Plugin recommendation:vim-leader-guide

[tracyone]

vim-leader-guide

Spacemacs like function:displays the available key bindings automatically and dynamically.

No need any config.

#suppose  leader is space
nnoremap <silent> <leader> :<c-u>LeaderGuide '<Space>'<CR>
vnoremap <silent> <leader> :<c-u>LeaderGuideVisual '<Space>'<CR>

[liuchengxu]

Actually, I have tried this plugin before. However, I don't think it is good enough to play an important role in the daily use at present. It seemingly can't give a real-time prompt like which key and helm in spacemacs，which is very important. Furthermore, the help information of key bindings needs to be well organized so that we can get a good experience in using, which also needs some works to be done.

For now, I suggest putting it in private plugins. But we can keep this issue open, it may be good enough someday.

[zer4tul]

i've made a preview branch, maybe you can have a try. https://github.com/zer4tul/space-vim/tree/heavy . for me, it's nearly give me the prompt what i need like which-key+helm, because i cannot remember every keybinding.
so what we need is a function or command like (global-set-key (kbd key) ',func) in core/core_funcs.el, to easily bind keys and give them a pretty description.

[liuchengxu]

@zer4tul Wow, it really looks pretty heavy! I'll give it a try.

[fno2010]

I also tried vim-leader-guide, and I think it should be useful. If you are used to using spacemacs with evil, which-key is very helpful. But the difference between vim and evil maybe the leader key timeout. Many vimers like to set leader timeout.

For example, in vim, I can bind <leader>b and <leader>bn to different functions. But in evil, if I bind <leader>bn, the <leader>b will be a group and I cannot bind <leader>b.

Any thoughts?

[liuchengxu]

It can't be denied that vim-leader-guide is useful. Firstly, I just haven't figured out a nice way to integrate it into space-vim smoothly. Meanwhile, I hope the user experience could be as good as which key in spacemacs，at least acceptable. If not, the current solution is to use SPC ? supported by fzf.vim to find some certain key. Not so smart, not so convenient, but still a workaround.

I am not sure if I was on a wrong direction to vim-leader-guide before. If someone could share a mature vim-leader-guide configuration, I'm utterly willing to take a chance.

[fno2010]

@zer4tul: just checked your heavy branch. It is really what I wanted when I started to try space-vim. But the same question as my above comment, is it possible to handle leader timeout very well?

@liuchengxu Have you tried @zer4tul 's branch? It should be more similar with spacemacs. If you are just looking for something like the which-key in spacemacs, I think it is not bad. You can see the screenshot:

But you can see that <leader>qm and <leader>qQ cannot be grouped, because <leader>q is also mapped.

[zer4tul]

i've noticed that. seems there are two problems.

1. timeoutlen. seems it does nothing to leader-guide. try:

set timeoutlen=1

2. grouping ( or "prefix keys" in emacs). seems we have to do some hack to get the "prefix keys"-alike things to work.

[liuchengxu]

I have tried the heavy branch (Still, I think that the leader guide is good, but not enough. Even SPC q is not speedy like before).

Maybe we can make a new branch focusing on this? It's really a major revision and some problems indeed exist. I suggest integrating this into space-vim slowly. In order to bring in vim-leader-guide eventually, some good plans have to be made too.

With so much content added, I don't think space-vim is simple or elegant any more 😂 。

[liuchengxu]

@zer4tul I have just made a new branch named vim-leader-guide based on the most recent master branch. Could you merge the heavy branch (or the part you think is ready) into it? Then we can all have a look and do something together.

[zer4tul]

Initial version done. i have sent the PR.

[liuchengxu]

Accepted.

By far, some problems are annoying.

• SPC ? does not work.
• SPC ;; does not work.
• Without lightline enabled, an error raises in call lightline#update(), python-mode error.

For SPC q [qQs] in vim-leader-guide branch, I don't think it's necessary and it will result in a lag in exiting vim via SPC q, which is mapped in plugin vim-better-default. We must prevent this type of key bindings. This problem has been presented above. If we can't find a solution, then what we can do is to avoid it.

I want to invite you to be a collaborator of space-vim so that you can have the push access to the repo, are you interested? It's definitely a big change, which is far beyond what I designed in the very beginning. Now I am a little dazed frankly 🙉 . @tracyone @zer4tul @fno2010

[zer4tul]

well, it's OK for me. i want to make a leader-guide layer, so those ones who don't need the prompt can easily disable it.

[liuchengxu]

@zer4tul Thanks, I have sent the invitation.

[liuchengxu]

I have pushed a commit to vim-leader-guide branch.

• Since we intend to make leader-guide a layer, we could source core_keybindings.vim in the layer config. (EDIT: So stupid, I made a mistake here, please correct me.)
• Disable SPC q [qQs] temporarily until find a solution.
• Improve lightline/config.vim.

SPC ? and SPC ;; problem still exists.

[liuchengxu]

@zer4tul I have a problem:

I simply configure vim-leader-guide in UserConfig() (not in vim-leader-guide branch) :

    let g:lmap =  {}

    let g:lmap['a'] = { 'name' : '+align' }
    let g:lmap['b'] = { 'name' : '+buffer' }
    ......

vim-leader-guide doesn't show me the name +align (actually the whole help information doesn't show up), but the key mappings under the catergory SPC a is seemingly normal.

If we can add the brief description to the existing key mappings shown in vim-leader-guide, maybe a lot of works could be saved.

[zer4tul]

这周跟下周都会比较忙，年底，你懂的。这个问题等我忙过这段时间看一下，有进展我会回复。

[liuchengxu]

了然了然，顺其自然，正事要紧

[ctjhoa]

Hi there,
I just find out about this repo, I've got my spacevim for quit a while now. I have vim-leader-guide support and I've already faced this issue.
It looks like a vim-leader-guide bug to me. Using this particular version fix the problem. Unfortunately I don't have time to dig deeper in this now.

[liuchengxu]

@ctjhoa Thanks! spacevim is also a good job!

It seems that to switch to the particular version could not solve the problem in my case, it raises some other errors:

Error detected while processing function leaderGuide#start_by_prefix:
line    6:
E121: Undefined variable: s:cached_dicts
E116: Invalid arguments for function has_key(s:cached_dicts, a:key) || g:leaderGuide_run_map_on_popup
E15: Invalid expression: !has_key(s:cached_dicts, a:key) || g:leaderGuide_run_map_on_popup
line   12:
E121: Undefined variable: s:desc_lookup
E116: Invalid arguments for function has_key(s:desc_lookup, a:key) || has_key(s:desc_lookup , 'top')
E15: Invalid expression: has_key(s:desc_lookup, a:key) || has_key(s:desc_lookup , 'top')
line   18:
E121: Undefined variable: rundict
E116: Invalid arguments for function <SNR>149_start_buffer
Press ENTER or type command to continue

I will dive into this when I have time。

BTW, since spacevim has supported vim-leader-guide, are you positive on helping space-vim make a leader-guide Layer if you have time? Maybe we have the same goals, which is to switch from spacemacs to vim painlessly. I'm also a spacemacs user and a vimmer.

[tracyone]

I just made a ctrlp extension :ctrlp-leader-guide😄

[liuchengxu]

@tracyone Uh, it looks not bad, but maybe not the ultimate goal.

[tracyone]

another similar plugin: sunaku/vim-shortcut

[liuchengxu]

It looks good. I'll give it a try.

[ctjhoa]

@liuchengxu I've done some progress on the vim-leader-guide issue (hecal3/vim-leader-guide#39). I'm not against merging efforts it's just that I'm really busy, I will try to take a look at your integration ASAP.

[liuchengxu]

@ctjhoa Great! Thanks a lot! I'm still working on this, although I'm also too busy(actually lazy) to delve into the problem.