jbtvim / wildfire.vim

Smart selection of the closest text object

wildfire.vim

With Wildfire you can quickly select the closest text object among a group of candidates. By default candidates are i', i", i), i], i}, ip and it.

Learn more about text objects with :help text-objects.

Installation

Install either with Pathogen, Vundle, NeoBundle, or your favorite plugin manager.

Usage

Press <ENTER> in normal mode to select the closest text object. Keep pressing <ENTER> for selecting the next closest text object. To go the other way round, that is, to select the previously selected text object, press <BS>.

To speed things up, if you want to select the nth closest text object you can press a number followed by <ENTER> (e.g. pressing 2<ENTER> will select the second closest text object).

You can change default mappings with:

" This selects the next closest text object.
map <SPACE> <Plug>(wildfire-fuel)

" This selects the previous closest text object.
vmap <C-SPACE> <Plug>(wildfire-water)

By default, Wildfire selects any of the text objects i', i", i), i], i}, ip and it. You can decide the ones to consider with the following option:

let g:wildfire_objects = ["i'", 'i"', "i)", "i]", "i}", "ip", "it"]

Advanced usage

Sometimes considering certain kinds of text objects can be quite annoying. This is the case of Html, where, for example, you may want to select just tag objects.

Wildfire allows you to be selective about which text objects are considered with different filetypes:

" use '*' to mean 'all other filetypes'
" in this example, html and xml share the same text objects
let g:wildfire_objects = {
    \ "*" : ["i'", 'i"', "i)", "i]", "i}"],
    \ "html,xml" : ["at", "it"],
\ }

One problem with the solution above is that with html and xml files we loose the ability to select the text objects i', i", i), i] and i}. To solve this problem, Wildfire allows you to use different mappings for different text object candidates:

map <SPACE> <Plug>(wildfire-fuel)
let g:wildfire_objects = {
    \ "*" : ["i'", 'i"', "i)", "i]", "i}"]
\ }

cal wildfire#triggers#Add("<ENTER>", {
    \ "html,xml" : ["at", "it"],
\ })

Quick selection

A visual explanation often works far better than plain old words.

Wildfire does not set a default mapping for quick selection. Be sure to put something like the following line in your .vimrc:

nmap <leader>s <Plug>(wildfire-quick-select)

By default, quick selection use text objects in g:wildfire_objects to set "selection marks". Have a look at the example below if you want to use different text object without having to change g:wildfire_objects.

cal wildfire#triggers#AddQs("<leader>s", {
    \ "*" : ["i)", "i]"],
\ })

Similar plugins

Wildfire is not the only plugin who can smartly select text object. Be sure to have a look at the following plugins if Wildfire doesn't suit your needs:

• vim-expand-region
• vim-textobj-anyblock