3 Micro supports creating plugins with a simple Lua system. Every plugin has a
4 main script which is run at startup which should be placed in
5 `~/.config/micro/plugins/pluginName/pluginName.lua`.
7 There are a number of callback functions which you can create in your plugin to
8 run code at times other than startup. The naming scheme is `onAction(view)`. For
9 example a function which is run every time the user saves the buffer would be:
18 The `view` variable is a reference to the view the action is being executed on.
19 This is almost always the current view, which you can get with `CurView()` as
22 All available actions are listed in the keybindings section of the help.
24 For callbacks to mouse actions, you are also given the event info:
27 function onMousePress(view, event)
28 local x, y = event:Position()
34 These functions should also return a boolean specifying whether the view should
35 be relocated to the cursor or not after the action is complete.
37 Note that these callbacks occur after the action has been completed. If you want
38 a callback before the action is executed, use `preAction()`. In this case the
39 boolean returned specifies whether or not the action should be executed after
40 the lua code completes.
42 Another useful callback to know about which is not an action is
43 `onViewOpen(view)` which is called whenever a new view is opened and the new
44 view is passed in. This is useful for setting local options based on the
45 filetype, for example turning off `tabstospaces` only for Go files when they are
50 There are a number of functions and variables that are available to you in order
51 to access the inner workings of micro. Here is a list (the type signatures for
52 functions are given using Go's type system):
54 * `OS`: variable which gives the OS micro is currently running on (this is the
55 same as Go's GOOS variable, so `darwin`, `windows`, `linux`, `freebsd`...)
57 * `configDir`: contains the path to the micro configuration files
59 * `tabs`: a list of all the tabs currently in use
61 * `curTab`: the index of the current tabs in the tabs list
63 * `messenger`: lets you send messages to the user or create prompts
65 * `NewBuffer(text, path string) *Buffer`: creates a new buffer from a given
66 reader with a given path
68 * `GetLeadingWhitespace() bool`: returns the leading whitespace of the given
71 * `IsWordChar(str string) bool`: returns whether or not the string is a 'word
74 * `RuneStr(r rune) string`: returns a string containing the given rune
76 * `Loc(x, y int) Loc`: returns a new `Loc` struct
78 * `WorkingDirectory() string`: returns a rooted path name to the current working
81 * `JoinPaths(dir... string) string`: combines multiple directories to a full
84 * `DirectoryName(path string)`: returns all but the last element of path,
85 typically the path's directory
87 * `GetOption(name string)`: returns the value of the requested option
89 * `AddOption(name string, value interface{})`: sets the given option with the
90 given value (`interface{}` means any type in Go)
92 * `SetOption(option, value string)`: sets the given option to the value. This
93 will set the option globally, unless it is a local only option.
95 * `SetLocalOption(option, value string, view *View)`: sets the given option to
96 the value locally in the given buffer
98 * `BindKey(key, action string)`: binds `key` to `action`
100 * `MakeCommand(name, function string, completions ...Completion)`:
101 creates a command with `name` which will call `function` when executed. Use 0
102 for completions to get NoCompletion.
104 * `MakeCompletion(function string)`:
105 creates a `Completion` to use with `MakeCommand`
107 * `CurView()`: returns the current view
109 * `HandleCommand(cmd string)`: runs the given command
111 * `HandleShellCommand(shellCmd string, interactive bool, waitToClose bool)`:
112 runs the given shell command. The `interactive` bool specifies whether the
113 command should run in the background. The `waitToClose` bool only applies if
114 `interactive` is true and means that it should wait before returning to the
117 * `ToCharPos(loc Loc, buf *Buffer) int`: returns the character position of a
120 * `Reload`: (Re)load everything
122 * `ByteOffset(loc Loc, buf *Buffer) int`: exactly like `ToCharPos` except it it
123 counts bytes instead of runes
125 * `JobSpawn(cmdName string, cmdArgs []string, onStdout, onStderr, onExit string, userargs ...string)`:
126 Starts running the given process in the background. `onStdout` `onStderr` and
127 `onExit` are callbacks to lua functions which will be called when the given
128 actions happen to the background process. `userargs` are the arguments which
129 will get passed to the callback functions
131 * `JobStart(cmd string, onStdout, onStderr, onExit string, userargs ...string)`:
132 Starts running the given shell command in the background. Note that the
133 command execute is first parsed by a shell when using this command. It is
134 executed with `sh -c`.
136 * `JobSend(cmd *exec.Cmd, data string)`: send a string into the stdin of the job
139 * `JobStop(cmd *exec.Cmd)`: kill a job
141 This may seem like a small list of available functions but some of the objects
142 returned by the functions have many methods. `CurView()` returns a view object
143 which has all the actions which you can call. For example
144 `CurView():Save(false)`. You can see the full list of possible actions in the
145 keybindings help topic. The boolean on all the actions indicates whether or not
146 the lua callbacks should be run. I would recommend generally sticking to false
147 when making a plugin to avoid recursive problems, for example if you call
148 `CurView():Save(true)` in `onSave()`. Just use `CurView():Save(false)` so that
149 it won't call `onSave()` again.
151 Using the view object, you can also access the buffer associated with that view
152 by using `CurView().Buf`, which lets you access the `FileType`, `Path`,
155 The possible methods which you can call using the `messenger` variable are:
157 * `messenger.Message(msg ...interface{})`
158 * `messenger.Error(msg ...interface{})`
159 * `messenger.YesNoPrompt(prompt string) (bool,bool)`
160 * `messenger.Prompt(prompt, historyType string, completionType Completion) (string, bool)`
161 * `messenger.AddLog(msg ...interface{})`
165 Go function signatures use `.` and lua uses `:` so
177 If you want a standard prompt, just use
180 messenger:Prompt(prompt, "", 0)
183 Debug or logging your plugin can be done with below lua example code.
186 messenger:AddLog("Message goes here ",pluginVariableToPrintHere)
189 In Micro to see your plugin logging output press `CtrlE` then type `log`, a
190 logging window will open and any logging sent from your plugin will be displayed
194 ## Accessing the Go standard library
196 It is possible for your lua code to access many of the functions in the Go
199 Simply import the package you'd like and then you can use it. For example:
202 local ioutil = import("ioutil")
203 local fmt = import("fmt")
205 local data, err = ioutil.ReadFile("SomeFile.txt")
208 messenger:Error("Error reading file: SomeFile.txt")
210 -- Data is returned as an array of bytes
211 -- Using Sprintf will convert it to a string
212 local str = fmt.Sprintf("%s", data)
214 -- Do something with the file you just read!
219 For a full list of which packages and functions from the standard library you
220 can access, look at `lua.go` in the source code (it shouldn't be too hard to
224 ## Adding help files, syntax files, or colorschemes in your plugin
226 You can use the `AddRuntimeFile(name, type, path string)` function to add
227 various kinds of files to your plugin. For example, if you'd like to add a help
228 topic to your plugin called `test`, you would create a `test.md` file, and call
232 AddRuntimeFile("test", "help", "test.md")
235 Use `AddRuntimeFilesFromDirectory(name, type, dir, pattern)` to add a number of
236 files to the runtime. To read the content of a runtime file use
237 `ReadRuntimeFile(fileType, name string)` or `ListRuntimeFiles(fileType string)`
238 for all runtime files.
241 ## Autocomplete command arguments
243 See this example to learn how to use `MakeCompletion` and `MakeCommand`
246 local function StartsWith(String,Start)
247 String = String:upper()
248 Start = Start:upper()
249 return string.sub(String,1,string.len(Start))==Start
252 function complete(input)
253 local allCompletions = {"Hello", "World", "Foo", "Bar"}
256 for i,v in pairs(allCompletions) do
257 if StartsWith(v, input) then
258 table.insert(result, v)
265 messenger:Message(arg)
268 MakeCommand("foo", "example.foo", MakeCompletion("example.complete"))
274 For examples of plugins, see the default `autoclose` and `linter` plugins
275 (stored in the normal micro core repo under `runtime/plugins`) as well as any
276 plugins that are stored in the official channel
277 [here](https://github.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel).
282 Micro also has a built in plugin manager which you can invoke with the
283 `> plugin ...` command.
285 For the valid commands you can use, see the `command` help topic.
287 The manager fetches plugins from the channels (which is simply a list of plugin
288 metadata) which it knows about. By default, micro only knows about the official
289 channel which is located at github.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel but you can
290 add your own third-party channels using the `pluginchannels` option and you can
291 directly link third-party plugins to allow installation through the plugin
292 manager with the `pluginrepos` option.
294 If you'd like to publish a plugin you've made as an official plugin, you should
295 upload your plugin online (to Github preferably) and add a `repo.json` file.
296 This file will contain the metadata for your plugin. Here is an example:
300 "Name": "pluginname",
301 "Description": "Here is a nice concise description of my plugin",
302 "Tags": ["python", "linting"],
306 "Url": "https://github.com/user/plugin/archive/v1.0.0.zip",
315 Then open a pull request at github.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel adding a link
316 to the raw `repo.json` that is in your plugin repository. To make updating the
317 plugin work, the first line of your plugins lua code should contain the version
318 of the plugin. (Like this: `VERSION = "1.0.0"`) Please make sure to use
319 [semver](http://semver.org/) for versioning.