Align text interactively

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 the repository page to learn about common design principles and configuration recipes.

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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-align.mp4

Features

• Alignment is done in three main steps:

  • Split lines into parts based on Lua pattern(s) or user-supplied rule.
  • Justify parts for certain side(s) to be same width inside columns.
  • Merge parts to be lines, with customizable delimiter(s).

  Each main step can be preceded by other steps (pre-steps) to achieve highly customizable outcome. See steps value in :h MiniAlign.config. For more details, see :h MiniAlign-glossary and :h MiniAlign-algorithm.

• User can control alignment interactively by pressing customizable modifiers (single keys representing how alignment steps and/or options should change). Some of default modifiers:

  • Press s to enter split Lua pattern.
  • Press j to choose justification side from available ones ("left", "center", "right", "none").
  • Press m to enter merge delimiter.
  • Press f to enter filter Lua expression to configure which parts will be affected (like "align only first column").
  • Press i to ignore some commonly unwanted split matches.
  • Press p to pair neighboring parts so they be aligned together.
  • Press t to trim whitespace from parts.
  • Press <BS> (backspace) to delete some last pre-step.

  For more details, see :h MiniAlign-modifiers-builtin and :h MiniAlign-examples.

• Alignment can be done with instant preview (result is updated after each modifier) or without it (result is shown and accepted after non-default split pattern is set).

• Every user interaction is accompanied with helper status message showing relevant information about current alignment process.

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.align’)
  Stable	add({ source = ‘nvim-mini/mini.align’, 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.align', version = false },
  Stable	{ 'nvim-mini/mini.align', 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.align'
  Stable	Plug 'nvim-mini/mini.align', { 'branch': 'stable' }

Important: don't forget to call require('mini.align').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.
{
  -- Module mappings. Use `''` (empty string) to disable one.
  mappings = {
    start = 'ga',
    start_with_preview = 'gA',
  },

  -- Modifiers changing alignment steps and/or options
  modifiers = {
    -- Main option modifiers
    ['s'] = --<function: enter split pattern>,
    ['j'] = --<function: choose justify side>,
    ['m'] = --<function: enter merge delimiter>,

    -- Modifiers adding pre-steps
    ['f'] = --<function: filter parts by entering Lua expression>,
    ['i'] = --<function: ignore some split matches>,
    ['p'] = --<function: pair parts>,
    ['t'] = --<function: trim parts>,

    -- Delete some last pre-step
    ['<BS>'] = --<function: delete some last pre-step>,

    -- Special configurations for common splits
    ['='] = --<function: enhanced setup for '='>,
    [','] = --<function: enhanced setup for ','>,
    ['|'] = --<function: enhanced setup for '|'>,
    [' '] = --<function: enhanced setup for ' '>,
  },

  -- Default options controlling alignment process
  options = {
    split_pattern = '',
    justify_side = 'left',
    merge_delimiter = '',
  },

  -- Default steps performing alignment (if `nil`, default is used)
  steps = {
    pre_split = {},
    split = nil,
    pre_justify = {},
    justify = nil,
    pre_merge = {},
    merge = nil,
  },

  -- Whether to disable showing non-error feedback
  -- This also affects (purely informational) helper messages shown after
  -- idle time if user input is required.
  silent = false,
}

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