vim9-stargate

You can think of stargate as simplified modern alternative to easymotion for vim 8.2+. It uses popups windows to show hints, so it will not modify the content of your buffer and because of that linter plugins will not get mad. It is created for just one purpose - jump to any visible character in the current window without thinking of where your cursor is. Stargate do not support all the features of easymotion and will never do.

Motivation

There are few things that I miss in easymotion. First is already mentioned problem with linter plugins, and the second one is that if you are using non-English language in your code/text it makes harder to navigate in a buffer with easymotion, because jumping to non-English character requires switching your locale multiple times (first to choose this character, and second to go back to English and select a hint). Options section for g:stargate_keymaps describe how you can configure stargate to work with non-English text easier.

Usage

Stargate by default doesn't add any command or mapping. But at the same time it doesn't add anything to your vim startup time. So to use this plugin, you just need to create a mapping and call stargate function, like so

" For 1 character to search before showing hints
noremap <leader>f <Cmd>call stargate#OKvim(1)<CR>
" For 2 consecutive characters to search
noremap <leader>F <Cmd>call stargate#OKvim(2)<CR>

" Instead of 1 or 2 you can use any higher number, but it isn't much practical
" and it is easier to use `/` or `?` for that

Notice that it is noremap (not nnoremap) this allows stargate to work not only in normal mode, but also in visual and operator-pending modes. Do not use :call ... (<Cmd>call ... is required) or plugin will behave not as you want it to.

To change current window when stargate is enabled (but not in a hints mode) just press <C-w>, so then you can choose window label to swap to it (space to return to the current window). If for some reason you want to use this feature outside of stargate plugin itself you can map provided function to some convenient key

nnoremap <leader>w <Cmd>call stargate#Galaxy()<CR>

And here we actually use nnoremap this time , because it makes no sense to swap to another window in visual or operator-pending modes.

To exit stargate at any moment press <Esc> or <C-c>.

If you want to use another jump locations like easymotion jump to start of a word, or start of a line etc. You can use stargate#OKvim() with a string as its only argument. This string is just some vim regexp.

" for the start of a word
noremap <leader>w <Cmd>call stargate#OKvim('\<')<CR>
" for the end of a word
noremap <leader>e <Cmd>call stargate#OKvim('\S\>')<CR>
" for the start of a line
noremap <leader>l <Cmd>call stargate#OKvim('\_^')<CR>
" for the last character on the line
noremap <leader>E <Cmd>call stargate#OKvim('\S\s*$')<CR>
" for the end of a line
noremap <leader>$ <Cmd>call stargate#OKvim('$')<CR>
" for any bracket, parentheses or curly bracket
noremap <leader>[ <Cmd>call stargate#OKvim('[(){}[\]]')<CR>

As you can see possible jump locations are limited only by your knowledge of vim regexp. Note make sure to use single quotes (literal strings) or you would need to escape every backslash in a pattern.

Configuration

Options

Variable	Description	Default
g:stargate_ignorecase	Ignore case of the search.	v:true
g:stargate_limit	Maximum number of popups.1	300
g:stargate_chars	Chars used for hints.	'fjdklshgaewiomc'
g:stargate_name	How should VIM9000 call you.	'Human'
g:stargate_keymaps	Dict of all possible keymaps.2	{}

1 - This limit is required, because spawning a lot of popups is slow in vim. You can increase it if you have found that it sometimes limits your search results, but for any practical usage default value is enough.

2 - It is a dictionary of the keys - characters that you press and values - all characters you want to include in a search besides the key character. Both are strings. As an example for Russian language it can look like this

let g:stargate_keymaps = {
      \ "~": "Ё",
      \ "Q": "Й", "W": "Ц", "E": "У", "R": "К", "T": "Е", "Y": "Н", "U": "Г", "I": "Ш", "O": "Щ", "P": "З", "{": "Х", "}": "Ъ",
      \  "A": "Ф", "S": "Ы", "D": "В", "F": "А", "G": "П", "H": "Р", "J": "О", "K": "Л", "L": "Д", ":": "Ж", '"': "Э",
      \   "Z": "Я", "X": "Ч", "C": "С", "V": "М", "B": "И", "N": "Т", "M": "Ь", "<": "Б", ">": "Ю",
      \ "`": "ё",
      \ "q": "й", "w": "ц", "e": "у", "r": "к", "t": "е", "y": "н", "u": "г", "i": "ш", "o": "щ", "p": "з", "[": "х", "]": "ъ",
      \  "a": "ф", "s": "ы", "d": "в", "f": "а", "g": "п", "h": "р", "j": "о", "k": "л", "l": "д", ";": "ж", "'": "э",
      \   "z": "я", "x": "ч", "c": "с", "v": "м", "b": "и", "n": "т", "m": "ь", ",": "б", ".": "ю"
      \ }

You can add as many chars in a string as you want, and all of them will be searched for that dictionary key. As example to search for t, е (it's Russian е) and ё with only t search

let g:stargate_keymaps = { "t": "её" }

Or to jump to any of bracket, parentheses or curly bracket on [ search

let g:stargate_keymaps = { "[": "[](){}" }

Colors

Stargate provides some highlight groups that you can change to look good with your color scheme.

Highlight group	Description
StargateFocus	visible text of the current window when stargate invoked
StargateDesaturate	visible text when hints are enabled
StargateError	text highlight when something goes wrong
StargateLabels	window labels
StargateErrorLabels	window labels when something goes wrong
StargateMain	main color of the hints
StargateSecondary	secondary colors of the hints
StargateShip	highlight for cursor position
StargateVIM9000	color for VIM9000 name in the command line
StargateMessage	color of the standard message from VIM9000
StargateErrorMessage	color of the error message from VIM9000
StargateVisual	color of the visual selection when stargate is active

Defaults are

highlight default StargateFocus guifg=#958c6a
highlight default StargateDesaturate guifg=#49423f
highlight default StargateError guifg=#d35b4b
highlight default StargateLabels guifg=#caa247 guibg=#171e2c
highlight default StargateErrorLabels guifg=#caa247 guibg=#551414
highlight default StargateMain guifg=#f2119c gui=bold cterm=bold
highlight default StargateSecondary guifg=#11eb9c gui=bold cterm=bold
highlight default StargateShip guifg=#111111 guibg=#caa247
highlight default StargateVIM9000 guifg=#111111 guibg=#b2809f gui=bold cterm=bold
highlight default StargateMessage guifg=#a5b844
highlight default StargateErrorMessage guifg=#e36659
highlight default link StargateVisual Visual

Remove default from this list and add any highlight group you want to change into your vimrc.

Change StargateVisual when visual selection highlight of the current colorscheme has bad contrast with other stargate colors.

FAQ

• What are this weird naming in the source code?

  Just for fun INTRODUCTION should explain it a little bit.

TODO

• Add vim documentation
• Add tests
• Improve text grammar