vim-ExecuteThatThing

ExecuteThatThing

Plugin for turning Vim into a quasi-notebook reminiscent of Jupyter/iPython.

Unlike a "real" notebook, this plugin is stateless: it simply runs the command and returns the result back into the current file, without saving variables/output into memory for later re-use. (Given the problems people have with Jupyter state, this is perhaps not a bad thing ...)

Installation and Configuration

Assuming you have a recent enough Vim, you can just clone this repo into ~/.vim/pack/git-plugins/start. No mappings are defined by default, so it won't do anything until you change your vimrc to hook into it.

The available mappings are:

• <Plug>(ExecuteThatThingNormal) for normal mode mappings.
• <Plug>(ExecuteThatThingVisual) for visual mode mappings.
• <Plug>(InnerLineMotion) to execute the entire current line.
• <Plug>(InnerCommandMotion) to execute lines which look like $ cowsay hello world, that is, prefix your command with a prompt.

The author's vimrc has the following mappings which you may wish to adapt:

"Bindings for ExecuteThatThing
nmap X  <Plug>(ExecThatThingNormal)
vmap X  <Plug>(ExecThatThingVisual)
omap il <Plug>(InnerLineMotion)
omap ic <Plug>(InnerCommandMotion)
nmap <Return> Xic

With those mappings, I get notebooks which look like this, just by pressing Enter on the line which looks like a command:

$ cowsay hello world
 _____________ 
< hello world >
 ------------- 
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

Notebook Syntax

A typical notebook has the following structures:

### This is a comment

$ <some shell command>
Some output

For working with this kind of format, basic syntax highlighting is offered, to distinguish comments, commands, and output from each other. Use extension .wk instead of .txt and the highlighting will be used automatically.