pathfinder.vim

A Vim plugin to give suggestions to improve your movements, by using Dijkstra's pathfinding algorithm on cursor motions. It's a bit like Clippy.

Every time you make a movement, a suggested optimal route appears - and if you're using Vim 8.2 or above (+popupwin), you also get a short description of what each motion does. To allow you to keep typing while it works, paths are generated in a separate process, which runs Vim with a barebones vimrc.

There is also a possibility of extending the script in the future to work with other types of edits, such as operators, macros, marks and so on.

Installation

Use your favorite plugin manager. I recommend vim-plug.

Plug 'AlphaMycelium/pathfinder.vim'

Requirements

+python3
+timers
+popupwin if you want to see help summaries next to the suggested motions

Usage

Move the cursor in normal, visual or visual-line mode.
That's it.

Note that long-distance movements can take a while to calculate, especially on low-end machines. If another movement is made, the pathfinding will be cancelled to start processing the new path instead.

If your Vim has +popupwin (available since 8.2), you will see a popup at the bottom of the screen containing the suggestion for the last movement you made, along with a short description of what each motion does.

If not, the suggestion will be echoed, in a single line without descriptions.

Configuration

pathfinder.vim works out-of-the box with the default configuration. You don't need to read this section if you don't want to.

General settings

Variable	Function
`g:pf_autorun_delay`	Time in seconds where no keypresses occur before starting pathfinding. Note that it also starts on other events such as entering insert mode. Default: 2
`g:pf_server_communication_file`	Internal variable set automatically when launching the server Vim. Do not set this manually, it will break everything.

Motions

The plugin uses a global variable to set the available motions:

let g:pf_motions = [
  \ {'motion': 'h', 'weight': 1, 'description': 'Left {count} columns'},
  \ {'motion': 'l', 'weight': 1, 'description': 'Right {count} columns'},
  \ {'motion': 'j', 'weight': 1, 'description': 'Down {count} lines'},
  \ {'motion': 'k', 'weight': 1, 'description': 'Up {count} lines'},
  \ ...
  \ ]

This contains all the supported motions by default. If you do decide to change it, you will need to copy the entire list out of defaults.vim (there is no way to edit a single motion without doing that).

Each motion has a weight associated with it. The higher the weight, the less the pathfinding algorithm wants to use that motion. The path with the lowest total weight wins. The default settings use the number of characters in the motion as its weight.

However, repeating a motion will not use its predefined weight. Instead, the cost is calculated based on the effect adding another repetition will have on the string length of the count. This is easier to explain with examples:

Motion	Cost of adding the repetition
`j`	(uses configured weight)
`j` -> `2j`	1, since the `2` has been added
`2j` -> `3j`	0, because `3j` is no longer than `2j`
`9j` -> `10j`	1, since `10j` is a character longer than `9j`
`1j` -> `100j`	2, since `100j` is 2 characters longer than `1j`

Changes you could make:

Increasing the weight of motions you don't like
Deleting motions you never want to use
Changing the order of motions to put the ones you prefer first
Changing descriptions to be more understandable for you

Related Plugins

vim-be-good - Various training games to practice certain actions
vim-hardtime - Prevent yourself from repeating keys like h,j,k,l

sandersantema/pathfinder.vim