Pick anything

See more details in Features and Documentation.

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Note

This was previously hosted at a personal echasnovski GitHub account. It was transferred to a dedicated organization to improve long term project stability. See more details here.

⦿ This is a part of mini.nvim library. Please use this link if you want to mention this module.

⦿ All contributions (issues, pull requests, discussions, etc.) are done inside of 'mini.nvim'.

⦿ See whole library documentation to learn about general design principles, disable/configuration recipes, and more.

⦿ See MiniMax for a full config example that uses this module.

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If you want to help this project grow but don't know where to start, check out contributing guides of 'mini.nvim' or leave a Github star for 'mini.nvim' project and/or any its standalone Git repositories.

Demo

demo-pick.mp4

Features

• Single window general purpose interface for picking element from any array.

• On demand toggleable preview and info views.

• Interactive query matching (filter+sort) with fast non-blocking default which does fuzzy matching and allows other modes.

• Built-in pickers:

  • Files.
  • Pattern match (for fixed pattern or with live feedback; both allow file filtering via glob patterns).
  • Buffers.
  • Help tags.
  • CLI output.
  • Resume latest picker.

• :Pick command to work with extensible MiniPick.registry.

• vim.ui.select() implementation. To adjust, use MiniPick.ui_select() or save-restore vim.ui.select manually after calling MiniPick.setup().

• Rich and customizable built-in actions when picker is active:

  • Manually change currently focused item.
  • Scroll vertically and horizontally.
  • Toggle preview or info view.
  • Mark/unmark items to choose later.
  • Refine current matches (make them part of a new picker).
  • And many more.

• Minimal yet flexible source specification with:

  • Items (array, callable, or manually set later).
  • Source name.
  • Working directory.
  • Matching algorithm.
  • Way matches are shown in main window.
  • Item preview.
  • "On choice" action for current and marked items.

• Custom actions/keys can be configured globally, per buffer, or per picker.

• Out of the box support for 'ignorecase' and 'smartcase'.

• Match caching to increase responsiveness on repeated prompts.

Notes:

• Works on all supported versions but Neovim>=0.10 will give more visual feedback in floating window footer.

• For more pickers see 'mini.extra'.

• CLI tools are called only with basic arguments needed to get items. To customize the output, use their respective configuration approaches. Here are some examples of where to start:

  • ripgrep
  • fd
  • git

For more information see these parts of help:

• :h MiniPick-overview
• :h MiniPick-source
• :h MiniPick-actions
• :h MiniPick-examples
• :h MiniPick.builtin

Dependencies

For full experience needs (still works without any of suggestions):

• Enabled 'mini.icons' module for icons near the items representing actual paths. Can fall back to using nvim-tree/nvim-web-devicons plugin.

• Executable BurntSushi/ripgrep CLI tool for faster file and pattern search on disk.

Overview

General idea is to take array of objects, display them with interactive filter/sort/navigate/preview, and allow to choose one or more items.

How to start a picker

• Use MiniPick.start() with opts.source defining source.

  Example: MiniPick.start({ source = { items = vim.fn.readdir('.') } })

• Use any of MiniPick.builtin pickers directly.

  Example: MiniPick.builtin.files({ tool = 'git' })

• Use :Pick command which uses customizable pickers from MiniPick.registry.

  Example: :Pick files tool='git'

User interface

UI consists from a single window capable of displaying three different views:

• "Main" - where current query matches are shown.
• "Preview" - preview of current item (toggle with <Tab>).
• "Info" - general info about picker and its state (toggle with <S-Tab>).

Current prompt is displayed at the top left of the window border with vertical line indicating caret (current input position).

Bottom part of window border displays (in Neovim>=0.10) extra visual feedback:

• Left part is a picker name.

• Right part contains information in the format:

  <current index in matches> | <match count> | <marked count> / <total count>

When picker is busy (like if there are no items yet set or matching is active) window border changes color to be MiniPickBorderBusy after config.delay.busy milliseconds of idle time.

Life cycle

• Type characters to filter and sort matches. It uses MiniPick.default_match() with query being an array of pressed characters. Overview of how it matches:

  • If query starts with ', the match is exact.
  • If query starts with ^, the match is exact at start.
  • If query ends with $, the match is exact at end.
  • If query starts with *, the match is forced to be fuzzy.
  • Otherwise match is fuzzy.
  • Sorting is done to first minimize match width and then match start. Nothing more: no favoring certain places in string, etc.

• Type special keys to perform actions. Here are some basic ones:

  • <C-n> / <Down> moves down; <C-p> / <Up> moves up.
  • <Left> / <Right> moves prompt caret left / right.
  • <S-Tab> toggles information window with all available mappings.
  • <Tab> toggles preview.
  • <C-x> / <C-a> toggles current / all item(s) as (un)marked.
  • <C-Space> / <M-Space> makes all matches or marked items as new picker.
  • <CR> / <M-CR> chooses current/marked item(s).
  • <Esc> / <C-c> stops picker.

Installation

This plugin can be installed as part of 'mini.nvim' library (recommended) or as a standalone Git repository.

There are two branches to install from:

• main (default, recommended) will have latest development version of plugin. All changes since last stable release should be perceived as being in beta testing phase (meaning they already passed alpha-testing and are moderately settled).
• stable will be updated only upon releases with code tested during public beta-testing phase in main branch.

Here are code snippets for some common installation methods (use only one):

With mini.deps

• 'mini.nvim' library:

  Branch	Code snippet
  Main	Follow recommended ‘mini.deps’ installation
  Stable	Follow recommended ‘mini.deps’ installation

• Standalone plugin:

  Branch	Code snippet
  Main	add(‘nvim-mini/mini.pick’)
  Stable	add({ source = ‘nvim-mini/mini.pick’, checkout = ‘stable’ })

With folke/lazy.nvim

• 'mini.nvim' library:

  Branch	Code snippet
  Main	{ 'nvim-mini/mini.nvim', version = false },
  Stable	{ 'nvim-mini/mini.nvim', version = '*' },

• Standalone plugin:

  Branch	Code snippet
  Main	{ 'nvim-mini/mini.pick', version = false },
  Stable	{ 'nvim-mini/mini.pick', version = '*' },

With junegunn/vim-plug

• 'mini.nvim' library:

  Branch	Code snippet
  Main	Plug 'nvim-mini/mini.nvim'
  Stable	Plug 'nvim-mini/mini.nvim', { 'branch': 'stable' }

• Standalone plugin:

  Branch	Code snippet
  Main	Plug 'nvim-mini/mini.pick'
  Stable	Plug 'nvim-mini/mini.pick', { 'branch': 'stable' }

Important: don't forget to call require('mini.pick').setup() to enable its functionality.

Note: if you are on Windows, there might be problems with too long file paths (like error: unable to create file <some file name>: Filename too long). Try doing one of the following:

• Enable corresponding git global config value: git config --system core.longpaths true. Then try to reinstall.
• Install plugin in other place with shorter path.

Default config

-- No need to copy this inside `setup()`. Will be used automatically.
{
  -- Delays (in ms; should be at least 1)
  delay = {
    -- Delay between forcing asynchronous behavior
    async = 10,

    -- Delay between computation start and visual feedback about it
    busy = 50,
  },

  -- Keys for performing actions. See `:h MiniPick-actions`.
  mappings = {
    caret_left  = '<Left>',
    caret_right = '<Right>',

    choose            = '<CR>',
    choose_in_split   = '<C-s>',
    choose_in_tabpage = '<C-t>',
    choose_in_vsplit  = '<C-v>',
    choose_marked     = '<M-CR>',

    delete_char       = '<BS>',
    delete_char_right = '<Del>',
    delete_left       = '<C-u>',
    delete_word       = '<C-w>',

    mark     = '<C-x>',
    mark_all = '<C-a>',

    move_down  = '<C-n>',
    move_start = '<C-g>',
    move_up    = '<C-p>',

    paste = '<C-r>',

    refine        = '<C-Space>',
    refine_marked = '<M-Space>',

    scroll_down  = '<C-f>',
    scroll_left  = '<C-h>',
    scroll_right = '<C-l>',
    scroll_up    = '<C-b>',

    stop = '<Esc>',

    toggle_info    = '<S-Tab>',
    toggle_preview = '<Tab>',
  },

  -- General options
  options = {
    -- Whether to show content from bottom to top
    content_from_bottom = false,

    -- Whether to cache matches (more speed and memory on repeated prompts)
    use_cache = false,
  },

  -- Source definition. See `:h MiniPick-source`.
  source = {
    items = nil,
    name  = nil,
    cwd   = nil,

    match   = nil,
    show    = nil,
    preview = nil,

    choose        = nil,
    choose_marked = nil,
  },

  -- Window related options
  window = {
    -- Float window config (table or callable returning it)
    config = nil,

    -- String to use as caret in prompt
    prompt_caret = '▏',

    -- String to use as prefix in prompt
    prompt_prefix = '> ',
  },
}

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