/vim-pastething

Vim paste (yank) pre-processing plugin

Primary LanguageVim Script

Pastething

This repository contains a VIM paste pre-processing plugin suitable for editing text markup like Markdown or LaTeX.

Features

The plugin provides p and P handlers for normal, insert and visual editing modes. Their invocation triggers the following workflow:

  1. Plugin collects information about the paste action:
    • Type of the current file
    • Type of the content to be pasted. Currently the plugin distinguishes:
      • HTTP(s) URLs.
      • Image blobs (either xclip or wl-paste is required for this).
    • Possible text for annotations (e.g. gets the active visual selection)
  2. Substitution pattern is requested from the pre-configured dictionary. Example of the markdown pattern for images: ![%T%C](%U) where %T stands for title, %U - for the URL and %C marks the cursor position after the paste is complete.
  3. Finally, the plugin substitutes the information into the pattern and actually pastes the result into the buffer. For images the plugin saves blobs into a pre-configured directory and puts the path to the new file into the pattern.

Installation

Put the repository into the Vim runtime search path by using your favorite plugin manager.

Configuration

  1. Overwrite global options:

    let g:pastething_insert_after_eol_move_right = 0
let g:pastething_insert_after_eol_command = 'p'
let g:pastething_image_enabled = 1
let g:pastething_xclip_path = '/path/to/xclip' " `xclip` to extract images from clipboard
let g:pastething_image_dir = 'img' " Save extracted images into the `./img` directory

    Note: g:pastething_insert_eol is replaced with the top two variables listed above.

  2. Setup the substitution patterns for the file types of interest. Example:

    • ./ftplugin/markdown.vim: 
      call g:pastething#pattern_set('markdown', g:pastething_type_url, "[%T%C](%U)")
call g:pastething#pattern_set('markdown', g:pastething_type_img, "![%T%C](%U)")
    • ./ftplugin/tex.vim: 
      call g:pastething#pattern_set('tex', g:pastething_type_url, "\\href{%U}{%T%C}")

  3. Setup the paste command mappings:

    nnoremap p :call pastething#paste_normal("p")<CR>
nnoremap P :call pastething#paste_normal("P")<CR>
vnoremap p :call pastething#paste_visual("p")<CR>
inoremap <Esc>p <C-o>:call pastething#paste_insert("P")<CR>

References