lite-xl-vibe

Vi(m?) Bindings (with a hint of Emacs) for lite-xl (but made mostly compatible with lite)

Short demo:

Installation

For lite-xl just clone the repo as plugins subfolder

git clone https://github.com/eugenpt/lite-xl-vibe.git ~/.config/lite-xl/plugins/lite-xl-vibe

For lite, clone into plugins subfolder under lite installed path

git clone https://github.com/eugenpt/lite-xl-vibe.git <lite>/data/plugins/lite-xl-vibe

Intro

If you don't know what Vim is, .. you really should. Also - how did you find this page??

If you do know what Vim is - this plugin provides basic support of Vim bindings.

Press Esc/Ctrl+[ to go into NORMAL mode, to navigate, select, do whatever you want (except for actual input)

Press i while in NORMAL mode to go back to INSERT mode (works same as lite or almost any editor usually. Some differences are here from Emacs, see details below )

Features

• Help on keystrokes and combinations via Alt-H

• Interactive lua exec shell (command "core:exec-input" or <space>;) with online suggestions!

• (Book-)Marks, including named ones (Space+Return) and one-keystroke ones (m+letter to set, '/` +letter to go to a mark, uppercase for global marks)

• Registers (one for each letter - you can copy to them and paste from them using "+letter as prefix for copy/paste command)

• Clipboard Ring (after paste press Ctrl+y to change pasted text to one copied previously)

• History of cursor positions (<space>oj to list all or <space>sj to search)

• navigation to previous/next word (b/w/e)/WORD (W/B)/block ([/])

• deletion/selection(d/v/c) to previous/next word/.../mark

• deletion/selection/..(d/v/c) inside(i) word(w)/()/[]/block(b) (so vi( to select inside matching parenthesis, ciw to change inside of word)

• macros (q+letter to start recording, q again to stop, @+letter to run)

• vim-like custom bindings to lite commands or to sequences of strokes (keymap.add\_nmap({["strokes"]="command/sequence"})

• minimalistic File browser (<space>od to open one of project dirs or <space>of and type in any directory )

DOOM/Emacs thingies:

• <space><return> for (book-)marks
• <space>. for find-file
• <space>, for toogle between tabs with fuzzy search
• <space>om for list of all marks
• <space>or for list of all filled registers
• <space>y while sth is selected to yank to a named register (with select and search)
• <space>p/<space>ir to paste from register (with select and search)
• <space>: for commands
• <space>; for exec lua input (and show result in log and status)
• <space>C-; for exec lua input and insert results at cursor
• <space>/ or <space>sP for fuzzy search in project
• Alt+h for help on furhter keystrokes/combinations

Differences in INSERT mode

Some of the Emacs bindings are mapped for insert mode by default, including:

• Ctrl+e moves cursor to end of the line
• Ctrl+p - the previous line
• Ctrl+n - the next line (to open new doc use Ctrl+Shift+N)
• Ctrl+m - same as return
• Ctrl+/ opens Fuzzy Find in Project, for toggle comments press Ctrl+x Ctrl+;

Usual process / the most common keystrokes

First - go to NORMAL mode by pressing Esc/Ctrl+[ ( you may set config.vibe_starting_mode = 'normal' in your .config/lite-xl/init.lua )

• you'll see NORMAL in the bottom left corner of the screen.

To open a file, press <space>., or <space>of. ( Navigation between suggestions via Ctrl+n / Ctrl+p )

Usually I open my editor in a folder I need it to be. If not, I usually do <space>: to search for commands, and then do Add Directory (you may only write ad and press <return>, the fuzzy matching will do the rest) Then the Add Directory: prompt will show up, where you may enter any path and it will add the dir to your workspace.

Now speaking of workspaces, vibe does provide it's own workspaces, but sadly it's sort of difficult to load them on startup

Once you're done adding dirs to your workspace you may save the workspace using <space>qS shortcut

(this reads as press space, release, press q, release, press shift, press s, release) (you may load it later using <space>qL)

Once you want to do some actual editing, you'll need to select files to edit. The easiest way id to press <space>od , which will prompt you to select a directory to open if your workspace contains more than one (navigate using arrows or j/k) , and then <return> or Ctrl+m, or C-m in vim/vibe terms.

Once you select and open the directory, you'll see a minimalistic file browser opened there.

It has files, dirs, sizes, search, sortings, you may navigate , create files, dirs, rename files/ dirs/ and, surely, open files.

Navigation is using:

• j/k for Down/Up,
• K is for up-one-folder,
• H/L is for going back/forward
• gg/G to go to top/bottom
• + is for creating files , Ctrl+= or C-= for creating dirs
• s to toggle sort mode, or S to select sort mode via command line
• / to search (only matching files will be shown, <ESC> to reset search)
• <return>/Ctrl+m for opening
• as always, Alt-H will show help on keystrokes

Once you open several files, you may wanna toggle between them

If you have several tabs opened, toggling between them goes with Ctrl+j/Ctrl+k. You may also press <space>, and type in filepath of the tab you want to get to. If you simply want to open some file, you may press <space>. and type the filename for fuzzy match.

Navigation between suggestions uses Ctrl+n / Ctrl+p ,

If you want to split the view, you may do so vertically by <space>wv or Ctrl+w w , horizontally - with <space>ws or Ctrl+w s

To toggle between views I prefer to use Ctrl+h / Ctrl+l (but usually I only split the view vertically once)

For other things you may want to edit your own keymaps

For example, I have the following in my .config/lite-xl/init.lua:

command.add(nil, {
  ["startup"] = function() core.vibe.workspace.open_workspace_file("<path to .ws file>") end,
})

config.user_nmap = {
  ["L"] = "startup",
  ["S"] = "vibe:workspace:save-workspace",
}

config.vibe_starting_mode = 'normal'

config.vibe_startup_strokes = '<ESC>L'

but it could've been just that:

config.vibe_after_startup = function()
  core.vibe.workspace.open_workspace_file("<path to .ws file>")
end  

The beauty of vi/Vim's normal mode navigation and editing is better kept to the VI/Vim themselves, google it and practice for a couple of weeks, to really get the editing with the speed of thought.

Some random notes on the code/structure/dev-features

Exec lua input

Press <space>; and start typing - you'll see interactive suggestions for lua input

Press <space>C-; (Space then Ctrl+;) and input sth like 23*6574 and press return. You'll see 151202 typed where your cursor previously was. Neat, huh?

It does have a lot of bugs.

But interactive suggestions sort of work. You may exec vibe.test=123 and then when you input vibe.te, it will suggest you the vibe.test you've created, and if you select/input that, you'll see 123 being displayed via core.log. Globals are persistent as well.

Hooks

I do have hooks, they may be added to any command using command.add_hook(com_name, hook), see the lines in misc.lua around function command.add_hook

But the simplest lite-xl-vibe-wide project search of command.add_hook will show I barely use it.

visual mode

Those familiar with vim may notice that I don't really talk about visual mode here

That is mostly because I haven't really implemented it, but in a way I did implement enough of it.

What I mean is - if you don't go into visual block (I don't have that), and forgive some discrepancy in vim line mode (I don'thave that either), you may see that whenever there is a selection, lite kinda works like vim in visual mode.

What I did may be seen in visual_mode.lua, basically, for every movement I added commands to select/delete/change to that movement whenever there is a selection (commands like vibe:move-to...)

(I know, I know, those should've been like vibe:visual:move-to.. but hey)

General

The whole init.lua is a mess, I intend on refactoring it, for now I am in a state where it kinda works and I'm just preparing myself by refactoring smaller pieces first.

__

heavily inspired by and originally started from modalediting of a327ex's lite-plugins

Yes, I am aware of the vim-mode branch, but

• Really - lite and lite-xl openly state that any additional functionality thet can be added via plugin should be added in that manner and I sort of believe that it can be in this case
• X fingers crossed but I'd franko'ly choose my own way instead of the one that the core features are implemented in. (although I am afraid that is only because I haven't made those features myself yet and when I do, my own version would probably be soo damn unusable..)
• I really want to build sth like that myself