warning.

I sent ai at the issue #

I tried some chatgpt and windsurf, both gave me overconfident answers that all did nothing. They just sent me in loops for way too long.

I fixed it #

What did it take??

Just sitting down and thinking about what the problem was and setting up a good test workflow. Yesterday I worked out testing nvim installs and I was immediately able to replicate the error over and over. Unlike before where it felt random, I now have a good problem statement that I can replicate.

clean install
start nvim
Lazy pops up
FLASHBANG!! Error that treesitter is not installed

What was confusing for so long was that treesitter was the first thing in lazy, and it appeared that lazy was running before the error.

The fix #

Once I really thought about not installed, it clicked. It must be the order of operations. I popped open my init.lua and there it was, lazy running after things that use treesitter. A little d+d+k+k+k+k+k+p and it was fixed. running just testnvim the next time there was no flashbang!

  local M = {}


  M.setup = require("waylonwalker.setup")
  M.settings = require("waylonwalker.settings")
+ M.lazy = require("waylonwalker.lazy")
  M.options = require("waylonwalker.options")
  M.globals = require("waylonwalker.globals")
  M.keymap = require("waylonwalker.keymap")
- M.lazy = require("waylonwalker.lazy")
  M.autocmds = require("waylonwalker.autocmds")
  M.util = require("waylonwalker.util")
  M.plugins = require("waylonwalker.plugins")
  M.snippets = require("waylonwalker.snippets")

  return M

vim date

2025-02-12T12:51:00Z

When I want to put a date in a document like a blog post from vim I use !!date from insert mode. Note that entering !! from normal mode puts you in command mode with :.! filled out. This runs a shell command, i.e. date for this example.

It outputs the following

Fri Jan 31 08:46:11 PM CST 2025

You can also pass in a date such as tommorrow by pasdding in the -d date -d tomorrow.

It outputs the following

Sat Feb 1 08:53:20 PM CST 2025

codeium just taught me this one with autocomplete

:put =strftime('%Y-%m-%d')

This outputs the following

2025-01-31

What I like about the :put =strftime( method is that you can add a format, but that is a lot more for me to remember than !!date

A few weeks later #

I’m going through a bunch of blog posts and dont want my date formats to change to the Wed Feb format so I broke down and made these keybindings. I think I’m still going to be using .!date a lot, but these keybindings will be nice for editing blog post frontmatter.

set("n", "<leader>dd", "<cmd>put =strftime('%Y-%m-%d')<cr>", { noremap = true, silent = true })
set("n", "<leader>dt", "<cmd>put =strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')<cr>", { noremap = true, silent = true })

dd 2025-02-12
dt 2025-02-12 12:53:47
:.!date Wed Feb 12 12:53:47 PM CST 2025

nvim-manager

2025-01-12T21:14:19Z

I recently built a cli application as a nearly-one-shot-app called nvim-manager. It manages your nvim dotfiles install.

Why #

How is nvim manager any better #

nvim-manager allows you to install pinned versions of your dotfiles, your friends dotfiles, and distros in ~/.config. This allows you to have stable versions that will not break installed while you change things.

I’m sure most of us have experienced the pain of installing one plugin, only to update all of your plugins and break something.

Or, you have small changes on every machine you use, because they are all just a bit different and now you have big merge conflicts to deal with.

All of this aside you can install a distro to get you by, or a known working version of your own dotfiles.

So all these versions in ~/.config #

ya, thats the magic of NVIM_APPNAME, I can boot up any of these intalled working versions in an instant with NVIM_APPNAME=nvim-waylonwalker-v0.0.1 nvim. I can still cowboy up and break my main install, but as long as I am diligent to keep these installs untouched I will always have a version to fall back to in that moment of need.

So what do I need to do? #

start tagging your dotfiles as you hit stable versions
Install curl https://i.jpillora.com/waylonwalker/nvim-manager | bash
Add some env variables to your shell startup (~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc for example)
Install that pinned version of your dotfiles nvim-manager install v0.0.1
Install a distro nvim-manager install --distro astronvim

Here are those environment variables I was talking about, set them to use your dotfiles repo, name it what you like, and set your NVIM_APPNAME if you want to default to a stable nvim and force yourself to unset NVIM_APPNAME to live on the edge.

Install nvim-manager #

apt install curl git unzip
curl https://i.jpillora.com/MordechaiHadad/bob | bash
bob install nightly
bob use nightly
ln -s ~/.local/share/bob/nvim-bin/nvim ~/.local/bin
curl https://i.jpillora.com/waylonwalker/nvim-manager | bash

Install your own dotfiles #

Setup with the following environment variables.

# nvim-manager
export NVIM_MANAGER_REPO=https://github.com/WaylonWalker/devtainer
export NVIM_CONFIG_PATH=nvim/.config/nvim
export NVIM_MANAGER_INSTALL_DIR=$HOME/.config
export NVIM_MANAGER_PREFIX="nvim-waylonwalker"
export NVIM_APPNAME=${NVIM_MANAGER_PREFIX}-v0.0.1

nvim-manager install v0.0.1
nvim

Note I like installer by jpillora, I self host it for my own security, but feel free to download from GH if it makes you feel safer.

Ubuntu Container Speedrun #

Here is a speedrun to getting nvim up and running in an ubuntu container.

set -euxo
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
export PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin
apt update
apt install curl git unzip -y
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
curl https://i.jpillora.com/MordechaiHadad/bob | bash
mv bob ~/.local/bin
bob install nightly
bob use nightly
ln -s ~/.local/share/bob/nvim-bin/nvim ~/.local/bin
curl https://i.jpillora.com/waylonwalker/nvim-manager | bash
mv nvim-manager ~/.local/bin
export NVIM_MANAGER_REPO=https://github.com/WaylonWalker/devtainer
export NVIM_CONFIG_PATH=nvim/.config/nvim
export NVIM_MANAGER_INSTALL_DIR=$HOME/.config
export NVIM_MANAGER_PREFIX="nvim-waylonwalker"
export NVIM_APPNAME=${NVIM_MANAGER_PREFIX}-v0.0.1
nvim-manager install v0.0.1
nvim-manager install --distro lazyvim
nvim-manager install --distro astronvim
nvim-manager install --distro nvchad
nvim-manager install --distro kickstart
nvim-manager install --distro lunarvim

# plugins like treesiter need gcc and make
apt install gcc make -y
export TZ="America/Chicago"
export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
apt update
apt install tzdata -y
ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TZ /etc/localtime
dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata
# Some of the mason installs need npm
apt install nodejs npm -y
# plugins like telescope require ripgrep
apt install fzf ripgrep -y

Give it a Star #

I’d appreciate a star if you find this app useful.

https://github.com/waylonwalker/nvim-manager

💭 Support regex substitution command · Issue #2232 · helix-edito...

2024-10-08T13:36:25Z

Support regex substitution command · Issue #2232 · helix-editor/helix

Support regex substitution, comparable to vim :s or VSCode search & replace. I propose supporting regex replacements for selection s, files/, and the workspace scopes <space> + /. This could be acc...

GitHub · github.com

Here is a really good vim substitute with regex capture groups, saving this one for a rainy day.

* Reading 1: This is a title to a link
* Reading 2: This is another title

:%s/\v(: )(.+)$/\1\[\2\]\(

* Reading 1: [This is a title to a link](
* Reading 2: [This is another title](

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

Vim-gq

2024-08-05T12:22:00Z

Vim has a handy feature to format text with gq. You can use it in visual mode, give it a motion, or if you give it gqq it will format the current line. I use this quite often while writing in markdown, I do not use softwraps in vim, so gqq quickly formats my current line into a paragraph. Once I have done this for a single line one time I typically switch to the motion for around paragraph gqap to format the whole paragraph and not just the current line.

before formatting #

after formattting #

💭 Find And Replace one eyed kirby

2024-06-30T17:30:38Z

another great use and demo of the one eyed fighting kirby

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

Refactoring one line links into wikilinks

2024-05-31T20:33:10Z

Previously I had setup a feature of my website to expand one line links into a card. This was not a standard, even to the point that some formatters wrap the links with , thus breaking my custom plugin. Moving to the wikilink standard will allow my markdown posts to work accross more site builders without custom integrations.

Expand One Line Links

What is a wikilink #

Wikilinks are standard to a lot of wikis written in markdown.

markdown-it-wikilinks

The wikilink syntax is a slug wrapped in double square brackets.

[[ slug ]]

Marksman lsp will even autocomplete these for you, its pretty sweet.

Note

 I recently implemented hover for wikilinks and and am pretty stoked about the

result. Check this one out sick wikilink hover.

Vim Quickfix #

You could use vimgrep to fill your quickfix list will all of the one line links but I am less familiar with vimgrep and kept missing posts for some reason, I think it was something in my file glob missing some directories.

I chose to use cexpr to fill my quickfix list using a command that outputs a vimgrep format filename:line:col:msg

:cexpr system('rg ^<https -t md --vimgrep .')

This filled my quickfix list with all of the one line links.

Vim cdo #

Now all I needed to do was to run a substitution command on every line in the quickfix list. This one features the one eyed fighting kirby that I learned from the primeagen [[ thoughts-200 ]].

:cdo s/\(^https:\/\/waylonwalker.com\/\)\(.*\)/[[ \2 ]]

This converts all of the full links into a slug wrapped in double square brackets.

More #

There was a bit more to the full refactor, for instance some had a til/ preix, some were for youtube, and some were not pointed to my site.

💭 My harpoon config

2024-04-16T01:34:38Z

![[None]]

Install it

	{
		"ThePrimeagen/harpoon",
		branch = "harpoon2",
		dependencies = { "nvim-lua/plenary.nvim" },
		config = function()
			require("waylonwalker.plugins.harpoon").setup()
		end,
	},

harpoon config

local harpoon = require("harpoon")
M = {}

M.setup = function()

-- REQUIRED
harpoon:setup()
-- REQUIRED

vim.keymap.set("n", "<F10>", function() harpoon:list():append() end)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<F9>", function() harpoon.ui:toggle_quick_menu(harpoon:list()) end)

vim.keymap.set("n", "<F1>", function() harpoon:list():select(1) end)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<F2>", function() harpoon:list():select(2) end)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<F3>", function() harpoon:list():select(3) end)
-- these are cnext/cprev
-- vim.keymap.set("n", "<F4>", function() harpoon:list():select(4) end)
-- vim.keymap.set("n", "<F5>", function() harpoon:list():select(5) end)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<F6>", function() harpoon:list():select(6) end)

-- Toggle previous & next buffers stored within Harpoon list
vim.keymap.set("n", "<F7>", function() harpoon:list():prev() end)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<F8>", function() harpoon:list():next() end)

-- basic telescope configuration
local conf = require("telescope.config").values
local function toggle_telescope(harpoon_files)
    local file_paths = {}
    for _, item in ipairs(harpoon_files.items) do
        table.insert(file_paths, item.value)
    end

    require("telescope.pickers").new({}, {
        prompt_title = "Harpoon",
        finder = require("telescope.finders").new_table({
            results = file_paths,
        }),
        previewer = conf.file_previewer({}),
        sorter = conf.generic_sorter({}),
    }):find()
end

vim.keymap.set("n", "<C-e>", function() toggle_telescope(harpoon:list()) end,
    { desc = "Open harpoon window" })

end

return M

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 From Vim To Zed - YouTube

2024-04-13T13:42:56Z

I found this statement quite intriguing.

multi-cursors are just macros.

This is quite a philisophical video and mostly prime talking about the things that make vim vim, and what prime needs in and editor vs what he can live without.

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 The One Eyed Fighting Kirby

2024-01-26T17:21:06Z

I’ve heard prime say just give it the one eyed fighting kirby so many times, and execute it few times, and there is no way to find it online, so this will be the link that I will come to, when I need to remember what @theprimeagen means when he says Give it the one eyed fighting kirby.

:s/\(.*\);/console.log(\1)

So what is this? #

This is a vim substitute comand to replace text in the buffer. the one eyed fighting kirby is a regex capture group to capture everything between matches, and assign it a value to place back in after the match.

substitute in a nutshell, :s/<what you want to replace>/<what you want to replace with>

More examples #

Here is a contrived example of text.

here there
from here go there
here = some_fuction(there)

Now for some reason I want to switch all of the words here and there. I can do that with three capture groups, \1 is here, \2 is everything between, \3 is there.

:%s/\(here\)\(.*\)\(there\)/\3\2\1

Just give it the one eyed fighting kirby

~Prime

still struggling #

I thought this explaination from phind was good and more verbose than mine.

describe this vim substitute regex

:%s/(here)(.)(there)/\3\2\1 ANSWER | PHIND V9 MODEL The given Vim substitute regex :%s/(here)(.)(there)/\3\2\1 performs the following operation:

%s initiates the substitute command. The percent sign % indicates that the operation should be performed across the entire file, not just the current line 2. (here) is a capturing group that matches the word “here”. The parentheses ( and ) are used to define a group, and the content inside them is what the group will match 3. (.) is another capturing group that matches any sequence of characters. The . inside the group is a wildcard that matches any character (except a newline), and the * quantifier means “zero or more of the preceding element”. So, this group will match any sequence of characters 2. (there) is yet another capturing group that matches the word “there”. This group will match the word “there” that appears after the word “here” and any sequence of characters 3. /\3\2\1 is the replacement part of the command. Here, \3, \2, and \1 are backreferences to the matched groups. They correspond to the words “there”, any sequence of characters, and “here”, in that order. So, this command replaces the matched pattern with the word “there”, followed by any sequence of characters, and ending with the word “here” 4. So, in summary, this command searches for the pattern “here”, followed by any sequence of characters, and ending with “there”, and replaces it with the same pattern but reversed (“there”, followed by the original sequence of characters, and ending with “here”).

I used this techniq on Refactoring one line links into wikilinks.

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

nvim stupid gf bind

2023-12-28T10:04:57Z

So after months of fighting with gf not going to template files, I finally decided to put in some effort to make it work.

This was the dumbest keybind in my config, that I copied from someone else without understanding it.

What I am trying to do #

I have jinja templates in a directory called templates. I want to bind gf to open a template file, but it is trying to open a new file ./base.html

{% extends "base.html" %}
{% if request.state.user %}
    {% block title %}Fokais - {{ request.state.user.full_name }} {% endblock %}
{% else %}
    {% block title %}Fokais {% endblock %}
{% endif %}
{% block content %}
    {% if request.state.user %}
        <h1 id="title"
            class="inline-block mx-auto text-5xl font-black leading-loose
            text-transparent bg-clip-text bg-gradient-to-r from-red-600
            via-pink-500 to-yellow-400 ring-red-500 text-shadow-xl
            text-shadow-zinc-950 ring-5">
            {{ request.state.user.full_name }}
        </h1>
    {% endif %}
    {% include "me_partial.html" %}
{% endblock %}

What did not work #

I tried all sorts of changes to my path, but it still didn’t work.

vim.api.nvim_command("set path+=templates/**")

What I found #

after digging into my keymap I found that I had remaped gf to edit years ago. This works great if the file is in your current directory, and if it’s not it makes the file. This bind completely breaks vim’s ability to :find files and was a terrible keybind that I added probably from someone else years ago and have literally never used this feature. If gf opens an empty file I always close it and assume that vim failed to :find the file.

-- Allow gf to open non-existent files
set("", "gf", ":edit <cfile><CR>")

Yes, after that fix I still needed to adjust my path #

I ended up with the following in my options.lua.

-- look for jinja templates in the templates directory
vim.opt.path:append("templates/**")

💭 Diagnostic - Neovim docs

2023-10-25T14:01:06Z

https://neovim.io/doc/user/diagnostic/

neovim.io

Clear out lsp diagnostics in nvim.

lua vim.diagnostic.reset()

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 Bob Belderbos on X: "Forget Python for a sec, here's how Vim h...

2023-10-05T01:34:19Z

External Link

X (formerly Twitter) · twitter.com

I need to learn regex capture groups better. This is so dang powerful. I really like the \v that bob uses here, it really does cut down on the terseness of all the special characters.

I wanted to replace all occurrences of:

name,name@example.com,0,171,,2023-09-21

With:

name,name@example.com

Easy to do with Python, but what about a bit of > regex in Vim?

:%s/\v([^,]+,[^,]+),.*/\1/

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 Formatting on save · jose-elias-alvarez/null-ls.nvim Wiki

2023-08-06T01:19:23Z

Formatting on save

Use Neovim as a language server to inject LSP diagnostics, code actions, and more via Lua. - jose-elias-alvarez/null-ls.nvim

GitHub · github.com

neovim stopped formatting on save for me awhile ago and I have just been dealing with it. looks like there may have been an api change, idk.

I had to make this update.4

- vim.lsp.buf.format()
+ vim.lsp.buf.format({async=false})

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 LazyVim Installation

2023-07-28T14:59:37Z

🛠️ Installation | LazyVim

You can find a starter template for LazyVim here

lazyvim.org

Lately in 2023 I have been leaning on lazyvim for my new setups where I am not necessarily ready to drop my full config. It’s been pretty solid, and comes with a very nice setup out of the box, the docs are pretty fantastic as well.

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

extending vim with shell commands

2022-11-12T18:38:11Z

Vimconf 2022

The pitch #

Extending vim does not need to be complicated and can be done using cli tools that you might already be comfortable with. Examples, setting up codeformatters with autocmds, using lf/ranger as a tui file manager, generating new files using a template framework like cookiecutter/copier/yeoman, using ag to populate your quickfix.

run a command #

vimconf!!<esc>!!figlet

formatters #

local settings = require'waylonwalker.settings'

M.waylonwalker_augroup = augroup('waylonwalker', { clear = true })
M.format_python = function()
    if settings.auto_format.python then
        vim.cmd('silent execute "%!tidy-imports --black --quiet --replace-star-imports --replace --add-missing --remove-unused " . bufname("%")')
        vim.cmd('silent execute "%!isort " . bufname("%")')
        vim.cmd('silent execute "%!black " . bufname("%")')
    end
end

autocmd({ "BufWritePost" }, {
    group=M.waylonwalker_augroup,
    pattern = { "*.py" },
    callback = M.format_python,
})

vim.keymap.set('n', 'geit', '<cmd>terminal markata list --map path --filter \'"til" in path\' --fast --no-pager<cr>')

vim.keymap.set('n', 'geit', '<cmd>Telescope find_files find_command=markata,list,--map,path,--filter,date==today,--fast<cr>')

vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader>ee', '<cmd>vertical terminal lf<cr>')

FloatTerm #

vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader><leader>w', '<cmd>FloatermNew waylonwalker<cr>')
vim.g['floaterm_opener'] = 'vsplit'
vim.keymap.set('n', 'gee', '<cmd>FloatermNew lf<cr>')

vimgrep over hidden files #

I know all the files that I care to search for are called build.yml, and they are in a hidden directory.

:args `fd -H build.yml`
:vimgrep /upload docs/ ##

Once opened as a buffer by using args, and a handy fd command I can vimgrep over all the open buffers using ##

Open buffers are represented by ##

Now I can just dap and :cnext my way through the list of changes that I have, and know that I hit every one of them when I am at the end of my list. And can double check this in about 10s by scrolling back through the quickfix list.

nvim navic

2022-10-27T20:13:20Z

With the latest release of version of nvim 0.8.0 we get access to a new winbar feature. One thing I have long wanted somewhere in my nvim is navigation for pairing partners or anyone watching can keep track of where I am. As the driver it’s easy to keep track of the file/function you are in. But when you make big jumps in a few keystrokes it can be quite disorienting to anyone watching, and having this feedback to look at is very helpful.

winbar #

nvim exposes the winbar api in lua, and you can send any text to the winbar as follows.

vim.o.winbar = "here"

You can try it for yourself right from the nvim command line.

:lua vim.o.winbar = "here"

Now you will notice one line above your file with the word here at the very beginning.

Clearing the winbar #

If you want to clear it out, you can just set it to an empty string or nil.

:lua vim.o.winbar = ""
:lua vim.o.winbar = nil

Setting up nvim-navic #

You will need to install nvim-navic if you want to use it. I added it to my plugins using Plug as follows.

call plug#begin('~/.local/share/nvim/plugged')
Plug 'SmiteshP/nvim-navic'
call plug#end()

Note! nvim-navic does require the use of the nvim lsp, so if you are not using it then maybe this won’t work for you.

I created an on_attach function long ago, cause that’s what Teej told me to do. Now I am glad I did, because it made this change super easy.

local function on_attach(client, bufnr)
    if client.server_capabilities.documentSymbolProvider then
        navic.attach(client, bufnr)
    end
end

Then you need to use that on_attach function on all of the lsp’s that you want navic to work on.

Then in a lua file you need to setup the winbar, for now I put this in my lsp-config settings file, but eventually I want to move my settings to lua and put it there.

vim.o.winbar = " %{%v:lua.vim.fn.expand('%F')%}  %{%v:lua.require'nvim-navic'.get_location()%}"

What my winbar looks like #

What I have right now is everything someone who is watching would need to know to navigate to the same place that I am in the project.

 waylonwalker/app.py   Link >  on_click

Diff #

Here are the changes that I made to to my plugins list and my lsp-config to get it.

 /home/u_walkews/.config/nvim/plugins.vim
call plug#begin('~/.local/share/nvim/plugged')
+Plug 'SmiteshP/nvim-navic'

#  /home/u_walkews/.config/nvim/lua/waylonwalker/lsp-config.lua
-local function on_attach() end
+local navic = require("nvim-navic")
+local function on_attach(client, bufnr)
+    if client.server_capabilities.documentSymbolProvider then
+        navic.attach(client, bufnr)
+    end
+end
+
+vim.o.winbar = " %{%v:lua.vim.fn.expand('%F')%}  %{%v:lua.require'nvim-navic'.get_location()%}"

GH commit #

If you want to see the change on GitHub, here is the diff

vimgrep open buffers

2022-08-22T13:17:32Z

How to vimgrep over hidden files.

I needed to delete all build pipeline steps that were named upload docs. I currently have about 60 projects running from the same template all running very similar builds. In the past I’ve scripted out migrations for large changes like this, they involved writing a python script that would load the yaml file into a dictionary, find the corresponding steps make the change and write it back out.

Today’s job was much simplar, just delete the step, were all steps are surrounded by newlines. My first thought was to just open all files in vim and run dap. I just needed to get these files:positions into my quickfix. My issue is that all the builds reside within hidden directories by convention.

The issue #

variability

After searching through all the projects it was clear that all the steps were in their own paragraph, though I was not 100% confident enough to completely automate it, and the word upload docs was in the paragraph.

some were a two liner

- name: upload docs
  script: aws s3 ...

Some had a variation in the name

- name: upload docs to s3
  script: aws s3 ...

some were more than 2 lines.

- name: upload docs
  script: |
    aws s3 ...

some used a different command.

- name: upload docs
  script: |
    python ...

Templates are great #

but they change

Templates are amazing, and tools like cookiecutter and copier are essential in my workflow, but those templates change over time. Some things are a constant, and others like this one are an ever evolving beast until they are tamed into something the team is happy with.

vimgrep over hidden files #

I know all the files that I care to search for are called build.yml, and they are in a hidden directory.

:args `fd -H build.yml`
:vimgrep /upload docs/ ##

Once opened as a buffer by using args, and a handy fd command I can vimgrep over all the open buffers using ##

Open buffers are represented by ##

Vim points achieved #

You’re not a true vim enthusiast until you have spent 10 minutes writing a blog post about how vim saved you 5 minutes. Check out all the other times this has happened to me in the vim tag.

vim plugged snapshot

2022-05-13T19:56:38Z

A few of my friends and I all just borked our neovim configs during a plug update, and because none of us were using :PlugSnapshot it was painful to recover from.

https://twitter.com/pypeaday/status/1524882893914398732

Lucky for me I did it on a home machine that I only occasionally edit from, so I could still take the snapshot from a working machine before taking the plunge into fixing everying.

Why snapshot #

Snapshotting ensures that you install the same git sha on every single plugin. This way when you have multiple machines running your same vim config, they are all on the same sha of each plugin, and you dont end up with weird things happening on one machine. And then you get to decide when you are ready to update, rather than when it breaks.

same config everywhere
you control the update
in case of a borked update you have a good working place to rever to

Let’s snapshot #

Running :PlugSnapshot will generate the following content in a buffer that you can save. I chose to save mine in ~/.config/nvim/snapshot.vim.

" Generated by vim-plug
" Fri 13 May 2022 08:01:39 PM CDT
" :source this file in vim to restore the snapshot
" or execute: vim -S snapshot.vim

silent! let g:plugs['Telegraph.nvim'].commit = '92e472f4e83acd60eb3766168e66d02718bfefe0'
silent! let g:plugs['black'].commit = '8ed3e3d07ea3e6d62e3e533e69f96a0ff148cd5d'
silent! let g:plugs['bufutils.vim'].commit = '4634feb1312fd73fab66cfaa860e7af3abde935b'
silent! let g:plugs['cmp-buffer'].commit = 'd66c4c2d376e5be99db68d2362cd94d250987525'
silent! let g:plugs['cmp-calc'].commit = '970fd5f97b4bd363260365b217f694dd6a1182cb'
silent! let g:plugs['cmp-nvim-lsp'].commit = 'ebdfc204afb87f15ce3d3d3f5df0b8181443b5ba'
silent! let g:plugs['cmp-path'].commit = '466b6b8270f7ba89abd59f402c73f63c7331ff6e'
silent! let g:plugs['cmp-rg'].commit = 'fd92d70ff36b30924401b0cf7d4ce7344c8235f7'
silent! let g:plugs['cmp-vsnip'].commit = '0abfa1860f5e095a07c477da940cfcb0d273b700'
silent! let g:plugs['colorbuddy.nvim'].commit = 'cdb5b0654d3cafe61d2a845e15b2b4b0e78e752a'
silent! let g:plugs['compe-tmux'].commit = '3c16f7e73abee43b3ea3e919e8b34c24427d9530'
silent! let g:plugs['coverage-highlight.vim'].commit = '864e03679ea4168661501246147893cc82020917'
silent! let g:plugs['diffurcate.vim'].commit = 'b804675072220ff7c7ebcd24a028aa4aa35f09cc'
silent! let g:plugs['friendly-snippets'].commit = '5fd8b920a3497dec9a3ef939595186b362d041b4'
silent! let g:plugs['fzf'].commit = 'a91a67668e0830a8cf9a792c4949e03b4189f097'
silent! let g:plugs['fzf.vim'].commit = 'd5f1f8641b24c0fd5b10a299824362a2a1b20ae0'
silent! let g:plugs['gitsigns.nvim'].commit = 'ead0d48df801431b990d6b91fa210f7efa30ac38'
silent! let g:plugs['gruvbox-flat.nvim'].commit = '756dbdd3dfd3ed84acb2f9649724df19ae41f904'
silent! let g:plugs['harpoon'].commit = '28762aa04d6395538e26e1efff5213b26720e68f'
silent! let g:plugs['impatient.nvim'].commit = '2337df7d778e17a58d8709f651653b9039946d8d'
silent! let g:plugs['instant.nvim'].commit = 'c02d72267b12130609b7ad39b76cf7f4a3bc9554'
silent! let g:plugs['lsp_extensions.nvim'].commit = '4011f4aec61ba59c734f5dbf52e91f258b99d985'
silent! let g:plugs['lsp_signature.nvim'].commit = 'a351509512687293fd659ba4ee7e34412c3a8f70'
silent! let g:plugs['lspsaga.nvim'].commit = 'cb0e35d2e594ff7a9c408d2e382945d56336c040'
silent! let g:plugs['lualine.nvim'].commit = '18a07f790ed7ed1f11d1b130c02782e9dfd8dd7d'
silent! let g:plugs['nvim-cmp'].commit = '433af3dffce64cbd3f99bdac9734768a6cc41951'
silent! let g:plugs['nvim-compe'].commit = 'd186d739c54823e0b010feb205c6f97792322c08'
silent! let g:plugs['nvim-dap'].commit = 'd6d8317ce9e096029150bc5844916347a9af6f45'
silent! let g:plugs['nvim-dap-python'].commit = '4c7ea25f8ff6de6fa00bf5625d2e76753cced70f'
silent! let g:plugs['nvim-lspconfig'].commit = 'ad9903c66bac88f344890acb6532f63f1cd4dac3'
silent! let g:plugs['nvim-lspinstall'].commit = '79ec2425d6b39cdcb69d379f3e56847f49be73eb'
silent! let g:plugs['nvim-lsputils'].commit = 'ae1a4a62449863ad82c70713d5b6108f3a07917c'
silent! let g:plugs['nvim-spectre'].commit = '345e5dd57773e2b4b425a2515c831108b9808a0f'
silent! let g:plugs['nvim-tree.lua'].commit = 'ce463a53ae269544697c3dedd3d5beae05937405'
silent! let g:plugs['nvim-treesitter'].commit = '3c50297eca950b4b1a7c07b28e586b0576c0a796'
silent! let g:plugs['nvim-web-devicons'].commit = '4febe73506268a02ff15a240abcd7bf3eb9234da'
silent! let g:plugs['onebuddy'].commit = '7e16006e7dde15e3cb72889f736c49409db6ff42'
silent! let g:plugs['onedark.nvim'].commit = 'e520a0c81a5a1997ecffd846ccd9c6e63b7859c6'
silent! let g:plugs['playground'].commit = '13e2d2d63ce7bc5d875e8bdf89cb070bc8cc7a00'
silent! let g:plugs['plenary.nvim'].commit = '9069d14a120cadb4f6825f76821533f2babcab92'
silent! let g:plugs['popfix'].commit = 'ea262861ce3905b90c2c203b74a7be2539f1aba4'
silent! let g:plugs['popup.nvim'].commit = 'b7404d35d5d3548a82149238289fa71f7f6de4ac'
silent! let g:plugs['refactoring.nvim'].commit = '94eaa199ad892f26d2c8594dbbc5656314cf5bdb'
silent! let g:plugs['stylua-nvim'].commit = '8bd7fa127367178dddb9ee06fdce1d7c622d2feb'
silent! let g:plugs['targets.vim'].commit = '8d6ff2984cdfaebe5b7a6eee8f226a6dd1226f2d'
silent! let g:plugs['telescope-dap.nvim'].commit = 'b4134fff5cbaf3b876e6011212ed60646e56f060'
silent! let g:plugs['telescope.nvim'].commit = '8b02088743c07c2f82aec2772fbd2b3774195448'
silent! let g:plugs['termopen.vim'].commit = '3194a991a18a9be2fd9fcf8c4c55fe990c04b2bd'
silent! let g:plugs['undotree'].commit = '08e259be24d4476c1ee745dc735eefd44f90efdc'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-be-good'].commit = 'bc499a06c14c729b22a6cc7e730a9fbc44d4e737'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-commentary'].commit = '3654775824337f466109f00eaf6759760f65be34'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-dispatch'].commit = '00e77d90452e3c710014b26dc61ea919bc895e92'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-doge'].commit = '88d8dfacc3a5f3dfce82ef5221e5e6943e627d85'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-floaterm'].commit = '6244d1739aad6682c6c1d5db18c846c342af6e3e'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-fugitive'].commit = 'b5bbd0d181ebc3cea5c42bdaed13141850432ba1'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-indent-object'].commit = '5c5b24c959478929b54a9e831a8e2e651a465965'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-ipython-cell'].commit = 'f0548d9a8d5e31d5c7f73e8729b55e8eb402852f'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-log-highlighting'].commit = '1037e26f3120e6a6a2c0c33b14a84336dee2a78f'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-quicklink'].commit = '021167741588555501594e1fc31f130b16acefa0'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-repeat'].commit = '24afe922e6a05891756ecf331f39a1f6743d3d5a'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-signify'].commit = '69498f6d49f3eeac06870012416dd9bf867b84f3'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-slime'].commit = '0ea9b35882155996171fd15a5227e673ce2d2c60'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-sneak'].commit = '94c2de47ab301d476a2baec9ffda07367046bec9'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-surround'].commit = '81fc0ec460dd8b25a76346e09aecdbca2677f1a7'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-test'].commit = '2240d7a4b868cb594b7d83544e1b6db4df806e5e'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-tmux-runner'].commit = '54767911fd5e6e2d8e493847149e315ac2e6531a'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-ultest'].commit = 'a99eb0bdf7d901d538b5dd724e2ab3a958c1799c'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-visualstar'].commit = 'a18cd0e7a03311ac709595c1d261ed44b45c9098'
silent! let g:plugs['vim-vsnip'].commit = '8f199ef690ed26dcbb8973d9a6760d1332449ac9'

PlugUpdate!

NOTE! the PlugUpdate! at the end. I did not catch this at first, if you are like me and automatically source *.vim files on save, this will immediately run the update when you save it. If you just took the snapshot though I don’t think it will actually do anything.

Let’s Update #

Now without the snapshot sourced, I will not have any of my plugins pinned. When I run :PlugUpdate it will update all of my plugins to the latest versions. Then I can :PlugSnapshot again, and this will kick out an updated list of sha’s. I will yank this file yyG and paste it into my snapshot.vim file vGp.

Look at these updates #

We can see these updates with a little :G diff % on the file.

diff --git a/nvim/.config/nvim/snapshot.vim b/nvim/.config/nvim/snapshot.vim
index 88db2b0..837c8e4 100644
--- a/nvim/.config/nvim/snapshot.vim
+++ b/nvim/.config/nvim/snapshot.vim
@@ -1,14 +1,14 @@
 " Generated by vim-plug
-" Fri 13 May 2022 08:01:39 PM CDT
+" Fri 13 May 2022 08:22:17 PM CDT
 " :source this file in vim to restore the snapshot
 " or execute: vim -S snapshot.vim

 silent! let g:plugs['Telegraph.nvim'].commit = '92e472f4e83acd60eb3766168e66d02718bfefe0'
-silent! let g:plugs['black'].commit = '8ed3e3d07ea3e6d62e3e533e69f96a0ff148cd5d'
+silent! let g:plugs['black'].commit = '7f033136ac5e0e5bf6cf322dd60b4a92050eedc4'
 silent! let g:plugs['bufutils.vim'].commit = '4634feb1312fd73fab66cfaa860e7af3abde935b'
-silent! let g:plugs['cmp-buffer'].commit = 'd66c4c2d376e5be99db68d2362cd94d250987525'
-silent! let g:plugs['cmp-calc'].commit = '970fd5f97b4bd363260365b217f694dd6a1182cb'
-silent! let g:plugs['cmp-nvim-lsp'].commit = 'ebdfc204afb87f15ce3d3d3f5df0b8181443b5ba'
+silent! let g:plugs['cmp-buffer'].commit = '12463cfcd9b14052f9effccbf1d84caa7a2d57f0'
+silent! let g:plugs['cmp-calc'].commit = 'f7efc20768603bd9f9ae0ed073b1c129f63eb312'
+silent! let g:plugs['cmp-nvim-lsp'].commit = 'e6b5feb2e6560b61f31c756fb9231a0d7b10c73d'
 silent! let g:plugs['cmp-path'].commit = '466b6b8270f7ba89abd59f402c73f63c7331ff6e'
 silent! let g:plugs['cmp-rg'].commit = 'fd92d70ff36b30924401b0cf7d4ce7344c8235f7'
 silent! let g:plugs['cmp-vsnip'].commit = '0abfa1860f5e095a07c477da940cfcb0d273b700'
@@ -16,60 +16,60 @@ silent! let g:plugs['colorbuddy.nvim'].commit = 'cdb5b0654d3cafe61d2a845e15b2b4b
 silent! let g:plugs['compe-tmux'].commit = '3c16f7e73abee43b3ea3e919e8b34c24427d9530'
 silent! let g:plugs['coverage-highlight.vim'].commit = '864e03679ea4168661501246147893cc82020917'
 silent! let g:plugs['diffurcate.vim'].commit = 'b804675072220ff7c7ebcd24a028aa4aa35f09cc'
-silent! let g:plugs['friendly-snippets'].commit = '5fd8b920a3497dec9a3ef939595186b362d041b4'
-silent! let g:plugs['fzf'].commit = 'a91a67668e0830a8cf9a792c4949e03b4189f097'
+silent! let g:plugs['friendly-snippets'].commit = '627dea2ff1ee8d8a7e6ad365acb3e335c8b25574'
+silent! let g:plugs['fzf'].commit = '6dcf5c3d7d6c321b17e6a5673f1533d6e8350462'
 silent! let g:plugs['fzf.vim'].commit = 'd5f1f8641b24c0fd5b10a299824362a2a1b20ae0'
-silent! let g:plugs['gitsigns.nvim'].commit = 'ead0d48df801431b990d6b91fa210f7efa30ac38'
+silent! let g:plugs['gitsigns.nvim'].commit = 'ffd06e36f6067935d8cb9793905dd2e84e291310'
 silent! let g:plugs['gruvbox-flat.nvim'].commit = '756dbdd3dfd3ed84acb2f9649724df19ae41f904'
-silent! let g:plugs['harpoon'].commit = '28762aa04d6395538e26e1efff5213b26720e68f'
+silent! let g:plugs['harpoon'].commit = 'd3d3d22b6207f46f8ca64946f4d781e975aec0fc'
 silent! let g:plugs['impatient.nvim'].commit = '2337df7d778e17a58d8709f651653b9039946d8d'
 silent! let g:plugs['instant.nvim'].commit = 'c02d72267b12130609b7ad39b76cf7f4a3bc9554'
 silent! let g:plugs['lsp_extensions.nvim'].commit = '4011f4aec61ba59c734f5dbf52e91f258b99d985'
-silent! let g:plugs['lsp_signature.nvim'].commit = 'a351509512687293fd659ba4ee7e34412c3a8f70'
+silent! let g:plugs['lsp_signature.nvim'].commit = 'db324e2ada5bb795d0016ec0ef2b4ae7f11d8904'
 silent! let g:plugs['lspsaga.nvim'].commit = 'cb0e35d2e594ff7a9c408d2e382945d56336c040'
-silent! let g:plugs['lualine.nvim'].commit = '18a07f790ed7ed1f11d1b130c02782e9dfd8dd7d'
-silent! let g:plugs['nvim-cmp'].commit = '433af3dffce64cbd3f99bdac9734768a6cc41951'
+silent! let g:plugs['lualine.nvim'].commit = 'a4e4517ac32441dd92ba869944741f0b5f468531'
+silent! let g:plugs['nvim-cmp'].commit = '9a0c639ac2324e6e9ecc54dc22b1d32bb6c42ab9'
 silent! let g:plugs['nvim-compe'].commit = 'd186d739c54823e0b010feb205c6f97792322c08'
-silent! let g:plugs['nvim-dap'].commit = 'd6d8317ce9e096029150bc5844916347a9af6f45'
-silent! let g:plugs['nvim-dap-python'].commit = '4c7ea25f8ff6de6fa00bf5625d2e76753cced70f'
-silent! let g:plugs['nvim-lspconfig'].commit = 'ad9903c66bac88f344890acb6532f63f1cd4dac3'
+silent! let g:plugs['nvim-dap'].commit = '2249fcfd09cdc27c08e9d2f3be5268ba81db3378'
+silent! let g:plugs['nvim-dap-python'].commit = 'd96bcbf3803283456c900cf25ab0995e8d2f00c0'
+silent! let g:plugs['nvim-lspconfig'].commit = '9ff2a06cebd4c8c3af5259d713959ab310125bec'
 silent! let g:plugs['nvim-lspinstall'].commit = '79ec2425d6b39cdcb69d379f3e56847f49be73eb'
 silent! let g:plugs['nvim-lsputils'].commit = 'ae1a4a62449863ad82c70713d5b6108f3a07917c'
 silent! let g:plugs['nvim-spectre'].commit = '345e5dd57773e2b4b425a2515c831108b9808a0f'
-silent! let g:plugs['nvim-tree.lua'].commit = 'ce463a53ae269544697c3dedd3d5beae05937405'
-silent! let g:plugs['nvim-treesitter'].commit = '3c50297eca950b4b1a7c07b28e586b0576c0a796'
-silent! let g:plugs['nvim-web-devicons'].commit = '4febe73506268a02ff15a240abcd7bf3eb9234da'
+silent! let g:plugs['nvim-tree.lua'].commit = '82ec79aac5557c05728d88195fb0d008cacbf565'
+silent! let g:plugs['nvim-treesitter'].commit = 'f1373051e554cc4642cda719c8023e4e8508eb2d'
+silent! let g:plugs['nvim-web-devicons'].commit = 'bdd43421437f2ef037e0dafeaaaa62b31d35ef2f'
 silent! let g:plugs['onebuddy'].commit = '7e16006e7dde15e3cb72889f736c49409db6ff42'
-silent! let g:plugs['onedark.nvim'].commit = 'e520a0c81a5a1997ecffd846ccd9c6e63b7859c6'
-silent! let g:plugs['playground'].commit = '13e2d2d63ce7bc5d875e8bdf89cb070bc8cc7a00'
-silent! let g:plugs['plenary.nvim'].commit = '9069d14a120cadb4f6825f76821533f2babcab92'
+silent! let g:plugs['onedark.nvim'].commit = '08cde8acf181b3278dafb9c8284726104a11cc0f'
+silent! let g:plugs['playground'].commit = '71b00a3c665298e5155ad64a9020135808d4e3e8'
+silent! let g:plugs['plenary.nvim'].commit = '0a907364b5cd6e3438e230df7add8b9bb5ef6fd3'
 silent! let g:plugs['popfix'].commit = 'ea262861ce3905b90c2c203b74a7be2539f1aba4'
 silent! let g:plugs['popup.nvim'].commit = 'b7404d35d5d3548a82149238289fa71f7f6de4ac'
-silent! let g:plugs['refactoring.nvim'].commit = '94eaa199ad892f26d2c8594dbbc5656314cf5bdb'
-silent! let g:plugs['stylua-nvim'].commit = '8bd7fa127367178dddb9ee06fdce1d7c622d2feb'
+silent! let g:plugs['refactoring.nvim'].commit = '33ac6f3bcfe97447037ded20291d40de34d8912c'
+silent! let g:plugs['stylua-nvim'].commit = 'ce59a353f02938cba3e0285e662fcd3901cd270f'
 silent! let g:plugs['targets.vim'].commit = '8d6ff2984cdfaebe5b7a6eee8f226a6dd1226f2d'
 silent! let g:plugs['telescope-dap.nvim'].commit = 'b4134fff5cbaf3b876e6011212ed60646e56f060'
-silent! let g:plugs['telescope.nvim'].commit = '8b02088743c07c2f82aec2772fbd2b3774195448'
+silent! let g:plugs['telescope.nvim'].commit = '39b12d84e86f5054e2ed98829b367598ae53ab41'
 silent! let g:plugs['termopen.vim'].commit = '3194a991a18a9be2fd9fcf8c4c55fe990c04b2bd'
 silent! let g:plugs['undotree'].commit = '08e259be24d4476c1ee745dc735eefd44f90efdc'
 silent! let g:plugs['vim-be-good'].commit = 'bc499a06c14c729b22a6cc7e730a9fbc44d4e737'
 silent! let g:plugs['vim-commentary'].commit = '3654775824337f466109f00eaf6759760f65be34'
 silent! let g:plugs['vim-dispatch'].commit = '00e77d90452e3c710014b26dc61ea919bc895e92'
-silent! let g:plugs['vim-doge'].commit = '88d8dfacc3a5f3dfce82ef5221e5e6943e627d85'
-silent! let g:plugs['vim-floaterm'].commit = '6244d1739aad6682c6c1d5db18c846c342af6e3e'
-silent! let g:plugs['vim-fugitive'].commit = 'b5bbd0d181ebc3cea5c42bdaed13141850432ba1'
+silent! let g:plugs['vim-doge'].commit = 'd5b08d01f64396557d9912b3830717d45671764b'
+silent! let g:plugs['vim-floaterm'].commit = 'ab7876f86c05c1935eb23a193f4f276132902ac1'
+silent! let g:plugs['vim-fugitive'].commit = 'a8139d37b242c5bc5ceeddc4fcd7dddf2b2c2650'
 silent! let g:plugs['vim-indent-object'].commit = '5c5b24c959478929b54a9e831a8e2e651a465965'
 silent! let g:plugs['vim-ipython-cell'].commit = 'f0548d9a8d5e31d5c7f73e8729b55e8eb402852f'
 silent! let g:plugs['vim-log-highlighting'].commit = '1037e26f3120e6a6a2c0c33b14a84336dee2a78f'
 silent! let g:plugs['vim-quicklink'].commit = '021167741588555501594e1fc31f130b16acefa0'
 silent! let g:plugs['vim-repeat'].commit = '24afe922e6a05891756ecf331f39a1f6743d3d5a'
 silent! let g:plugs['vim-signify'].commit = '69498f6d49f3eeac06870012416dd9bf867b84f3'
-silent! let g:plugs['vim-slime'].commit = '0ea9b35882155996171fd15a5227e673ce2d2c60'
+silent! let g:plugs['vim-slime'].commit = '6e4b81303968f37346925d6907b96ef07788cc82'
 silent! let g:plugs['vim-sneak'].commit = '94c2de47ab301d476a2baec9ffda07367046bec9'
-silent! let g:plugs['vim-surround'].commit = '81fc0ec460dd8b25a76346e09aecdbca2677f1a7'
+silent! let g:plugs['vim-surround'].commit = 'bf3480dc9ae7bea34c78fbba4c65b4548b5b1fea'
 silent! let g:plugs['vim-test'].commit = '2240d7a4b868cb594b7d83544e1b6db4df806e5e'
 silent! let g:plugs['vim-tmux-runner'].commit = '54767911fd5e6e2d8e493847149e315ac2e6531a'
-silent! let g:plugs['vim-ultest'].commit = 'a99eb0bdf7d901d538b5dd724e2ab3a958c1799c'
+silent! let g:plugs['vim-ultest'].commit = '6978fd32e3ca2c1c5591884eea0d57a7ee43d212'
 silent! let g:plugs['vim-visualstar'].commit = 'a18cd0e7a03311ac709595c1d261ed44b45c9098'
 silent! let g:plugs['vim-vsnip'].commit = '8f199ef690ed26dcbb8973d9a6760d1332449ac9'

Commits #

Now I can look through all the versions of my snapshot.vim by opening it, running :0Gclog and navigating the quickfix list with :cnext and :cprev. If I want to install one of the old versions while its open in a buffer, all I need to do is run :source %.

Log #

Now the log of my snapshots.vim looks like this. I saved the working version, and successfully updated to the latest versions of all plugins, with a save point I can revert back to.

commit 20e901196b0d9633a42176f1fe1757e45f709fd3
Author: Waylon S. Walker <waylon@waylonwalker.com>
Date:   Fri May 13 20:37:03 2022 -0500

    plugupdate

commit f9d76368697b4c4427c0fa8ccd5e2449b6e5a9ff
Author: Waylon S. Walker <waylon@waylonwalker.com>
Date:   Fri May 13 20:16:11 2022 -0500

    commit my plugin snapshot

Automatically Generate a list of Markdown Links in Vim

2022-03-19T19:11:27Z

Let’s make a vim command to automatically collect all the links in these posts at the end of each article. Regex confuses the heck out of me… I don’t have my regex liscense, but regex can be so darn powerful especially in an editor.

Step one #

Before you run someone’s regex from the internet that you don’t fully understand, check your git status and make sure you are all clear with git before you wreck something

Inspiration #

Something that I have always appreciated form Nick Janetakis is his links section. I often try to gather up the links at the end of my posts, but often end up not doing it or forgetting.

Making a Links section #

Searchng through the internet I was able to find an article from Vitaly Parnas called vim ref links that did almost exactly what I needed, except it was more complicated and made them into ref liks.

Here is my interpretation of the code I took from Vitaly’s post. It makes a Links section like the one at the bottom of this post.

function! MdLinks()
    $norm o## Links
    $norm o
    g/\[[^\]]\+\]([^)]\+)/t$
    silent! '^,$s/\v[^\[]*(\[[^\]]+\])\(([^)]+)\)[^\[]*/* \1(\2)/g
    nohl
endfunction
command! MdLinks call MdLinks()

So far it is working for me and saving me a few seconds off each post I make.

Links #

Open Files with Nvim Remote

2022-03-06T16:22:49Z

I recently found a really great plugin by mhinz to open files in neovim from a different tmux split, without touching neovim at all.

Installation #

neovim-remote is not a neovim plugin at all, it’s a python cli that you can install with pip. Unlike the repo suggests, I use pipx to install nvr.

pipx install neovim-remote

How I use it #

I have this added to my .envrc that is in every one of my projects. This will tie a neovim session to that directory, and all directories under it.

export NVIM_LISTEN_ADDRESS=/tmp/nvim-$(basename $PWD)

In my workflow I open a tmux session for each project, so this essentially ties a neovim session to a tmux session.

Open neovim #

First open neovim, but with the nvr command. This will open neovim, and look pretty much the same as always.

nvr

If you try to run nvr again in another shell nothing will happen as its already runnin under that address, but if you give it a filename it will open the file in the first instance of neovim that you opened.

nvr readme.md

Links #

GitHub

Vim remaps use cmd in place of :

2022-02-14T14:53:17Z

Anyone just starting out their vim customization journey is bound to run into this error.

E5520: <Cmd> mapping must end with <CR>

I did not get it #

I’ll admit, in hindsight it’s very clear what this is trying to tell me, but for whatever reason I still did not understand it and I just used a : everywhere.

From the docs #

If you run :h <cmd> you will see a lot of reasons why you should do it, from performance, to hygene, to ergonomics. You will also see another clear statement about how to use <cmd>.

                                                          E5520
  <Cmd> commands must terminate, that is, they must be followed by <CR> in the
  {rhs} of the mapping definition.  Command-line mode is never entered.

When to map with a : #

You still need to map your remaps with a : if you do not close it with a <cr>. This might be something like prefilling a command with a search term.

nnoremap <leader><leader>f :s/search/

Otherwise use #

If you can close the <cmd> with a <cr> the command do so. Your map will automatically be silent, more ergonomic, performant, and all that good stuff.

nnoremap <leader><leader>f <cmd>s/search/Search/g<cr>

Neovim Config for Git

2022-02-04T14:23:57Z

Creating a minimal config specifically for git commits has made running git commit much more pleasant. It starts up Much faster, and has all of the parts of my config that I use while making a git commit. The one thing that I often use is autocomplete, for things coming from elsewhere in the tmux session. For this cmpe-tmux specifically is super helpful.

The other thing that is engrained into my muscle memory is jj for escape. For that I went agead and added my settings and keymap with no noticable performance hit.

Here is the config that has taken

~/.config/nvim/init-git.vim

source ~/.config/nvim/settings.vim
source ~/.config/nvim/keymap.vim
source ~/.config/nvim/git-plugins.vim
lua require'waylonwalker.cmp'

~/.config/nvim/git-plugins.vim

call plug#begin('~/.local/share/nvim/plugged')

" cmp
Plug 'hrsh7th/nvim-cmp'
Plug 'hrsh7th/cmp-nvim-lsp'
Plug 'hrsh7th/cmp-buffer'
Plug 'hrsh7th/cmp-path'
Plug 'hrsh7th/cmp-calc'
Plug 'andersevenrud/compe-tmux', { 'branch': 'cmp' }


call plug#end()

~/.gitconfig

[core]
    editor = nvim -u ~/.config/nvim/init-git.vim

Tmux and Vim Clipboard for Ubuntu

2022-01-26T02:50:56Z

One of the first things I noticed broken in my terminal based workflow moving from Windows wsl to ubuntu was that my clipboard was all messed up and not working with my terminal apps. Luckily setting tmux and neovim to work with the system clipboard was much easier than it was on windows.

First off you need to get xclip if you don’t already have it provided by your distro. I found it in the apt repositories. I have used it between Ubuntu 18.04 and 21.10 and they all work flawlessly for me.

I have tmux setup to automatically copy any selection I make to the clipboard by setting the following in my ~/.tmux.conf. While I have neovim open I need to be in insert mode for this to pick up.

# ~/tmux.conf
bind -T copy-mode-vi Enter send-keys -X copy-pipe-and-cancel "xclip -i -f -selection primary | xclip -i -selection clipboard"
bind-key -T copy-mode-vi MouseDragEnd1Pane send-keys -X copy-pipe-and-cancel "xclip -selection clipboard -i"

To get my yanks to go to the system clipboard in neovim, I just added unnamedplus to my existing clipboard variable.

# ~/.config/nvim/init.vim
set clipboard+=unnamedplus

If you need to copy something right from the terminal you can use xclip directly. I do this semi-often to send someone a message in chat.

cat file.txt | clip -sel copy

I set up some alias’s for doing this a bit more efficiently, but don’t find myself using them very often. This helps me grab commands from history and copy them.

alias hclip="history | tail -n1 | cut -c 8- | xclip -sel clip"
alias fclip="history -n 1000 | fzf | cut -c 8- | xclip -sel clip"
alias fclip="history -n 1000 | fzf | xclip -sel clip"

Markata Filters as Telescope Pickers in Neovim

2022-01-23T04:52:20Z

I often pop into my blog from neovim with the intent to look at just a single series of posts, til, gratitude, or just see todays posts. Markata has a great way of mapping over posts and returning their path that is designe exactly for this use case.

To tie these into a Telescope picker you add the command as the find_command, and comma separate the words of the command, with no spaces. I did also --sort,date,--reverse in there so that the newest posts are closest to the cursor.

nnoremap geit <cmd>Telescope find_files find_command=markata,list,--map,path,--filter,date==today<cr>
nnoremap geil <cmd>Telescope find_files find_command=markata,list,--map,path,--filter,templateKey=='til',--sort,date,--reverse<cr>
nnoremap geig <cmd>Telescope find_files find_command=markata,list,--map,path,--filter,templateKey=='gratitude',--sort,date,--reverse<cr>

NOTE telescope treates each word as a string, do not wrap an extra layer of quotes around your words, it gets messy.

Rename Python Variables with nvim

2022-01-16T15:27:22Z

I don’t use refactoring tools as much as I probably should. mostly because I work with small functions with unique names, but I recently had a case where a variable name m was everywhere and I wanted it named better. This was not possible with find and replace, because there were other m’s in this region.

I first tried the nvim lsp rename, and it failed, Then I pip installed rope, a refactoring tool for python, and it just worked!

pip install rope

Once you have rope installed you can call rename on the variable.

:lua vim.lsp.buf.rename()

Remove Vim Tab Characters

2022-01-06T01:49:31Z

I’ve been stuck many times looking at a vim buffer with little question marks at the beginning of each line and trying to get rid of them. for so long I didn’t know what they were so trying to get rid of them was impossible.

It turns out they are tabs, and you can get rid of the little leading question marks with this substitution command.

:%s/\t/    /g

List all the files containing a phrase

2021-12-31T20:24:48Z

One of the most useful skills you can acquire to make you faster at almost any job that uses a computer is getting good at finding text in your current working diretory and identifying the files that its in. I often use the silver searcher ag or ripgrep rg to find files in large directories quickly. Both have a sane set of defaults that ignore hidden and gitignored files, but getting them to list only the filenames and not the matched was not trivial to me.

I’ve searched throught he help/man pages many times looking for these flags and they always seem to evade me.

ag #

Passing the flag -l to ag will get it to list only the filepath, and not the match. Here I gave it a --md as well to only return markdown filetypes. ag supports a number of filetypes in a very similar way.

ag nvim --md -l

rg #

Giving rg the --files-with-matches flag will yield you a similar set of results, giving only the filepaths themselves and not the match statement. Also passing in the -g "*.md" will similarly yield only results from markdown files.

rg --files-with-matches you -g "*.md"

Serve html from your command line

2021-12-28T20:24:48Z

When I first moved to vim from and ide like vscode or sublime text one of my very first issues was trying to preview my website at localhost:8000. There had always just been a button there to do it in all of my other editors, not vim. There are not many buttons for anything in vim. While there is probably a plugin that can run a webserver for me in vim, it’s not necessary, we just need the command line we are already in.

running a separate process #

You will need a way to run another process alongside vim, here are a couple ideas to get you going that are not the focus here.style

use background jobs
- c-z to send a job to the background
- fg to bring it back
use a second terminal
use a second tab
use tmux and run it in a separate split/window
use an embeded nvim terminal

running a development webserver from the command line #

Python already exists on most linux systems by default, and most are now on python3. If you are on windows typing python will take you directly to the windows store to install it, or you can also use wsl.

# python3
python -m http.server

# running on port 5000
python -m http.server --directory markout 5000

# for the low chance you are on python2
python -m SimpleHTTPServer

# running on port 5000
python -m SimpleHTTPServer 5000
python -m SimpleHTTPServer --directory markout 5000

using nodejs #

If you are a web developer it’s likely that you need nodejs and npm on your system anyways and may want to use one of the servers from npm. I’ll admit with these not being tied to the long term support of a language they are much more feature rich with things like compression out of the box. In my opinion they are nice things that you would want out of a production server, but may not be necessary for development.

installing npx #

# if you don't alredy have npx
npm i -g npx

npx is a handy tool that lets you run command line applications straight from npm without installing them. It pulls the latest version every time you want to run, then executes it without it being installed.

running the http-server with npx #

npx http-server

# running on port 5000
npx http-server -p 5000
npx http-server markout -p 5000

Opening files in vim from output of command

2021-12-27T20:24:48Z

Many command line tools can output a list of files, this is quite powerful. I often want to search for something, then open it from a fuzzy picker. This can be done with fzf in the terminal, but often I am already in vim and I want to open it inside my current session.

Telescope #

how to pass a custom command to telescope

Telescope is the fuzzy file finder I use every day inside of neovim. Its pretty fantastic and easy to extent like this. This first example I am only passing in files from the current working directory by using ls.

:Telescope find_files find_command=ls

This brings up a normal Telescope picker with results from the ls command.

More arguments #

how to pass a muli-argument command to telescope

Adding more arguments can be done by comma separating them as shown in the example below. This command will run the silver-searcher, search for all occurences of nvim inside of a markdown file, and return only the filepaths so Telescope can pick from them.

:Telescope find_files find_command=ag,nvim,--md,-l

Finding hidden (dotfiles) using Telescope in neovim

2021-12-26T20:24:48Z

Finding hidden files using Telescope as you fuzzy file finder is not too hard, its a single flag passed in. Then it will use whichever file finder it can find [‘fd’, ‘fdfind’, ‘rg –files’, ‘find’, or ‘where’] in that order. These tools each have their own way of handling hidden files, but telescope takes care of that so all you need to do is pass in hidden=true.

I have this keymap set to help me list out all files including hidden files using the pnumonic go edit hidden. I use ge for quite a few different things to take me directly to a specific file or picker.

nnoremap geh <cmd>Telescope find_files hidden=true<cr>

see the implementation telescope finds your files.

fugitive verbose commit

2021-12-22T19:34:18Z

Fugitive comes with a pretty sick way to commit files and see the diff at the same time with verbose commit. Opening the fugitive menu with :G brings up your git status, you can stage files with s, unstage them with u, toggle them with -, and toggle their diff with >. Once you have staged your files for commit, you can commit with cc, but today I found that you can commit verbose with cvc. This brings up not only a commit widow with your git status shown, but the diff that you are about to commit.

example of a verbose commit in fugitive

You must use augroup with autocmd in vim | Here's how

2021-12-08T08:43:43Z

If you are running vim autocmd’s without a group, you’re killing your performance. Granted your probably not sourcing your vimscript files with autocmd’s too often, but every time you source that vimscript you are adding another command that needs to run redundantly.

https://youtu.be/2ITTn4Dl0lc

This is what I had #

Not silky smooth

For WAAY too long I have had something like this in my vimrc or init.vim. It formats my python for me on every save, works great except if I source my dotfiles more than once I start adding how many times black runs.

autocmd bufwritepre *.py execute 'Black'

Why is a bare autocmd bad #

let me demonstrate

Lets create a new file called format.vim and give it the :so %. Works great, it starts telling me that its formatting.

autocmd bufwritepre *.py :echo("formatting with black")

BUT as every time I give it the :so % it formats an extra time on every single save.

Setting up an augroup #

I’ve been told I need an augroup to prevent duplicates. So I did it, and nothing changes, it still ran as many times as it was sources on every save.

augroup black
    autocmd bufwritepre *.py :echo("formatting with black")
augroup end

Clearing out the augroup #

What you need to do is clear out all commands in the augroup with autocmd! right at the beginning of the group.

augroup black
    autocmd!
    autocmd bufwritepre *.py :echo("formatting with black")
augroup end

My Final silky smooth setup #

Now this is what I have in my dotfiles for a silky smooth setup that does not run automds like crazy as I am making changes to my dotfiles.

augroup waylonwalker
    autocmd!
    autocmd bufwritepre *.py execute 'PyPreSave'
    autocmd bufwritepost *.py execute 'PyPostSave'
    autocmd bufwritepost .tmux.conf execute ':!tmux source-file %' autocmd bufwritepost .tmux.local.conf execute ':!tmux source-file %'
    autocmd bufwritepost *.vim execute ':source %'
augroup end

vim-help
youtube video for this article

Setup a yaml schema | yamlls for a silky smooth setup

2021-12-03T23:24:52Z

I’ve gone far too long without a good setup for editing yaml files, I am missing out on autocomplete and proper diagnostics. This ends today as I setup yaml-language-server in neovim.

https://youtu.be/xo4HrFoKF4c

The video for this one is part of a challenge-playlist I put out for myself to constantly improve my dotfiles for all of December.

init.vim #

I have my init.vim setup to only source other modules, if you want everything in a single config, feel free to do as you wish. I broke mine up earlier this year as I doubled into nvim and am not going back.

source ~/.config/nvim/plugins.vim
lua require'waylonwalker.cmp'
lua require'waylonwalker.lsp-config'

Plugin setup #

You will need the following plugins. I use plug, if you don’t you will have to convert the syntax over to the plugin manager you use.

neovim/nvim-lspconfig is for configuring the lsp. It comes with a bunch of sane defaults for most servers, so you pretty much just have to call setup on that server unless you want to change the defaults.

hrsh7th/nvim-cmp is what I use for autocomplete. If you are using something else you might need to set that up in a different way in order to get the autocomplete to work. You will still get the diagnostics with just lsp-config.

kabouzeid/nvim-lspinstall will aide in installing lsp’s if you want. I have chosen not to because I want to have my full setup scripted so when I setup any new machine I just run my ansible-playbook. This library is nice to just set things up quick and play with them.

" /home/u_walkews/.config/nvim/plugins.vim
Plug 'neovim/nvim-lspconfig'

" if you want to use nvim-cmp
Plug 'hrsh7th/nvim-cmp'
Plug 'hrsh7th/cmp-nvim-lsp'

" if you want to use lsp-install
Plug 'kabouzeid/nvim-lspinstall'

cmp config #

Make sure that you have nvim_lsp as a source in your cmp config. This is my config as of now, its likely to change in the future, set yours up how you like. hrsh7th has a really good readme if you want help configuring cmp.

Again if you don’t use cmp you can skip this step, cmp is for autocomplete. You can use a different plugin for autocomplete, or not use a plugin at all if that’s your thing.

--  ~/.config/nvim/lua/waylonwalker/lsp-config.lua
-- Setup nvim-cmp.
local cmp = require'cmp'

cmp.setup({
snippet = {
    expand = function(args)
    -- For `vsnip` user.
    vim.fn["vsnip#anonymous"](args.body)

    -- For `luasnip` user.
    -- require('luasnip').lsp_expand(args.body)

    -- For `ultisnips` user.
    -- vim.fn["UltiSnips#Anon"](args.body)
    end,
},
mapping = {
  ['<C-n>'] = cmp.mapping.select_next_item({ behavior = cmp.SelectBehavior.Insert }),
  ['<C-p>'] = cmp.mapping.select_prev_item({ behavior = cmp.SelectBehavior.Insert }),
  ['<Down>'] = cmp.mapping.select_next_item({ behavior = cmp.SelectBehavior.Select }),
  ['<Up>'] = cmp.mapping.select_prev_item({ behavior = cmp.SelectBehavior.Select }),
  ['<C-d>'] = cmp.mapping.scroll_docs(-4),
  ['<C-f>'] = cmp.mapping.scroll_docs(4),
  ['<C-Space>'] = cmp.mapping.complete(),
  ['<C-e>'] = cmp.mapping.close(),
  ['<CR>'] = cmp.mapping.confirm({
    behavior = cmp.ConfirmBehavior.Replace,
    select = true,
    })
},
sources = {
    { name = 'nvim_lsp' },
    { name = 'vsnip' },
    { name = 'path' },
    { name = 'buffer' },
    { name = 'calc' },
    { name = 'tmux' },
}
})

lsp config #

Next up is the heart of this post, the lsp-config.lua. This one is pretty straight forward, require lspconfig (which you need the plugin for), then set it up with cmp and the extra schemas. I’m sure there are yaml schemas for tons of things, I’ll probably add more in the future, but for now, this is what I have.

--  ~/.config/nvim/lua/waylonwalker/lsp-config.lua
require'lspconfig'.yamlls.setup{
    on_attach=on_attach,
    capabilities = require('cmp_nvim_lsp').update_capabilities(vim.lsp.protocol.make_client_capabilities()),
    settings = {
        yaml = {
            schemas = {
                ["https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kedro-org/kedro/develop/static/jsonschema/kedro-catalog-0.17.json"]= "conf/**/*catalog*",
                ["https://json.schemastore.org/github-workflow.json"] = "/.github/workflows/*"
            }
        }
    }
}

Follow the YouTube channel or the rss-feed to stay up to date.

Also Check out My python lsp setup #

https://waylonwalker.com/setup-pylsp/

How linux users install a text editor

2021-11-30T23:18:24Z

In honor of the neovim 0.6.0 release, I decided to do a funny skit installing neovim, and fix up my install script in the process as part of my challenge to fix up my dotfiles. I ran into one snag where I was not updating the repo that I cloned. I moved it to the directory I now keep third-party git repos and set it to update with ansible.

https://youtu.be/64oKLphhBuo

The thing that took me the longest to realize was…. I had a path issue pointing me to an old install of the appimage over the fresh build, fixed that up and now we are on 0.7.0 nightly.

https://neovim.io/ https://github.com/neovim/neovim https://github.com/neovim/neovim/releases/tag/v0.6.0

I made a neovim plugin

2021-10-05T08:04:44Z

I’ve slowly adding more and more lua functions into my neovim configuration, and recently I noticed a pattern for a class of functions that reach out to run shell commands that can be abstracted away.

https://youtu.be/8m5ipBuopPU

Telegraph.nvim #

Check out the project readme for the most up to date details on the plugin itself.

Motivation #

I want a simple way to make remaps into shell commands that can open new tmux windows, popups, or just run a command with context from the editor.

For example I want to make remaps to do things like open the current file in lookatme.

# vim :terminal
nnoremap <leader>s <cmd>Telegraph pipx run lookatme {filepath} --live-reload --style gruvbox-dark<cmd>

# tmux session
nnoremap <leader><leader>s <cmd>lua require'telegraph'.telegraph({cmd='pipx run lookatme {filepath} --live-reload --style gruvbox-dark', how='tmux'})<CR>

# tmux popup
nnoremap <leader><leader>S <cmd>lua require'telegraph'.telegraph({cmd='pipx run lookatme {filepath} --live-reload --style gruvbox-dark', how='tmux_popup'})<CR>

The main goal here is that remaps become one liners that can just be put directly in my init.vim without creating a whole new lua module for each shell command I want to bind.

how #

telegraph takes in a how argument to determine where to tun the command.j

term(default) runs command in the built in terminal
tmux runs command in a new tmux session and joins it.
tmux_popup runs command in a tmux popup window.
tmux_popup_session runs command in a tmux session and displays it in a popup
subprocess runs command in a subprocess

Format strings #

The current set of format strings that can be used with telegraph. Placing these in braces {} within your command will get rendered into something with context from the editor.

cword - the current word under the cursor
cWORD - the current BIG Word under the cursor
cline - the current line under the cursor
filepath - the filepath of the current file
filename - the filename of the current file
parent - the parent directory of the current file
current_session_name - name of the current tmux session
cwd - the current working directory

Give it a ⭐ #

Check out the repo and give it a star if its something that interests you.

Notes for second vim-fundamentals course meetup

2021-08-27T22:40:45Z

newline another

Mahesh Subrajmanium Venkatachalam - Plugins | Installing a Theme Hunter Phillips - Quickfix | Offline Ordering with getqflist Andrea Wackerle - Search & Replace | Macros

Matthew Fletcher - Registers | Advanced Motions Jump, Delete, & Select | Advanced Motions: Paste & Move Nicholas Payne - My First Vim Plugin | What Makes a Good Plugin Zev Averbach - Harpoon | Wrap up

Plugin-manager #

get a plugin manager
unless you are going full lua, most people use vim-plug by the great junegunn

https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug

Install pluggged #

curl -fLo ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs \
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim

call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')

Plug 'junegunn/fzf', { 'do': { -> fzf#install() } }
Plug 'junegunn/fzf.vim'

call plug#end()

Install Plugins #

:PlugInstall
:PlugClean
:PlugUpdate

Installing a Theme #

install using plug

Plug 'ayu-theme/ayu-vim'

set the theme

set termguicolors
let ayucolor="dark"
colorscheme ayu

Quickfix #

sending things to the quickfix list

:grep SOCKET_OPEN **/*.(c\|h)

quickfix commands

:copen
:cnext
:cdo s/vim/nvim/g

Some remaps to consider #

nnoremap <C-k> :cnext<CR>
nnoremap <C-j> :cprev<CR>
nnoremap <C-E> :copen<CR>

Offline Ordering with getqflist #

Search & Replace #

Walk through example.

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ThePrimeagen/vim-fundamentals/master/course-website/lessons/exercise-3-search-and-replace.md > exercise.md && vim exercise.md

Macros #

Macro Pressure

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ThePrimeagen/vim-fundamentals/master/course-website/lessons/exercise-4-macros.md > exercise.md && vim exercise.md

Modal jumping

2021-06-03T21:30:35Z

nnoremap <leader>e :execute getline(".")<cr>j

nnoremap <c-j> g,
nnoremap <c-k> g;

nnoremap <c-j> <c-]>
nnoremap <c-k> g;

nnoremap <c-j> :cnext<cr>
nnoremap <c-k> :cprev<cr>

nnoremap <c-j> :lnext<cr>
nnoremap <c-k> :lprev<cr>

nnoremap <c-j> :tnext<cr>
nnoremap <c-k> :tprevious<cr>
nnoremap <c-j> :trewind<cr>
nnoremap <c-k> :tprevious<cr>

python lsp setup

2021-05-17T16:13:42Z

Setting up python with the native nvim>0.5 lsp was mr

lsp-config #

https://github.com/neovim/nvim-lspconfig

lua << EOF
require'lspconfig'.pyright.setup{}
EOF

pyls#190 #

https://github.com/palantir/python-language-server/issues/190

lspconfig.pyls.setup {
  cmd = {"pyls"},
  filetypes = {"python"},
  settings = {
    pyls = {
      configurationSources = {"flake8"},
      plugins = {
        jedi_completion = {enabled = true},
        jedi_hover = {enabled = true},
        jedi_references = {enabled = true},
        jedi_signature_help = {enabled = true},
        jedi_symbols = {enabled = true, all_scopes = true},
        pycodestyle = {enabled = false},
        flake8 = {
          enabled = true,
          ignore = {},
          maxLineLength = 160
        },
        mypy = {enabled = false},
        isort = {enabled = false},
        yapf = {enabled = false},
        pylint = {enabled = false},
        pydocstyle = {enabled = false},
        mccabe = {enabled = false},
        preload = {enabled = false},
        rope_completion = {enabled = false}
      }
    }
  },
  on_attach = on_attach
}

mypy #

Getting mypy working with lsp was tricky for me. I had some issues trying to run mypy in ci and pyright in my editor and I really wanted them to match.

pipx install 'python-lsp-server[all]'
pipx inject python-lsp-server pylsp-mypy

How to compare two files in vim

2021-05-06T09:43:17Z

:vert diffsplit filetwo.py

:diffthis

:diffoff

:Gdiff main

Vim Wsl Clipboard

2021-04-17T00:00:00Z

I’ve long used neovim from within windows wsl, and for far too long, I went without a proper way to get text out of it and into windows.

wsl has access to cmd applications #

wsl can access clip.exe. You can do some cool things with it, such as cat a file into the clipboard, sending output from a command to the clipboard, or set an autocmd group in vim to send yank to the windows clipboard.

using clip.exe #

Let’s say you want to send a teammate the tail of a log file over chat. You can tail the file into clip.exe.

tail -n 1 info.log | clip.exe

pipe streams of text into clip.exe

make it a bit more natural #

I recently made mine feel a bit more natural by aliasing it to clip.

alias clip=clip.exe

pop this in your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc

yanking to windows clipboard from vim #

I use neovim as my daily text editor and its a pain to share code with a teammate over chat, stack overflow, into a gist, or whatever you need. The following snippet has been quite useful and flawless for me.

if system('uname -r') =~ "Microsoft"
    augroup Yank
        autocmd!
        autocmd TextYankPost * :call system('/mnt/c/windows/system32/clip.exe ',@")
        augroup END
endif

add this to your ~/.vimrc or your ~/.config/nvim/init.vim

Wsl2 #

Based on some feedback from l-sannin the ‘uname -r’ command now returns uname -r command returns '5.10.16.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2' So you will need an all lowercase microsoft.

if system('uname -r') =~ "microsoft"
  augroup Yank
  autocmd!
  autocmd TextYankPost * :call system('/mnt/c/windows/system32/clip.exe ',@")
  augroup END
endif

Vim Replace Visual Star

2021-01-10T00:00:00Z

Replacing text based on whats in the current search register is a quite handy tool that I use often. I believe I picked this tip up from Nick Janetakis, check out his YouTube channel for some amazing vim tips.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP_ckZ30gbs

If there is one thing that I Like most about vim it’s the ability to hack on it and make it work well for you.

Replacing text in vim #

Vim can often be a bit verbose, but that’s ok because we can hack on it, and make our own shortcuts and keybindings. For instance, finding and replacing text requires using a command at the vim command-line :. Replacing foo with bar looks like this :%s/foo/bar/g, the final g means all of the foos, not just the first one on the line.

making it better #

I have a keybinding in my init.vim that will allow me to search for a pattern with the usual / character, page through them as normal with n and N, but when I press <C-R> it will populate the replace command for me so that all I need to do is type out the new text.

nnoremap <c-r> :%s/<C-R>///g<Left><Left>

Note on the `<C-R>/` #

In command mode : vim allows you to paste any text from any register into the current command. The <C-R>/ will paste the text from the current search register into the command.

<C-R> in command mode can paste text from any register, you can see what registers are in use with the :reg command. There are a lot of them and many get populated automatically as you yank text or create macros.

Save Vim Macro

Also see how to use to save macros to key bindings easily

Save Vim Macro

2021-01-04T00:00:00Z

If you are like me, you have created a macro or two that is pure glory, and you forget how you made it after a day or so, or you immediately want to store it away as a custom keybinding. As with most things with vim, it’s easy to do once you understand it.

Creating a Macro #

One of the earliest things we all learn to do in vim is to create macros, custom sets of functionality stored in a register that can be replayed later.

To create a macro, get into normal mode, then type q followed by a letter that you want to store the macro under.

qq

Note: a common throw-away macro register is q because it’s easy to hit qq from normal mode to start recording.

Replaying a Macro #

Macros can be replayed using @ followed by the letter that you stored the macro under.

@q

Registers #

Registers are nothing more than a single character key mapping to a value of some text. As you yank, delete, or create macros in vim, it automatically stores text into these registers.

When you hit p paste it’s simply pasting in the default register. You can also paste in any other register by hitting "qp where q is the register that you want to paste in.

Listing Registers #

To see what you have stored in each register, use the :reg command. This is a powerful tool that I have underutilized for a long time. It is really great to see what you have in each register.

:reg

making a macro into a shortcut #

a little <c-r> magic

Thgve magical shortcut that makes it easy is that control + r <C-R> followed by a register will paste that register wherever you currently are, including the command mode.

:nnoremap {binding} <C-R>{register}

Editing a Macro #

relieve some of that Macro Pressure

Now that we understand that macros are simply strings of text placed into a register, it becomes a bit more intuitive to edit them after being created.

First, paste the contents of the register into your current working buffer.

<C-R>q

Then edit the macro and add it back to that buffer and delete it.

"qdd

If your macro had multiple lines in it, you might need to.

"qdj
"qd2j

Make it recursive #

One use case of editing a macro may be making it recursive after trying it out a few times. Macros can become recursive by simply calling themselves after running.

Paste in the macro.

<C-R>q

Go to the end of the line and add @q to get called again.

A @q

Replace the q register with the updated macro.

"qd

Note: don’t use this in a shortcut as the macro may change. If you want to call the keybinding again, you will have to use noremap instead of nnoremap, but be careful as recursive remaps can be dangerous.

Recap #

" record a macro
q{register}

" play a macro
@{register}

" list registers
:reg

" map a macro to a keyboard shortcut
:nnoremap {binding} <C-R>{register}

" edit a macro
<C-R>{register}
"{register}dd

" make a macro recursive
<C-R>{register}A@q<esc>"{register}dd

Live Substitution In Neovim

2021-01-04T00:00:00Z

Replacing text in vim can be quite frustrating especially since it doesn’t have live feedback to what is changing. Today I was watching Josh Branchaud’s Vim-Unalphabet series on Youtuve and realized that his vim was doing this and I had to have it.

https://twitter.com/_WaylonWalker/status/1346081617199198210

How to do it #

I had to do a bit of searching and found a great post from vimcasts that shows exactly how to get the live search and replace highlighting using inccomand

:h inccommand #

'inccommand' 'icm' string (default "")
   global

 "nosplit": Shows the effects of a command incrementally, as you type.
 "split"  : Also shows partial off-screen results in a preview window.

 Works for |:substitute|, |:smagic|, |:snomagic|. |hl-Substitute|

 If the preview is too slow (exceeds 'redrawtime') then 'inccommand' is
 automatically disabled until |Command-line-mode| is done.

Add this to your config #

I believe that this is a neovim only feature, add it into your ~/.config/nvim/init.vim file. You can see it in my dotfiles as well.

set inccommand=nosplit

See it in Action #

The Video that inspired this #

Check out Josh Branchaud’s great series on the Vim-Unalphabet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jMiYtXz2QA

Keep Location List Closed

2020-01-01T00:00:00Z

Vim’s (neovim in my case) location list can provide some very useful information while developing. Mine gives me information about linting and type checking errors with fairly little config. Generally, it sits nicely at the bottom of the screen and barely affects me. Other times, especially while zoomed way in during a presentation, it just gets in the way.

Location List eating up the screen while I am zoomed in and trying to live code

Toggling the location list #

Through some google search I found the culprit was syntastic. It has an auto_loc_list feature. We can turn it off by setting syntastic_auto_loc_list=0.

let syntastic_auto_loc_list=0

Keybindings #

I want to keep the location list open automatically most of the time, but when I don’t want it to keep opening it’s generally detrimental. Trying to live code while the location list keeps taking up the whole screen is not cool.

First, create a function that will toggle both the location list and syntactic together.

let s:syntastic_auto_loc_list = 0
function! s:ToggleLocationList()
    if s:syntastic_auto_loc_list == 1
        let s:syntastic_auto_loc_list = 0
        let syntastic_auto_loc_list = 0
        :lclose
    else
        let s:syntastic_auto_loc_list = 1
        let syntastic_auto_loc_list = 1
        :lopen
    endif
endfunction

This binding will allow me to use gtl from normal mode to toggle the location list.

:command! ToggleLocationList :call s:ToggleLocationList()
nnoremap gtl :ToggleLocationList<CR>

I am starting a set of toggle keymaps under the gt keybinding, this one is the second one after a keybinding made to toggle paste mode.

Vim Notes

2018-02-01T00:00:00Z

vim notes

nvim lua #

norcalli/neovim-plugin

nvim lsp #

python-lsp/python-lsp-server

Using c to change text #

I have gone quite awhile without using c and instead using d. The reason that I started using c is because it automatically places you into insert mode. This not only saves me one keystroke for commands such as diwi is now ciw, but it also works with the repeat . command!!! This is huge. When refactoring a document I had been creating a macro to change one word to another, using c instead of d allows the use of the . rather than needing to create a macro.

Case for vim #

Sublime/VSCode cannot

edit a macro register
register
quickfix
gF

autocomplete #

repeats previously typed text

1. Whole lines                                     |i CTRL-X CTRL-L|
2. keywords in the current file                    |i CTRL-X CTRL-N|
3. keywords in 'dictionary'                        |i CTRL-X CTRL-K|
4. keywords in 'thesaurus', thesaurus-style        |i CTRL-X CTRL-T|
5. keywords in the current and included files      |i CTRL-X CTRL-I|
6. tags                                            |i CTRL-X CTRL-]|
7. file names                                      |i CTRL-X CTRL-F|
8. definitions or macros                           |i CTRL-X CTRL-D|
9. Vim command-line                                |i CTRL-X CTRL-V|
10. User defined completion                        |i CTRL-X CTRL-U|
11. omni completion                                |i CTRL-X CTRL-O|
12. Spelling suggestions                           |i CTRL-X s|
13. keywords in 'complete'                         |i CTRL-N|

z-commands #

zn Fold none: reset ‘foldenable’. All folds will be open.

Posts tagged: vim Archive

tpope vim-speeddating

vim noa

fixed long standing nvim startup error

The error #

I sent ai at the issue #

I fixed it #

The fix #

vim date

A few weeks later #

nvim-manager

Why #

How is nvim manager any better #

So all these versions in ~/.config #

So what do I need to do? #

Install nvim-manager #

Install your own dotfiles #

Ubuntu Container Speedrun #

Give it a Star #

💭 Support regex substitution command · Issue #2232 · helix-edito...

Vim-gq

before formatting #

after formattting #

💭 Find And Replace one eyed kirby

Refactoring one line links into wikilinks

What is a wikilink #

Vim Quickfix #

Vim cdo #

More #

💭 My harpoon config

💭 From Vim To Zed - YouTube

💭 The One Eyed Fighting Kirby

So what is this? #

More examples #

still struggling #

nvim stupid gf bind

What I am trying to do #

What did not work #

What I found #

Yes, after that fix I still needed to adjust my path #

💭 Diagnostic - Neovim docs

💭 Bob Belderbos on X: "Forget Python for a sec, here's how Vim h...

💭 Formatting on save · jose-elias-alvarez/null-ls.nvim Wiki

💭 LazyVim Installation

extending vim with shell commands

The pitch #

run a command #

formatters #

File Navigation #

FloatTerm #

vimgrep over hidden files #

nvim navic

winbar #

Clearing the winbar #

Setting up nvim-navic #

What my winbar looks like #

Diff #

GH commit #

vimgrep open buffers

The issue #

Templates are great #

vimgrep over hidden files #

Vim points achieved #

vim plugged snapshot

Why snapshot #

Let’s snapshot #

Let’s Update #

Look at these updates #

Commits #

Log #

Automatically Generate a list of Markdown Links in Vim

Step one #

Inspiration #

Making a Links section #

Links #

Open Files with Nvim Remote

Installation #

How I use it #

Open neovim #

Links #