Fix the width of completion menu

[krishnakumarg1984]

FAQ

• I have checked the FAQ and it didn't resolve my problem.

Issues

• I have checked existing issues and there are no open or closed issues with the same problem.

Neovim Version

0.7

Minimal reproducible full config

cmp.nvim's autocompletion pop-up menu changes width to accommodate the completion candidates.

While, there are a few options to set the max_width, I don't see any solution to fix the pop-up menu at a certain width.
Can we have an option in cmp to set the pop-up menu to a fixed width?

Description

It is rather annoying when the completion menu's width keeps on changing to be bigger and smaller, leading to a very jarring user experience.

Steps to reproduce

Default config of cmp.

Expected behavior

Fix the pop-up window width irrespective of the length of the completion candidates.

Actual behavior

The completion menu's width keeps on changing to be bigger and smaller dynamically, depending on the width of the populated candidates.

Additional context

The constantly changing pop-up menu width is rather annoying and leads to a jarring user experience.

[gegoune]

#609 (comment) Is that solution good enough?

[krishnakumarg1984]

No. As I mentioned in my comments to that question. The solution in #609 (comment) only helps to truncate items to a maximum width.

It doesn't help to eliminate the jarring visual effects of changing pop-up width during completion.

[Shougo]

No. As I mentioned in my comments to that question. The solution in #609 (comment) only helps to truncate items to a maximum width.

I think you can define minimum width in format function.

[krishnakumarg1984]

@Shougo Nice. Can you show us how?

[Shougo]

  local ELLIPSIS_CHAR = '…'
  local MAX_LABEL_WIDTH = 20
  local MIN_LABEL_WIDTH = 20

  cmp.setup({
    formatting = {
      format = function(entry, vim_item)
        local label = vim_item.abbr
        local truncated_label = vim.fn.strcharpart(label, 0, MAX_LABEL_WIDTH)
        if truncated_label ~= label then
          vim_item.abbr = truncated_label .. ELLIPSIS_CHAR
        elseif string.len(label) < MIN_LABEL_WIDTH then
          local padding = string.rep(' ', MIN_LABEL_WIDTH - string.len(label))
          vim_item.abbr = label .. padding
        end
        return vim_item
      end,
    },
  })

[krishnakumarg1984]

@Shougo Awesome. Thank works! Thank you so much!

[kevinhughes27]

It looks like the menu still saves space for the menu/kind even when fields is set to only abbr. This solution only fixes the width of the abbr field as far as I can tell when I tried it. I'm using only the abbr field for cmdline completion where the other fields are not useful. It would be great to remove this extra space!

Update - I can achieve what I want by setting kind and menu to empty string:

format = function(_, vim_item)
    vim_item.menu = ""
    vim_item.kind = ""
    return vim_item
end

[askfiy]

Wish he had built in

[krishnakumarg1984]

@hrsh7th Can we please have a cmp menu with overall fixed width, as well as a fixed width for the description field?

[nullptr-yxw]

Wish he had built in

As was mentioned in #1535, It might be possible to set the minimum width and maximum height by options pumwidth and pumheight, but they are global settings. So I will push a new issue about it

[gmr458]

It looks like the menu still saves space for the menu/kind even when fields is set to only abbr. This solution only fixes the width of the abbr field as far as I can tell when I tried it. I'm using only the abbr field for cmdline completion where the other fields are not useful. It would be great to remove this extra space!

Update - I can achieve what I want by setting kind and menu to empty string:

format = function(_, vim_item)
    vim_item.menu = ""
    vim_item.kind = ""
    return vim_item
end

this is working for me, I only use kind and abbr so I set vim_item.menu = ''