Use the w, e, b motions like a spider. Move by subwords and skip
insignificant punctuation.
A lua implementation of CamelCaseMotion, with extra consideration of punctuation. Works in normal, visual, and operator-pending mode. Supports counts and dot-repeat.
The w, e, b (and ge) motions work the same as the default ones by vim,
except for two differences:
The movements happen by subwords, meaning it stops at the sub-parts of a
camelCase, SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE, or kebab-case variable.
-- positions vim's `w` will move to
local myVariableName = FOO_BAR_BAZ
-- ^ ^ ^
-- positions spider's `w` will move to
local myVariableName = FOO_BAR_BAZ
-- ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^A sequence of one or more punctuation characters is considered significant if it is surrounded by whitespace and does not include any non-punctuation characters.
foo == bar .. "baz"
-- ^ ^ significant punctuation
foo:find("a")
-- ^ ^ ^ insignificant punctuationThis speeds up the movement across the line by reducing the number of mostly unnecessary stops.
-- positions vim's `w` will move to
if foo:find("%d") and foo == bar then print("[foo] has" .. bar) end
-- ^ ^^ ^ ^^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ -> 21
-- positions spider's `w` will move to
if foo:find("%d") and foo == bar then print("[foo] has" .. bar) end
-- ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ -> 14If you prefer to use this plugin only for subword motions, you can disable this
feature by setting skipInsignificantPunctuation = false in the .setup()
call.
Note
This plugin ignores vim's iskeyword option.
-- packer
use { "chrisgrieser/nvim-spider" }
-- lazy.nvim
{ "chrisgrieser/nvim-spider", lazy = true },No keybindings are created by default. Below are the mappings to replace the
default w, e, and b motions with this plugin's version of them.
vim.keymap.set(
{ "n", "o", "x" },
"w",
"<cmd>lua require('spider').motion('w')<CR>",
{ desc = "Spider-w" }
)
vim.keymap.set(
{ "n", "o", "x" },
"e",
"<cmd>lua require('spider').motion('e')<CR>",
{ desc = "Spider-e" }
)
vim.keymap.set(
{ "n", "o", "x" },
"b",
"<cmd>lua require('spider').motion('b')<CR>",
{ desc = "Spider-b" }
)
-- OR: lazy-load on keystroke
-- lazy.nvim
{
"chrisgrieser/nvim-spider",
keys = {
{
"e",
"<cmd>lua require('spider').motion('e')<CR>",
mode = { "n", "o", "x" },
},
-- ...
},
},Note
For dot-repeat to work, you have to call the motions as Ex-commands. When
using function() require("spider").motion("w") end as third argument of
the keymap, dot-repeatability will not work.
The .setup() call is optional.
-- default values
require("spider").setup {
skipInsignificantPunctuation = true,
consistentOperatorPending = false, -- see "Consistent Operator-pending Mode" in the README
subwordMovement = true,
customPatterns = {}, -- check "Custom Movement Patterns" in the README for details
}You can also pass this configuration table to the motion function:
require("spider").motion("w", { skipInsignificantPunctuation = false })Any options passed here will be used, and override the options set in the
setup() call.
You can use the customPatterns table to define custom movement patterns. These
must be lua patterns, and
they must be symmetrical (work the same backwards and forwards) to work
correctly with b and ge. If multiple patterns are given, the motion
searches for all of them and stops at the closest one. When there is no match, the
search continues in the next line.
If you have interesting ideas for custom patterns, please share them in the GitHub discussions, or make a PR to add them as built-in options.
A few examples:
-- The motion stops only at numbers.
require("spider").motion("w", {
customPatterns = { "%d+" },
})
-- The motion stops only at words with 3 or more chars or at any punctuation.
-- (Lua patterns have no quantifier like `{3,}`, thus the repetition.)
require("spider").motion("w", {
customPatterns = { "%w%w%w+", "%p+" },
})
-- The motion stops only at hashes like `ef82a2`
-- (here avoiding repetition by using `string.rep()`)
-- Extend default patterns by passing a `patterns` table and
-- setting `overrideDefault` to false.
require("spider").motion("w", {
customPatterns = {
patterns = {
("%x"):rep(6) .. "+" },
},
overrideDefault = false,
},
})
-- The motion stops at the next declaration of a javascript variable.
-- (The `e` motion combined with the `.` matching any character in
-- lua patterns ensures that you stop at beginning of the variable name.)
require("spider").motion("e", {
customPatterns = { "const .", "let .", "var ." },
})Note
The customPatterns option overrides nvim-spider's default behavior,
meaning subword movement and skipping of punctuation are disabled. You can add
customPatterns as an option to the .motion call to create new motions,
while still having access nvim-spider's default behavior. Pass a patterns
table and set overrideDefault = false to extend nvim-spider's default
behavior with a new pattern.
For adding UTF-8 support for matching non-ASCII text, add luautf8 as rocks.
You can do so directly in packer.nvim or via dependency on nvim_rocks in
lazy.nvim.
-- packer
{ "chrisgrieser/nvim-spider", rocks = "luautf8" }
-- lazy.nvim
{
"chrisgrieser/nvim-spider",
lazy = true,
dependencies = {
"theHamsta/nvim_rocks",
build = "pip3 install --user hererocks && python3 -mhererocks . -j2.1.0-beta3 -r3.0.0 && cp nvim_rocks.lua lua",
config = function() require("nvim_rocks").ensure_installed("luautf8") end,
},
},This plugin supports w, e, and b in operator-pending mode, but does not
include a subword variant of iw. For a version of iw that considers
camelCase, check out the subword text object of
nvim-various-textobjs.
In operator pending mode, vim's web motions are actually a bit inconsistent.
For instance, cw will change to the end of a word instead of the start of
the next word, like dw does. This is probably done for convenience in vi's
early days before there were text objects. In my view, this is quite problematic
since it makes people habitualize inconsistent motion behavior.
In this plugin, such small inconsistencies are therefore deliberately not
implemented. Apart from the inconsistency, such a behavior can create unexpected
results when used in subwords or near punctuation. If you nevertheless want to,
you can achieve that behavior by mapping cw to ce:
vim.keymap.set("o", "w", "<cmd>lua require('spider').motion('w')<CR>")
vim.keymap.set("n", "cw", "ce", { remap = true })
-- or the same in one mapping without `remap = true`
vim.keymap.set("n", "cw", "c<cmd>lua require('spider').motion('e')<CR>")Vim has more inconsistencies related to how the motion range is
interpreted (see :h exclusive). For example, if the end of the motion is at
the beginning of a line, the endpoint is moved to the last character of the previous line.
foo bar
-- ^
bazTyping dw deletes only bar. baz stays on the next line.
Similarly, if the start of the motion is before or at the first non-blank
character in a line, and the end is at the beginning of a line, the motion
is changed to linewise.
foo
-- ^
barTyping yw yanks foo\r, i.e., the indentation before the cursor is included,
and the register type is set to linewise.
Setting consistentOperatorPending = true removes these special cases. In the
first example, bar\r would be deleted charwise. In the second example, foo\r would
be yanked charwise.
Caveats:
- Last visual selection marks (
`[and`]) are updated and point to the endpoints of the motion. This was not always the case before. - Forced blockwise motion may be cancelled if it cannot be correctly
represented with the current
selectionoption.
Simple and pragmatic: Wrap the normal mode motions in <Esc>l and i. (Drop
the l on backwards motions.)
vim.keymap.set("i", "<C-f>", "<Esc>l<cmd>lua require('spider').motion('w')<CR>i")
vim.keymap.set("i", "<C-b>", "<Esc><cmd>lua require('spider').motion('b')<CR>i")- Thanks to
@vypxland@ii14for figuring out dot-repeatability. - Thanks to
@vanaigrfor a large contribution with regard to operator-pending mode.
About the developer In my day job, I am a sociologist studying the social mechanisms underlying the digital economy. For my PhD project, I investigate the governance of the app economy and how software ecosystems manage the tension between innovation and compatibility. If you are interested in this subject, feel free to get in touch.
I also occasionally blog about vim: Nano Tips for Vim
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