Micro: Snippets

[zyedidia]

It would be nice to support snippets. The user would type a predefined pattern (defined for the current filetype), press a key, and it would expand into a large piece of code. This is meant for dealing with boilerplate. Here is an example of a Vim snippets plugin:

We can just use their predefined patterns from this repository.

Ref #174

[boombuler]

@zyedidia if you are not working on this I would start implementing it...

[zyedidia]

Sure. I recommend implementing it as a plugin because that feels more natural to me. I understand that the plugin system isn't so mature yet, so if you have any issues let me know.

What do you think of implementing it as a plugin vs in the core?

[boombuler]

I think implementing it as plugin seems like a good idea but it might require some additions to core which could also benefit other plugins.

If you have a look at the screenshot you've postet there is some kind of dropdrown which I would implement in the core which then might get populated by different plugins. which could also be used for various autocomplete plugins (which make also more sense as plugin...)

[zyedidia]

Yeah, I think the behavior from the screenshot is much more advanced than necessary. The dropdown menu is from Vim's autocompletion and the variable completion is not really necessary.

[boombuler]

progress can be seen on my snippet branch

[boombuler]

Hi again, I'm making some good progress though I'm not sure if the current way of input handling is the right choice. @zyedidia would you mind to have a look and tell me what you're thinking before I continue?

[zyedidia]

I'm not sure what you mean by "input handling" but I think it looks good. Just one note: the extension for snippets files should be .snippets not .snippet.

Great progress 👍 .

[boombuler]

With "Input handling" I mean the last 2 changes with onBeforeTextEvent etc.
And I have some problem with selecting the next placeholder. But I guess thats nothing impossible :)

[zyedidia]

This is now finished thanks to @boombuler! You can install the snippets plugin using the new plugin manager with plugin install snippets.