Which-Key

IdeaVim extension that displays available keybindings in a popup similar to vim-which-key

Which-Key only displays available keybindings, it will not set them for you (#44, #46)
For a "complete" setup you might have a look at intellimacs (which was used for the GIF above)

Installation

JetBrains Marketplace

Install the plugin from the official JetBrains Marketplace

Within Intellij go to File -> Settings -> Plugins -> Marketplace search for "Which Key" and click on Install

Manual Installation

To build and install the plugin directly from source run the Gradle task buildPlugin

Afterwards you find the built jar under /build/libs

Install the jar in Intellij via File -> Settings -> Plugins -> Install Plugin from Disk...

Activation

Since this is an extension plugin for IdeaVim you have to activate it explicitly within your .ideavimrc file
Furthermore you should either disable the timeout option or increase the value for timeoutlen

set which-key

" disable the timeout option
set notimeout

" increase the timeoutlen (default: 1000), don't add space around the equal sign
set timeoutlen=5000

Explanation: timeout & timeoutlen

By default (Idea)VIM will wait for timeoutlen milliseconds after each key press of any unfinished mapping sequence before it cancels the whole sequence and processes each key press individually one after another. To match this behavior the IDEA-Which-Key popup will only be visible till a mapping sequence is either completed or canceled. Without any adaptions the popup is only displayed for a brief moment and will not be very useful. Therefore you should definitively modify timout or timeoutlen according to your preferences.

IdeaVIM does not differentiate between timeout|timeoutlen and ttimeout|ttimeoutlen

Customization

You can customize several aspects of Which-Key via variables in your .ideavimrc

Use the :action IdeaVim.ReloadVimRc.reload command to reload your config file

Descriptions

If no custom descriptions are defined, the right-hand side of all mappings will be displayed:

To provide custom names for prefixes and commands we need to configure one variable for every mapping:

let g:WhichKeyDesc_windows        = "<Space>w  Windows"
let g:WhichKeyDesc_windows_delete = "<Space>wd delete"
let g:WhichKeyDesc_windows_split  = "<Space>ws split below"
...

The <leader> key is also supported:

let g:WhichKeyDesc_windows_maximize = "<leader>wm maximize"

You can also remove prefixes and mappings from being displayed at all by providing a blank custom description:
(this will not unmap them, it will just remove their appearance from the popup)

let g:WhichKeyDesc_commentray_prefix = "gc"
let g:WhichKeyDesc_commentray_action = "gcc"

Every variable's name has to start with g:WhichKeyDesc_ in order to be recognized by the plugin. The rest of the variable name can be set to whatever fits best with you. For the value of each variable use the left-hand side of the mapping followed by at least one space or tab characters and finished with the description string you want to be displayed.

Or if you prefer it in regular expressions:

Part	Regex	Details
Name	g:WhichKeyDesc_[a-zA-Z0-9_]+	the only valid characters for variable names are a-zA-Z0-9_
Value	([^ \t]+)[ \t]*(.*)	group one is the mapping, group two your description

If you are familiar with vim-which-key or the emacs package which-key this handling seems odd and very inconvenient, as it requires a lot of variable definitions and therefore a lot of repetition. Unfortunately this is the case because the IdeaVim plugin only supports the following four types of variables:

• single quoted string
• double quoted string
• decimal number
• reference to another variable

Due to this limitation and the lack of any more convenient data types (array, list, dictionary, etc.) there is currently no "nicer" way of handling custom descriptions.

As of writing the current versions are Intellij 2020.3 and IdeaVim 0.64

VIM Actions

By default Which-Key will only display key mappings which are defined in the .ideavimrc file. If you wish it can also display default VIM actions like gg, zz, zt, <C-w>k, etc. in the popup. For this you need to set the following variable within your .ideavimrc:

let g:WhichKey_ShowVimActions = "true"

If you wish you can also add custom descriptions for VIM Actions the same way as for other key mappings:

let g:WhichKeyDesc_goto_top = "gg goto first line"

Typed Keys

At the bottom of the popup you can see the keys you have typed so far as well as the current prefix description

You can hide this by adding the following to your .ideavimrc:

let g:WhichKey_ShowTypedSequence = "false"

Delay

In order to prevent the popup from "flickering" on fast consecutive key presses, there is a default delay of 200ms before it appears

You can configure this value so the popup appears faster or slower after a key press. The unit for the delay is milliseconds (ms):

" make the popup show up 'instantly'
let g:WhichKey_DefaultDelay = 0

" make the popup appear much slower
let g:WhichKey_DefaultDelay = 600

On Unknown Mapping

With the popup open pressing any key that is not mapped to any further prefix or action will close it and process all typed keys individually with their default actions

If you prefer to just close the popup without any further processing you can configure this:

" close the popup and don't process formerly typed keys
let g:WhichKey_ProcessUnknownMappings = "false"

Caveats

This will never block insert mode mappings in order to enable mappings like imap jk <Esc> without interfering with characters you actually want to type. It also should¹ not interfere with operator commands or motions which are not "real" mappings like hjkl, d, f, etc.

¹If you encounter any weird behavior please open an issue, as there might be edge cases not covered yet

Order

By default all elements of the popup are ordered alphabetically by the key you have to press.

You can change this by setting the value for the variable g:WhichKey_SortOrder to one of the following options:

Value	Description
by_key	Sort all elements alphabetically by their key (default)
by_key_prefix_first	Same as by_key but all prefix entries are ordered before any command mapping
by_key_prefix_last	Same as by_key but all prefix entries are ordered after any command mapping
by_description	Sort all elements alphabetically by their description

Note that by default all order is based on case-sensitive sorting (so Z comes before a).

You can change this default by setting the g:WhichKey_SortCaseSensitive variable to false (default: true).

" set how the elements should be ordered
let g:WhichKey_SortOrder = "by_key_prefix_first"

" set if the sorting should be case-sensitive or not
let g:WhichKey_SortCaseSensitive = "false"

Appearance

You can configure the appearance of certain UI elements by setting the following options:

Variable	Description	Values	Default Value
g:WhichKey_Divider	String to separate key and description	any string	→
g:WhichKey_FontFamily	Font to use for the popup	CSS font-family (see examples)	monospace
g:WhichKey_FontSize	Font size for the popup	Font size in point (for example 15, 22, etc.)	IDE default³
g:WhichKey_KeyStyle	Font style for the keys	bold, italic, none	bold
g:WhichKey_KeyColor	Font color for the keys	hex code or color keyword (default¹, keyword², "red", "blue", etc.)	default
g:WhichKey_PrefixStyle	Font style for the prefixes	bold, italic, none	none
g:WhichKey_PrefixColor	Font color for the prefixes	hex code or color keyword (default¹, keyword², "red", "blue", etc.)	keyword
g:WhichKey_CommandStyle	Font style for the commands	bold, italic, none	none
g:WhichKey_CommandColor	Font color for the commands	hex code or color keyword (default¹, keyword², "red", "blue", etc.)	default

¹default: the default foreground color of the currently used theme
²keyword: the color for "keywords" of the currently used theme
³Uses the IDE default value for the font size (without any configuration this should be 15)

Known Issues

The way the plugin injects itself into the flow of IdeaVIM to provide its features is a little "hacky" and you might encounter some inconsistencies. If you encounter anything not documented open an issue so we can check and maybe fix it. These are the ones that I am aware of

Special Prefixes

Consider the following mapping sequence example which contains a modified key press (<C-a>) within:

What the mapping does is not important for the example

noremap g<C-a>bc ...

If you are about to activate this mapping the following will happen:

Press	What will happen
g	The popup will appear and show <C-a> as a prefix
<C-a>	The popup will close itself
b	The popup will reopen and show c as a command
c	This will close the popup and execute your mapping

The reason for this is that we currently have no way to intercept modified & special key presses like <C-a>, <Esc>, <A-a> etc. Vim internal actions like <C-d> or <C-o> are handled as a custom action instead of being processed by a general handler like "regular" key presses

If you have more knowledge about the internals of IdeaVIM in this regard or have another idea how to solve this issue, please open an issue or PR