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Plugins

This help topic is about creating plugins. If you need help installing or managing plugins, look for plugin commands in help commands. If you want to enable or disable a plugin, look for Plugin options in help options.

Micro supports creating plugins with a simple Lua system. Plugins are folders containing Lua files and possibly other source files placed in ~/.config/micro/plug. The plugin directory (within plug) should contain at least one Lua file and a repo.json file. The repo.json file provides additional information such as the name of the plugin, the plugin's website, dependencies, etc. Here is an example repo.json file from the go plugin, which has the following file structure:

~/.config/micro/plug/go-plugin/
    go.lua
    repo.json
    help/
        go-plugin.md

The go.lua file contains the main code for the plugin, though the code may be distributed across multiple Lua files. The repo.json file contains information about the plugin, such as the website, description, version, and any requirements. Plugins may also have additional files that can be added to micro's runtime files, of which there are 5 types:

  • Colorschemes
  • Syntax files
  • Help files
  • Plugin files
  • Syntax header files

In most cases, a plugin will want to add help files, but in certain cases a plugin may also want to add colorschemes or syntax files. No directory structure is enforced, but keeping runtime files in their own directories is good practice.

Lua callbacks

Plugins use Lua but also have access to many functions, both from micro and from the Go standard library. Plugins can also define functions that micro will call when certain events happen. Here is the list of callbacks that micro defines:

  • init(): this function should be used for your plugin initialization. This function is called after buffers have been initialized.

  • preinit(): initialization function called before buffers have been initialized.

  • postinit(): initialization function called after the init() function of all plugins has been called.

  • deinit(): cleanup function called when your plugin is unloaded or reloaded.

  • onSetActive(bufpane): runs when changing the currently active panel.

  • onBufferOpen(buf): runs when a buffer is opened. The input contains the buffer object.

  • onBufPaneOpen(bufpane): runs when a bufpane is opened. The input contains the bufpane object.

  • onSetActive(bufpane): runs when changing the currently active bufpane.

  • onAction(bufpane): runs when Action is triggered by the user, where Action is a bindable action (see > help keybindings). A bufpane is passed as input and the function should return a boolean defining whether the view should be relocated after this action is performed.

  • preAction(bufpane): runs immediately before Action is triggered by the user. Returns a boolean which defines whether the action should be canceled.

  • onRune(bufpane, rune): runs when the composed rune has been inserted

  • preRune(bufpane, rune): runs before the composed rune will be inserted

  • onAnyEvent(): runs when literally anything happens. It is useful for detecting various changes of micro's state that cannot be detected using other callbacks.

For example, a function that is run every time the user saves the buffer would be:

function onSave(bp)
    ...
    return false
end

The bp variable is a reference to the bufpane the action is being executed within. This is almost always the current bufpane.

All available actions are listed in the keybindings section of the help.

These functions should also return a boolean specifying whether the bufpane should be relocated to the cursor or not after the action is complete.

Accessing micro functions

Some of micro's internal information is exposed in the form of packages, which can be imported by Lua plugins. A package can be imported in Lua, and a value within it can be accessed using the following syntax:

local micro = import("micro")
micro.Log("Hello")

The packages and their contents are listed below (in Go type signatures):

  • micro

    • TermMessage(msg interface{}...): temporarily close micro and print a message

    • TermError(filename string, lineNum int, err string): temporarily close micro and print an error formatted as filename, lineNum: err.

    • InfoBar() *InfoPane: return the infobar BufPane object.

    • Log(msg interface{}...): write a message to log.txt (requires -debug flag, or binary built with build-dbg).

    • SetStatusInfoFn(fn string): register the given lua function as accessible from the statusline formatting options.

    • CurPane() *BufPane: returns the current BufPane, or nil if the current pane is not a BufPane.

    • CurTab() *Tab: returns the current tab.

    • Tabs() *TabList: returns the global tab list.

    • After(t time.Duration, f func()): run function f in the background after time t elapses. See https://pkg.go.dev/time#Duration for the usage of time.Duration.

    Relevant links: Time BufPane InfoPane Tab TabList interface{} / any

  • micro/config

    • MakeCommand(name string, action func(bp *BufPane, args[]string), completer buffer.Completer): create a command with the given name, and lua callback function when the command is run. A completer may also be given to specify how autocompletion should work with the custom command. Any lua function that takes a Buffer argument and returns a pair of string arrays is a valid completer, as are the built in completers below:

    • FileComplete: autocomplete using files in the current directory

    • HelpComplete: autocomplete using names of help documents

    • OptionComplete: autocomplete using names of options

    • OptionValueComplete: autocomplete using names of options, and valid values afterwards

    • NoComplete: no autocompletion suggestions

    • TryBindKey(k, v string, overwrite bool) (bool, error): bind the key k to the string v in the bindings.json file. If overwrite is true, this will overwrite any existing binding to key k. Returns true if the binding was made, and a possible error (for example writing to bindings.json can cause an error).

    • Reload(): reload configuration files.

    • AddRuntimeFileFromMemory(filetype RTFiletype, filename, data string): add a runtime file to the filetype runtime filetype, with name filename and data data.

    • AddRuntimeFilesFromDirectory(plugin string, filetype RTFiletype, directory, pattern string): add runtime files for the given plugin with the given RTFiletype from a directory within the plugin root. Only adds files that match the pattern using Go's filepath.Match

    • AddRuntimeFile(plugin string, filetype RTFiletype, filepath string): add a given file inside the plugin root directory as a runtime file to the given RTFiletype category.

    • ListRuntimeFiles(fileType RTFiletype) []string: returns a list of names of runtime files of the given type.

    • ReadRuntimeFile(fileType RTFiletype, name string) string: returns the contents of a given runtime file.

    • NewRTFiletype() int: creates a new RTFiletype, and returns its value.

    • RTColorscheme: runtime files for colorschemes.

    • RTSyntax: runtime files for syntax files.

    • RTHelp: runtime files for help documents.

    • RTPlugin: runtime files for plugin source code.

    • RegisterCommonOption(pl string, name string, defaultvalue interface{}): registers a new option for the given plugin. The name of the option will be pl.name, and will have the given default value. Since this registers a common option, the option will be modifiable on a per-buffer basis, while also having a global value (in the GlobalSettings map).

    • RegisterGlobalOption(pl string, name string, defaultvalue interface{}): same as RegisterCommonOption, but the option cannot be modified locally to each buffer.

    • GetGlobalOption(name string) interface{}: returns the value of a given plugin in the GlobalSettings map.

    • SetGlobalOption(option, value string) error: sets an option to a given value. Same as using the > set command. This will try to convert the value into the proper type for the option. Can return an error if the option name is not valid, or the value can not be converted.

    • SetGlobalOptionNative(option string, value interface{}) error: sets an option to a given value, where the type of value is the actual type of the value internally. Can return an error if the provided value is not valid for the given option.

    • ConfigDir: the path to micro's currently active config directory.

    Relevant links: Buffer buffer.Completer Error interface{} / any filepath.Match

  • micro/shell

    • ExecCommand(name string, arg ...string) (string, error): runs an executable with the given arguments, and pipes the output (stderr and stdout) of the executable to an internal buffer, which is returned as a string, along with a possible error.

    • RunCommand(input string) (string, error): same as ExecCommand, except this uses micro's argument parser to parse the arguments from the input. For example, cat 'hello world.txt' file.txt, will pass two arguments in the ExecCommand argument list (quoting arguments will preserve spaces).

    • RunBackgroundShell(input string) (func() string, error): returns a function that will run the given shell command and return its output.

    • RunInteractiveShell(input string, wait bool, getOutput bool) (string, error): temporarily closes micro and runs the given command in the terminal. If wait is true, micro will wait for the user to press enter before returning to text editing. If getOutput is true, micro will redirect stdout from the command to the returned string.

    • JobStart(cmd string, onStdout, onStderr, onExit func(string, []interface{}), userargs ...interface{}) *exec.Cmd: Starts a background job by running the shell on the given command (using sh -c). Three callbacks can be provided which will be called when the command generates stdout, stderr, or exits. The userargs will be passed to the callbacks, along with the output as the first argument of the callback. Returns the started command.

    • JobSpawn(cmd string, cmdArgs []string, onStdout, onStderr, onExit func(string, []interface{}), userargs ...interface{}) *exec.Cmd: same as JobStart, except doesn't run the command through the shell and instead takes as inputs the list of arguments. Returns the started command.

    • JobStop(cmd *exec.Cmd): kills a job.

    • JobSend(cmd *exec.Cmd, data string): sends some data to a job's stdin.

    • RunTermEmulator(h *BufPane, input string, wait bool, getOutput bool, callback func(out string, userargs []interface{}), userargs []interface{}) error: starts a terminal emulator from a given BufPane with the input command. If wait is true, it will wait for the user to exit by pressing enter once the executable has terminated, and if getOutput is true, it will redirect the stdout of the process to a pipe, which will be passed to the callback, which is a function that takes a string and a list of optional user arguments. This function returns an error on systems where the terminal emulator is not supported.

    • TermEmuSupported: true on systems where the terminal emulator is supported and false otherwise. Supported systems:

      • Linux
      • MacOS
      • Dragonfly
      • OpenBSD
      • FreeBSD

    Relevant links: Cmd BufPane Error

  • micro/buffer

    • NewMessage(owner string, msg string, start, end, Loc, kind MsgType) *Message: creates a new message with an owner over a range defined by the start and end locations.

    • NewMessageAtLine(owner string, msg string, line int, kindMsgType) *Message: creates a new message with owner, type, and text at a given line.

    • MTInfo: info message.

    • MTWarning: warning message.

    • MTError error message.

    • Loc(x, y int) Loc: creates a new location struct.

    • SLoc(line, row int) display.SLoc: creates a new scrolling location struct.

    • BTDefault: default buffer type.

    • BTHelp: help buffer type.

    • BTLog: log buffer type.

    • BTScratch: scratch buffer type (cannot be saved).

    • BTRaw: raw buffer type.

    • BTInfo: info buffer type.

    • NewBuffer(text, path string) *Buffer: creates a new buffer with the given text at a certain path.

    • NewBufferFromFile(path string) (*Buffer, error): creates a new buffer by reading the file at the given path from disk. Returns an error if the read operation fails (for example, due to the file not existing).

    • ByteOffset(pos Loc, buf *Buffer) int: returns the byte index of the given position in a buffer.

    • Log(s string): writes a string to the log buffer.

    • LogBuf() *Buffer: returns the log buffer.

    Relevant links: Message Loc display.SLoc Buffer Error

  • micro/util

    • RuneAt(str string, idx int) string: returns the utf8 rune at a given index within a string.
    • GetLeadingWhitespace(s string) string: returns the leading whitespace of a string.
    • IsWordChar(s string) bool: returns true if the first rune in a string is a word character.
    • String(b []byte) string: converts a byte array to a string.
    • RuneStr(r rune) string: converts a rune to a string.
    • Unzip(src, dest string) error: unzips a file to given folder.
    • Version: micro's version number or commit hash
    • SemVersion: micro's semantic version
    • HttpRequest(method string, url string, headers []string) (http.Response, error): makes a http request.
    • CharacterCountInString(str string) int: returns the number of characters in a string
    • RuneStr(r rune) string: converts a rune to a string.

    Relevant links: Rune

This may seem like a small list of available functions, but some of the objects returned by the functions have many methods. The Lua plugin may access any public methods of an object returned by any of the functions above. Unfortunately, it is not possible to list all the available functions on this page. Please go to the internal documentation at https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/zyedidia/micro/v2/internal to see the full list of available methods. Note that only methods of types that are available to plugins via the functions above can be called from a plugin. For an even more detailed reference, see the source code on Github.

For example, with a BufPane object called bp, you could call the Save function in Lua with bp:Save().

Note that Lua uses the : syntax to call a function rather than Go's . syntax.

micro.InfoBar().Message()

turns to

micro.InfoBar():Message()

Accessing the Go standard library

It is possible for your lua code to access many of the functions in the Go standard library.

Simply import the package you'd like, and then you can use it. For example:

local ioutil = import("io/ioutil")
local fmt = import("fmt")
local micro = import("micro")

local data, err = ioutil.ReadFile("SomeFile.txt")

if err ~= nil then
    micro.InfoBar():Error("Error reading file: SomeFile.txt")
else
    -- Data is returned as an array of bytes
    -- Using Sprintf will convert it to a string
    local str = fmt.Sprintf("%s", data)

    -- Do something with the file you just read!
    -- ...
end

Here are the packages from the Go standard library that you can access. Nearly all functions from these packages are supported. For an exact list of functions that are supported, you can look through lua.go (which should be easy to understand).

The following functions from the go-humanize package are also available:

  • humanize:
    • Bytes(s uint64) string: produces a human readable representation of an SI size.
    • Ordinal(x int) string: gives you the input number in a rank/ordinal format.

The Lua standard library is also available to plugins, though it is rather small.

Adding help files, syntax files, or colorschemes in your plugin

You can use the AddRuntimeFile(name string, type config.RTFiletype, path string) function to add various kinds of files to your plugin. For example, if you'd like to add a help topic to your plugin called test, you would create a test.md file and call the function:

config = import("micro/config")
config.AddRuntimeFile("test", config.RTHelp, "test.md")

Use AddRuntimeFilesFromDirectory(name, type, dir, pattern) to add a number of files to the runtime. To read the content of a runtime file, use ReadRuntimeFile(fileType, name string) or ListRuntimeFiles(fileType string) for all runtime files. In addition, there is AddRuntimeFileFromMemory which adds a runtime file based on a string that may have been constructed at runtime.

Default plugins

The following plugins come pre-installed with micro:

  • autoclose: automatically closes brackets, quotes, etc...
  • comment: provides automatic commenting for a number of languages
  • ftoptions: alters some default options (notably indentation) depending on the filetype
  • linter: provides extensible linting for many languages
  • literate: provides advanced syntax highlighting for the Literate programming tool.
  • status: provides some extensions to the status line (integration with Git and more).
  • diff: integrates the diffgutter option with Git. If you are in a Git directory, the diff gutter will show changes with respect to the most recent Git commit rather than the diff since opening the file.

See > help linter, > help comment, and > help status for additional documentation specific to those plugins.

These are good examples for many use-cases if you are looking to write your own plugins.

Plugin Manager

Micro also has a built in plugin manager, which you can invoke with the > plugin ... command, or in the shell with micro -plugin ....

For the valid commands you can use, see the commands help topic.

The manager fetches plugins from the channels (which is simply a list of plugin metadata) which it knows about. By default, micro only knows about the official channel which is located at github.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel but you can add your own third-party channels using the pluginchannels option and you can directly link third-party plugins to allow installation through the plugin manager with the pluginrepos option.

If you'd like to publish a plugin you've made as an official plugin, you should upload your plugin online (preferably to Github) and add a repo.json file. This file will contain the metadata for your plugin. Here is an example:

[{
  "Name": "pluginname",
  "Description": "Here is a nice concise description of my plugin",
  "Website": "https://github.com/user/plugin",
  "Tags": ["python", "linting"],
  "Versions": [
    {
      "Version": "1.0.0",
      "Url": "https://github.com/user/plugin/archive/v1.0.0.zip",
      "Require": {
        "micro": ">=1.0.3"
      }
    }
  ]
}]

Then open a pull request at github.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel, adding a link to the raw repo.json that is in your plugin repository.

To make updating the plugin work, the first line of your plugin's lua code should contain the version of the plugin. (Like this: VERSION = "1.0.0") Please make sure to use semver for versioning.