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VimComplete

A lightweight autocompletion plugin for Vim, written in vim9script.

Key Features • Requirements • Installation • Configuration • Commands • Add-on

Demo

Key Features

Words are sourced asynchronously from various sources:

All crucial source modules are integrated, eliminating the need to manage multiple plugins. Users have the flexibility to enable or disable each completion source and customize settings on a per-file-type basis (:h filetype).

Completion items are sorted according to the following criteria:

  • Recency (using a LRU cache)
  • Length of item
  • Priority
  • Proximity of item (for buffer completion)
  • Case match

Note

For cmdline-mode completion (/, ?, and : commands), refer to VimSuggest plugin.

Requirements

  • Vim version 9.0 or higher

Installation

Install it via vim-plug.

Show instructions

Using vim9 script:

vim9script
plug#begin()
Plug 'girishji/vimcomplete'
plug#end()

Using legacy script:

call plug#begin()
Plug 'girishji/vimcomplete'
call plug#end()

Install using Vim's built-in package manager.

Show instructions 
$ mkdir -p $HOME/.vim/pack/downloads/opt
$ cd $HOME/.vim/pack/downloads/opt
$ git clone https://github.com/girishji/vimcomplete.git

Add the following line to your $HOME/.vimrc file.

packadd vimcomplete

Configuration

The completion sources mentioned above, aside from buffer, path, and lsp completion, are not enabled by default. This section provides instructions on configuring both the completion sources and the completion engine itself.

Completion Engine

This entity retrieves completion items from the enabled completion sources and then displays the popup menu.

Option Type Description
alwaysOn Boolean If set to true, the completion menu is automatically triggered by any change in the buffer. If set to false, use <C-Space> (control-space) to manually trigger auto-completion. If you choose to map some other key instead, map your favorite key to <Plug>(vimcomplete-do-complete). Default: true.
completionKinds Dictionary Custom text to use when customCompletionKinds is set (explained below). Default: {}.
customCompletionKinds Boolean Set this option to customize the 'kind' attribute (explained below). Default: false.
customInfoWindow Boolean Change the look of default info popup window (explained below). Default: true.
kindDisplayType String The 'kind' field of completion item can be displayed in a number of ways: as a single letter symbol (symbol), a single letter with descriptive text (symboltext), only text (text), an icon (icon), or icon with text (icontext). For showing VSCode like icons you need a patched font. Default: symbol.
matchCase Boolean Prioritize the items that match the case of the prefix being completed. Default: true.
noNewlineInCompletion Boolean When true, pressing <Enter> (<CR>) in insert mode will insert a newline only if an item in the popup menu is selected. If an item is not selected, the popup is dismissed without inserting a newline. Default: false.
noNewlineInCompletionEver Boolean When true, pressing <Enter> (<CR>) will never insert a newline, regardless of whether an item in the popup menu is selected. This option overrides noNewlineInCompletion. If both options are false, <CR> behaves as per the default Vim behavior, inserting a newline whether an item is selected or not. Default: false.
postfixClobber Boolean When completing 'foo<cursor>bar' and the candidate is 'foosome', enabling this option (true) will complete 'foosome' instead of 'foosomebar'. Default: false.
postfixHighlight Boolean This option functions similarly to postfixClobber, but instead of deleting adjoining text to the right of the completed text, it highlights it using the 'VimCompletePostfix' highlight group. Use <Esc> to retain the adjoining text and <C-L> to delete. Default: false.
recency Boolean Display recently chosen items from the LRU cache. Items are shown at the top of the list. Default: true.
recentItemCount Number Count of recent items to show from LRU cache. Default: 5.
showKind Boolean Show the type ('kind') of completion item returned by LSP server. Default: true.
showSource Boolean Show the source of the completion item in the menu. Default: true.
shuffleEqualPriority Boolean Arrange items from sources with equal priority such that the first item of all sources appear before the second item of any source. Default: false.
sortByLength Boolean Sort completion items by length. Default: false.
triggerWordLen Number Minimum number of characters needed to trigger completion menu. Not applicable to completion triggered by LSP trigger characters (this exemption applies only to Vim version 9.1.650 or higher). Default: 1.

Buffer Completion

The current buffer, as well as other open buffers, are searched for completion candidates using an asynchronous mechanism with a timeout. This approach ensures that the completion engine is not slowed down by large buffers.

Option Type Description
completionMatcher String Enable fuzzy or case insensitive completion. Accepts one of the following values: case for case sensitive matching, icase for ignoring case while matching, and fuzzy for fuzzy match. Default: icase.
dup Boolean If true, include items from this source that are duplicates of items from other sources. Default: true.
enable Boolean Set this to false to disable buffer completion. Default: true.
envComplete Boolean Complete environment variables after typing the $ character. Default: false.
filetypes List List of file types for which this source is enabled. Default: ['*'] (all file types).
maxCount Number Total number of completion candidates emitted by this source. Default: 10.
otherBuffersCount Number Maximum number of other listed buffers to search. Set it to 0 to only search current buffer. Default: 3.
priority Number Priority of this source relative to others. Items from higher priority sources are displayed at the top. Default: 10.
timeout Number Maximum time allocated for searching completion candidates in the current buffer. Default: 100 milliseconds. If searching in multiple buffers, an additional 100 milliseconds is allocated. The search is aborted if any key is pressed.
urlComplete Boolean Enable completion of http links in entirety. This is useful when typing the same URL multiple times. Default: false.

Dictionary Completion

The dictionary provider is capable of searching an arbitrary list of words placed one per line in a text file. These words can encompass any non-space characters, and the file doesn't necessarily need to be sorted. This feature presents various opportunities. For instance, you can create a dictionary akin to Pydiction, enabling the completion of keywords, functions, and method names for any programming language. Moreover, it can efficiently search a sorted dictionary using binary search.

Unsorted dictionaries are searched in linear time O(n), but they tend to perform acceptably well for file sizes below 3MB (performance might vary depending on your system). Only one unsorted dictionary is used for completion, while any number of sorted dictionaries can be used simultaneously.

Additionally, the dictionary files can include comments.

Option Type Description
commentStr String Any lines beginning with this string is ignored. Default: ---.
dup Boolean If true, include items from this source that are duplicates of items from other sources. Default: false.
enable Boolean Set this to true to enable dictionary completion. Default: false.
filetypes List List of file types for which this source is enabled. Default: ['text', 'markdown'].
matcher String This option is active only when onlyWords is true (text files). It makes sense only when sortedDict is set to false since binary search is done case sensitive (assuming that sorting of the dictionary file is done case sensitive). Accepted values are case (case sensitive) and ignorecase. Default: case.
maxCount Number Total number of completion candidates emitted by this source. Default: 10.
onlyWords Boolean Set this to true if both the prefix you are trying to complete and the dictionary contain alphanumeric characters only (text files). For programming language dictionaries it should be set to false, since they can contain characters like @, ., (, etc. Default: false.
priority Number Priority of this source relative to others. Items from higher priority sources are displayed at the top. Default: 10.
sortedDict Boolean true if the dictionary file is sorted, false otherwise. This option affects both performance and correctness. Take care to set it correctly. Searching is case sensitive. Default: true.

Sample Configuration

Further information about setting up configurations will be available later. Nonetheless, here is a sample configuration specifically targeting the dictionary source.

Dictionary files can be configured individually for each 'filetype' (:h filetype). In the provided sample, the dictionary module is enabled for filetypes 'python' and 'text'. Vim dictionary option is appropriately set. Specific dictionary options are defined for each respective filetype.

vim9script
var dictproperties = {
    python: { sortedDict: false },
    text: { sortedDict: true }
}
var vcoptions = {
    dictionary: { enable: true, priority: 11, filetypes: ['python', 'text'], properties: dictproperties },
}
autocmd VimEnter * g:VimCompleteOptionsSet(vcoptions)
autocmd FileType text set dictionary+=/usr/share/dict/words
autocmd FileType python set dictionary=$HOME/.vim/data/pythondict

Tip

For completing English words, you can utilize ngram completion as outlined below, or opt for a custom dictionary containing frequently used words. Unfortunately, the default dictionary that comes pre-installed with Linux or MacOS contains numerous infrequently used words that spam the menu.

Note

For legacy script, the syntax for 'autocmd' is:

autocmd VimEnter * call g:VimCompleteOptionsSet(vcoptions)

LSP Completion

This source obtains autocompletion items from the LSP client.

Important

Please install the LSP client separately.

Option Type Description
dup Boolean If true, include items from this source that are duplicates of items from other sources. Default: true.
enable Boolean Set this to false to disable LSP completion. Default: true.
filetypes List This option need not be specified. If this option is not specified or is empty, completion items are sourced for any file type for which LSP is configured. Otherwise, items are sourced only for listed file types. Default: Not specified.
keywordOnly Boolean If true completion will be triggered after any keyword character as defined by the file type (:h 'iskeyword'). false will trigger completion after non-keywords like . (for instance). Default: false.
maxCount Number Total number of completion candidates emitted by this source. Default: 10.
priority Number Priority of this source relative to others. Items from higher priority sources are displayed at the top. Default: 10.

Note

For fuzzy and case insensitive completion, set the completionMatcher option in the LSP client. See :h lsp-opt-completionMatcher.

Snippets Completion

This source provides snippet completion from vim-vsnip.

Important

Please install the following separately.

Optional:

Option Type Description
adaptNonKeyword Boolean (experimental) When completing snippets starting with non-keywords, say '#i' for instance, adjust completion such that they are compatible with items starting with keywords like 'i' (returned by LSP, for instance). Default is false.
dup Boolean If true, include items from this source that are duplicates of items from other sources. Default: true.
enable Boolean Set this to true to enable this source. Default: false.
filetypes List List of file types for which this source is enabled. Default: ['*'] (all file types).
maxCount Number Total number of completion candidates emitted by this source. Default: 10.
priority Number Priority of this source relative to others. Items from higher priority sources are displayed at the top. Default: 10.

Note

The <Tab> key facilitates movement within a snippet. When a snippet is active, the popup completion menu won't open. However, the popup window will activate upon reaching the final stop within the snippet. If you wish to navigate backward within the snippet using <S-Tab>, you can dismiss the popup by using CTRL-E.

Ngrams Completion

This source is kept as a separate plugin since it includes large database files. Please see ngram-complete for installation and usage instructions.

Omnifunc Completion

This source completes items emitted by the function set in omnifunc (:h 'omnifunc').

Vim provides language based autocompletion through Omni completion for many languages (see $VIMRUNTIME/autoload). This is a lightweight alternative to using LSP.

Vim File Language
ccomplete.vim C
csscomplete.vim HTML / CSS
htmlcomplete.vim HTML
javascriptcomplete.vim Javascript
phpcomplete.vim PHP
pythoncomplete.vim Python
rubycomplete.vim Ruby
syntaxcomplete.vim from syntax highlighting
xmlcomplete.vim XML (uses files in the xml directory)

Vim sets the omnifunc option automatically when file type is detected.

Also, any user defined omnifunc can also be used for autocompletion.

Caution

Disable the LSP Completion when using omnifunc.

Option Type Description
dup Boolean If true, include items from this source that are duplicates of items from other sources. Default: true.
enable Boolean Set this to true to enable omnifunc completion. Default: false.
filetypes List List of file types for which this source is enabled. Default: ['*'] (all file types).
maxCount Number Total number of completion candidates emitted by this source. Default: 10.
priority Number Priority of this source relative to others. Items from higher priority sources are displayed at the top. Default: 10.

Path Completion

Both relative and absolute path names are completed.

Option Type Description
bufferRelativePath Boolean Interpret relative paths relative to the directory of the current buffer. Otherwise paths are interpreted relative to the directory from which Vim is started. Default: true.
dup Boolean If true, include items from this source that are duplicates of items from other sources. Default: true.
enable Boolean Set this to false to disable path completion. Default: true.
filetypes List List of file types for which this source is enabled. Default: ['*'] (all file types).
groupDirectoriesFirst Boolean Group directories before files (like linux's 'ls --group-directories-first'). Default: false.
maxCount Number Total number of completion candidates emitted by this source. Default: 10.
priority Number Priority of this source relative to others. Items from higher priority sources are displayed at the top. Default: 12.
showPathSeparatorAtEnd Boolean Show path separator (/ in unix) at the end of directory entry. Default: false.

Note

Path completion activates when there is a / (\ for Windows when Vim option shellslash is not set) or . in the word before the cursor. To autocomplete deeper in a directory type / at the end.

Abbreviations Completion

Abbreviations (:h abbreviations) are completed based on the id.

Option Type Description
dup Boolean If true, include items from this source that are duplicates of items from other sources. Default: true.
enable Boolean Set this to true to enable abbreviation completion. Default: false.
filetypes List List of file types for which this source is enabled. Default: ['*'] (all file types).
maxCount Number Total number of completion candidates emitted by this source. Default: 10.
priority Number Priority of this source relative to others. Items from higher priority sources are displayed at the top. Default: 10.

Vim9script Language Completion

This source completes Vim9 script function names, arguments, variables, reserved words and the like. Enable this if you are developing a Vim plugin or configuring a non-trivial .vimrc.

Option Type Description
dup Boolean If true, include items from this source that are duplicates of items from other sources. Default: true.
enable Boolean Set this to false to disable this source. Default: true.
filetypes List List of file types for which this source is enabled. Default: ['vim'].
maxCount Number Total number of completion candidates emitted by this source. Default: 10.
priority Number Priority of this source relative to others. Items from higher priority sources are displayed at the top. Default: 10.

Tmux Completion

Words are sourced asynchronously from adjacent tmux panes, ensuring Vim won't hang even with a lot of output in the tmux windows.

Option Type Description
completionMatcher String Enable fuzzy or case insensitive completion. Accepts one of the following values: case for case sensitive matching, icase for ignoring case while matching, and fuzzy for fuzzy match. Default: icase.
dup Boolean If true, include items from this source that are duplicates of items from other sources. Default: false.
enable Boolean Set this to true to enable tmux completion. Default: false.
filetypes List List of file types for which this source is enabled. Default: ['*'].
maxCount Number Total number of completion candidates emitted by this source. Default: 10.
name String Name of the executable. You can specify the full path if the tmux executable is not found in $PATH. Default: tmux.
priority Number Priority of this source relative to others. Items from higher priority sources are displayed at the top. Default: 8.
scrollCount Number Number of lines above visible lines to search for words. Excludes visible lines if Vim is running in a pane. Default: 200.

Tag Completion

Tag names are autocompleted if tags file is available.

Option Type Description
enable Boolean Set this to true to enable tag name completion. Default: false.
filetypes List List of file types for which this source is enabled. Default: ['*'].
maxCount Number Total number of completion candidates emitted by this source. Default: 10.
priority Number Priority of this source relative to others. Items from higher priority sources are displayed at the top. Default: 8.

Configure Options

Options can be configured using the global function g:VimCompleteOptionsSet(). The example below illustrates how to enable and configure completion sources. Please note that not all options are demonstrated here; for a comprehensive list of all available options, refer to the tables provided above.

vim9script
var options = {
    completor: { shuffleEqualPriority: true, postfixHighlight: true },
    buffer: { enable: true, priority: 10, urlComplete: true, envComplete: true },
    abbrev: { enable: true, priority: 10 },
    lsp: { enable: true, priority: 10, maxCount: 5 },
    omnifunc: { enable: false, priority: 8, filetypes: ['python', 'javascript'] },
    vsnip: { enable: true, priority: 11 },
    vimscript: { enable: true, priority: 11 },
    ngram: {
        enable: true,
        priority: 10,
        bigram: false,
        filetypes: ['text', 'help', 'markdown'],
        filetypesComments: ['c', 'cpp', 'python', 'java'],
    },
}
autocmd VimEnter * g:VimCompleteOptionsSet(options)

Note

For legacy script, the syntax for 'autocmd' is:

autocmd VimEnter * call g:VimCompleteOptionsSet(options)

Tab Completion

You can map the <Tab> and <S-Tab> keys to navigate autocomplete items in insert mode. By default, Vim uses CTRL-N and CTRL-P to cycle through completion menu options. <Tab> and <S-Tab> also jump between snippet placeholders where appropriate.

To enable <Tab> and <S-Tab> for this purpose, add the following to your configuration:

vim9script
let g:vimcomplete_tab_enable = 1

Note: Enabling this option will remove any existing mappings for <Tab> and <S-Tab>.

If you'd like to retain <Tab> and <S-Tab> mappings from other plugins, unset the above variable and instead use these custom mappings, substituting {rhs} as needed (using "\<Tab>" as "{rhs}" will behave the same as setting the variable):

inoremap <buffer><expr> <tab>   g:VimCompleteTab() ?? "{rhs}"
inoremap <buffer><expr> <s-tab> g:VimCompleteSTab() ?? "{rhs}"

This configuration allows <Tab> and <S-Tab> to integrate with other plugin mappings.

Alternatively, you can use the keys <Plug>(vimcomplete-tab) and <Plug>(vimcomplete-s-tab) directly in your custom mappings.

Enter Key Handling

<Enter> is mapped by default to insert the currently selected item and/or insert a literal <CR>, depending on configuration (see noNewlineInCompletion and noNewlineInCompletionEver options).

In case of conflicts with other plugins, this mapping can be disabled entirely:

vim9script
g:vimcomplete_cr_enable = 0

In this case, the user must define an appropriate <CR> mapping to resolve conflicts between plugins. When creating your mapping, if alwaysOn is enabled, consider emitting <Plug>(vimcomplete-skip) to prevent the next keystroke from automatically reactivating the completion popup.

Note

For help with other keybindings see :h popupmenu-keys. This help section includes keybindings for <BS>, CTRL-H, CTRL-L, CTRL-Y, CTRL-E, <PageUp>, <PageDown>, <Up>, and <Down> keys when popup menu is open.

Highlight Groups

You can use Pmenu, PmenuThumb, PmenuSbar, PmenuSel, PmenuKind, PmenuKindSel, PmenuExtra and PmenuExtraSel Vim highlight groups to alter the appearance of the popup menu.

You can also customize the appearance of the column containing the 'kind' attribute in the menu. For example, to modify the appearance of the 'Keyword' kind, configure the PmenuKindKeyword highlight group. Refer to the list for all available 'kind' items.

If postfixHighlight option is enabled, you can utilize the VimCompletePostfix highlight group to adjust the appearance of text adjacent to the completion. By default, it is linked to DiffChange.

Info Popup Window

Vim's completion system opens an additional popup window next to the selected item if the item has additional info that needs to be displayed. If you prefer to keep the default look of this window set customInfoWindow to false. Set it to true to see a more refined border. If you prefer to customize this window further use g:VimCompleteInfoPopupOptionsSet(). It takes a dictionary of popup window options. See :h popup_create-arguments. You can set borderchars, borderhighlight and popuphighlight for instance.

Commands

Commands are available to list completion sources and to enable or disable the plugin.

Listing Completion Sources

The following command displays a list of completion sources enabled for the current buffer.

:VimCompleteCompletors

Enable and Disable

Autocompletion is enabled by default. At any time, you can enable or disable the plugin using the following commands:

:VimCompleteEnable
:VimCompleteDisable

You can selectively enable autocompletion for specific file types. For instance, enable autocompletion for c, cpp, python, vim, text, and markdown files.

:VimCompleteEnable c cpp python vim text markdown

To start Vim with autocompletion disabled, set the following variable.

g:vimcomplete_enable_by_default = false

VimCompleteEnable takes a space-separated list of file types as an argument. If no argument is specified, autocompletion is enabled for all file types.

When Vim is started without any arguments or a new buffer is created with :bufnew, it opens an unnamed buffer. This buffer is not associated with any file type. To enable/disable autocompletion on this buffer use the following variable. It is set by default.

g:vimcomplete_noname_buf_enable = true

Custom Completion Kinds

Each item returned by the LSP server has a type associated with it, which can be displayed on the popup menu. To customize , you need to use the option customCompletionKinds and set all custom kinds in the completionKinds. The following table has all default LSP kinds:

Kind Description
t Text
m Method
f Function
C Constructor
F Field
v Variable
c Class
i Interface
M Module
p Property
u Unit
V Value
e Enum
k Keyword
S Snippet
C Color
f File
r Reference
F Folder
E EnumMember
d Constant
s Struct
E Event
o Operator
T TypeParameter
B Buffer1
D Dictionary1
w Word1
O Option1
a Abbreviation1
e EnvVariable1
U URL1
c Command1
X Tmux1
G Tag1

For example, if you want to change the "Method" kind to the kind "method()":

vim9script
g:VimCompleteOptionsSet({ Completor: {
    customCompletionKinds: true,
    completionKinds: {
        "Method": "method()"
    }
})

In the completion popup, will show something like this: >

    var file = new File()

    file.cre
        | create                method() |
        | createIfNotExists     method() |
        | ...                            |

Writing Your Own Extension

Start by examining the implementation of an external plugin like ngrams-viewer (which spawns a new process to handle http requests) or ngram-complete.

The completion engine employs an interface similar to Vim's complete-functions. However, the function is invoked in three ways instead of two:

  • First, to find the start of the text to be completed.
  • Next, to check if completion candidates are available.
  • Lastly, to find the actual matches.

The first and last invocation are identical to Vim's complete-functions. During the second invocation, the arguments are:

  • findstart: 2
  • base: empty

The function must return true or false to indicate whether completion candidates are ready. Only when this return value is true will the function be invoked for the third time to get the actual matches. This step is essential for asynchronous completion.

The name of the completion function does not matter, but it should take two arguments: findstart: Number and base: String, and return <any>. Register this function with the completion engine by calling vimcompletor.Register(). Use the User event of type VimCompleteLoaded to time the registration.

When users set options through the configuration file, a User event with type VimCompleteOptionsChanged is issued. The plugin should register for this event and update its internal state accordingly.

Other Plugins to Enhance Your Workflow

  1. Devdocs.vim - browse documentation from devdocs.io.

  2. Scope.vim - fuzzy find anything.

  3. VimBits - curated suite of lightweight Vim plugins.

  4. VimSuggest - autocompletion for Vim's command-line.

Contributing

Pull requests are welcomed.

Similar Vim Plugins

Footnotes

  1. This is not returned by LSP. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10