👀 eyeliner.nvim

Move faster with unique f/F indicators for each word on the line. Like quick-scope, but in Lua.

eyeliner-demo.mov

The orange letters indicate the unique letter in the word that you can jump to with f/F right away. Blue letters indicate that there is no unique letter in the word, but you can get to it with f/F and then a repeat with ;.

📦 Installation

Requirement: Neovim >= 0.7.0

Using vim-plug:

Plug 'jinh0/eyeliner.nvim'

Using packer.nvim:

use 'jinh0/eyeliner.nvim'

⚙️ Configuration

Default values (in lazy.nvim):

{
  'jinh0/eyeliner.nvim',
  config = function()
    require'eyeliner'.setup {
      -- show highlights only after keypress
      highlight_on_key = true,

      -- dim all other characters if set to true (recommended!)
      dim = false,             

      -- set the maximum number of characters eyeliner.nvim will check from
      -- your current cursor position; this is useful if you are dealing with
      -- large files: see https://github.com/jinh0/eyeliner.nvim/issues/41
      max_length = 9999,

      -- filetypes for which eyeliner should be disabled;
      -- e.g., to disable on help files:
      -- disabled_filetypes = {"help"}
      disabled_filetypes = {},

      -- buftypes for which eyeliner should be disabled
      -- e.g., disabled_buftypes = {"nofile"}
      disabled_buftypes = {},

      -- add eyeliner to f/F/t/T keymaps;
      -- see section on advanced configuration for more information
      default_keymaps = true,
    }
  end
}

✨ Show highlights only after keypress

If you prefer to have eyeliner's highlights shown only after you press f/F/t/T, set highlight_on_key to true in the setup function.

In Lua:

use {
  'jinh0/eyeliner.nvim',
  config = function()
    require'eyeliner'.setup {
      highlight_on_key = true
    }
  end
}

Demo

eyeliner-demo-keypress.mov

Highlight + Dim

When using highlight_on_key, you may want to dim the rest of the characters since they are unimportant. You can do this with the dim option:

require'eyeliner'.setup {
  highlight_on_key = true, -- this must be set to true for dimming to work!
  dim = true,
}

dim-demo.mov

🖌 Customize highlight colors

You can customize the highlight colors and styles with the EyelinerPrimary and EyelinerSecondary highlight groups.

For instance, if you wanted to make eyeliner.nvim more subtle by only using bold and underline, with no color,

In Vimscript:

highlight EyelinerPrimary gui=underline,bold
highlight EyelinerSecondary gui=underline

In Lua:

vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, 'EyelinerPrimary', { bold = true, underline = true })
vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, 'EyelinerSecondary', { underline = true })

If you want to set a custom color:

In Vimscript:

highlight EyelinerPrimary guifg=#000000 gui=underline,bold
highlight EyelinerSecondary guifg=#ffffff gui=underline

In Lua:

vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, 'EyelinerPrimary', { fg='#000000', bold = true, underline = true })
vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, 'EyelinerSecondary', { fg='#ffffff', underline = true })

Update highlights when the colorscheme is changed

In Vimscript:

autocmd ColorScheme * :highlight EyelinerPrimary ...

In Lua:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd('ColorScheme', {
  pattern = '*',
  callback = function()
    vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, 'EyelinerPrimary', { bold = true, underline = true })
  end,
})

Advanced Configuration

There are two common use cases that require more configuration:

• You want to use other plugins that change the f/F/t/T functionality, like https://github.com/rhysd/clever-f.vim
• You want to map eyeliner's highlights to other keys than f/F/t/T

eyeliner.nvim by default maps the f/F/t/T keys. You can disable this with the default_keymaps option:

require'eyeliner'.setup {
  highlight_on_key = true,
  default_keymaps = false
}

eyeliner.nvim exposes the highlight functionality:

require("eyeliner").highlight({ forward = true })

Set forward = true for f/t highlights and forward = false for F/T highlights.

Example: Integration with clever-f.vim

The following code adds eyeliner.nvim highlights to clever-f's f functionality:

vim.g.clever_f_not_overwrites_standard_mappings = 1

vim.keymap.set(
  {"n", "x", "o"},
  "f",
  function() 
    require("eyeliner").highlight({ forward = true })
    return "<Plug>(clever-f-f)"
  end,
  {expr = true}
)

Example: Mapping a different character for f functionality

Note, the purpose of eyeliner is to provide highlights. It is up to you to replicate the functionality of f. Here is a starting point:

vim.keymap.set(
  {"n", "x", "o"},
  "x",
  function()

    -- Eyeliner only adds highlights, nothing else
    require("eyeliner").highlight({ forward = true })


    -- Replicating `f` functionality:
    -- Note: this doesn't work with the dot command

    -- Get a character from the user
    local char = vim.fn.getcharstr()

    -- For repeated calls, e.g., `3f`
    local cnt = vim.v.count1
    while cnt > 0 do
      -- vim's builtin search function
      vim.fn.search(char, "", vim.fn.line("."))
      cnt = cnt - 1
    end

     -- Optional: Set charsearch for repeats using ; and ,
     vim.fn.setcharsearch({ char = char, forward = 1, ["until"] = 0 })
  end
)

Commands

Enable/disable/toggle:

:EyelinerEnable
:EyelinerDisable
:EyelinerToggle

Troubleshooting

• To disable eyeliner.nvim on the nvim-tree plugin, you need to add nofile as a disabled buftype to your configuration, i.e., disable_buftypes = {"nofile"} and NvimTree as a disabled filetype, i.e., disable_filetypes = {"NvimTree"}.

Contributing

The plugin is written using the Fennel programming language in the fnl/ directory. The transpiled Lua code is committed along with the original Fennel code in the lua/ directory, so that Fennel is not a dependency for users. Therefore, for development, you must first have Fennel installed. See here for instructions.

To build the project, simply run make, which will transpile the Fennel code into Lua.

This repository uses the Conventional Commits specification for commit messages.