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.

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 โญ

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