📝 prosemode.nvim

with_and_without_prosemode.nvim.mp4

A dead simple, pure lua, neovim plugin for writing prose. prosemode.nvim introduces a "prose mode" (toggled with :ProseToggle). The mode applies the minimal number of changes to keymappings and options with the biggest impact on the experience of writing prose in nvim. It minimizes potential conflicts with other plugins without requiring plugin-level configuration options.

This plugin does not and will never touch any keymapping or options until toggled and will always leave your highlight groups, file type settings, conceal setting, formatting, etc. alone.

Requires neovim version > 0.7.

Installation

via plug

Plug 'liamtimms/prosemode.nvim`

via packer

use 'liamtimms/prosemode.nvim'

Setup

vimscript:

lua << EOF
require("prosemode").setup()
EOF

lua:

require("prosemode").setup()

Usage

The primary command to use is:

:ProseToggle

This will switch between having the mode on or off. Note: some of the options it changes are vim window level, so strange behavior may occur when toggling the mode from different windows within the same nvim instance. To deal with this, you can call :ProseOn or :ProseOff to apply the desired settings to the current window if it got left behind by a toggle.¹

You can bind the commands to a key in your config if desired. For example:

local keymap = vim.api.nvim_set_keymap
local opts = { noremap = true, silent = true }

keymap("n", "<leader>pt", ":ProseToggle<CR>", opts)
keymap("n", "<leader>pm", ":ProseOn<CR>", opts)
keymap("n", "<leader>po", ":ProseOff<CR>", opts)

-- additional keymaps here

In vimscript one can use:

nnoremap <silent> <leader>pt :ProseToggle<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <leader>pm :ProseOn<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <leader>po :ProseOff<CR>

Adjust these as desired for your setup or call the command(s) directly. (Note: I recommend using local variables as aliases in lua to take advantage of the language features and make your config more readable).

Comparison to alternatives

vimpencil: a vimscript plugin with many, many additional features including further changes to keymaps, new conceal settings, multiple wrap modes, changes to insert mode undo history, autoformating, and more. prosemode.nvim is not intended as a direct competitor but rather a simpler alternative with no need for additional configuration.
vim-pandoc: a mixed vim-script and python plugin that aims to provide a WYSIWYG style editing experience in vim providing microsoft word style shortcuts, pandoc related autocompletes, "a comfortable environment for editing prose," support folding, table of contents generation, and more. prosemode.nvim focuses only on a small number of very helpful changes to the environment when editing prose and is completely agnotistic to the type of document, the folding settings, how the user chooses to run external programs like pandoc (I recommend using entr to call pandoc when your source files change if working with pandoc), or syntax highlighting settings (it can be combined with the related vim-pandoc-syntax plugin to produce a more minimal pandoc powered writing environment).

credit

This plugin is my first time using lua and I relied heavily on the tutorial here. It translates and improves the functionality of a vimscript snippet I found in a comment years ago to the new neovim lua API.

I plan to further reduce this friction in later updates using autocommands. ↩