3 Micro supports creating plugins with a simple Lua system. Plugins are
4 folders containing Lua files and possibly other source files placed
5 in `~/.config/micro/plug`. The plugin directory (within `plug`) should
6 contain at least one Lua file and an `info.json` file. The info file
7 provides additional information such as the name of the plugin, the
8 plugin's website, dependencies, etc... Here is an example info file
9 from the go plugin, which has the following file structure:
12 ~/.config/micro/plug/go-plugin/
19 The `go.lua` file contains the main code for the plugin, though the
20 code may be distributed across multiple Lua files. The `info.json`
21 file contains information about the plugin such as the website,
22 description, version, and any requirements. Plugins may also
23 have additional files which can be added to micro's runtime files,
24 of which there are 5 types:
32 In most cases, a plugin will want to add help files, but in certain
33 cases a plugin may also want to add colorschemes or syntax files. It
34 is unlikely for a plugin to need to add plugin files at runtime or
35 syntax header files. No directory structure is enforced but keeping
36 runtime files in their own directories is good practice.
40 The `info.json` for the Go plugin is the following:
45 "description": "Go formatting and tool support",
46 "website": "https://github.com/micro-editor/go-plugin",
47 "install": "https://github.com/micro-editor/go-plugin",
55 All fields are simply interpreted as strings, so the version does not
56 need to be a semantic version, and the dependencies are also only
57 meant to be parsed by humans. The name should be an identifier, and
58 the website should point to a valid website. The install field should
59 provide info about installing the plugin, or point to a website that
62 Note that the name of the plugin is defined by the name field in
63 the `info.json` and not by the installation path. Some functions micro
64 exposes to plugins require passing the name of the plugin.
68 Plugins use Lua but also have access to many functions both from micro
69 and from the Go standard library. Many callbacks are also defined which
70 are called when certain events happen. Here is the list of callbacks
73 * `init()`: this function should be used for your plugin initialization.
75 * `onBufferOpen(buf)`: runs when a buffer is opened. The input contains
78 * `onBufPaneOpen(bufpane)`: runs when a bufpane is opened. The input
79 contains the bufpane object.
81 * `onAction(bufpane)`: runs when `Action` is triggered by the user, where
82 `Action` is a bindable action (see `> help keybindings`). A bufpane
83 is passed as input and the function should return a boolean defining
84 whether the view should be relocated after this action is performed.
86 * `preAction(bufpane)`: runs immediately before `Action` is triggered
87 by the user. Returns a boolean which defines whether the action should
90 For example a function which is run every time the user saves the buffer
100 The `bp` variable is a reference to the bufpane the action is being executed
101 within. This is almost always the current bufpane.
103 All available actions are listed in the keybindings section of the help.
105 For callbacks to mouse actions, you are also given the event info:
108 function onMousePress(view, event)
109 local x, y = event:Position()
115 These functions should also return a boolean specifying whether the bufpane
116 should be relocated to the cursor or not after the action is complete.
118 ## Accessing micro functions
120 Some of micro's internal information is exposed in the form of packages which
121 can be imported by Lua plugins. A package can be imported in Lua and a value
122 within it can be accessed using the following syntax:
125 local micro = import("micro")
129 The packages and functions are listed below (in Go type signatures):
132 - `TermMessage(msg interface{}...)`: temporarily close micro and print a
135 - `TermError(filename string, lineNum int, err string)`: temporarily close
136 micro and print an error formatted as `filename, lineNum: err`.
138 - `InfoBar()`: return the infobar BufPane object.
140 - `Log(msg interface{}...)`: write a message to `log.txt` (requires
141 `-debug` flag, or binary built with `build-dbg`).
143 - `SetStatusInfoFn(fn string)`: register the given lua function as
144 accessible from the statusline formatting options
146 - `MakeCommand(name string, action func(bp *BufPane, args[]string),
147 completer buffer.Completer)`:
148 create a command with the given name, and lua callback function when
149 the command is run. A completer may also be given to specify how
150 autocompletion should work with the custom command.
152 - `FileComplete`: autocomplete using files in the current directory
153 - `HelpComplete`: autocomplete using names of help documents
154 - `OptionComplete`: autocomplete using names of options
155 - `OptionValueComplete`: autocomplete using names of options, and valid
157 - `NoComplete`: no autocompletion suggestions
159 - `TryBindKey(k, v string, overwrite bool) (bool, error)`: bind the key
160 `k` to the string `v` in the `bindings.json` file. If `overwrite` is
161 true, this will overwrite any existing binding to key `k`. Returns true
162 if the binding was made, and a possible error (for example writing to
163 `bindings.json` can cause an error).
165 - `Reload()`: reload configuration files.
167 - `AddRuntimeFileFromMemory(filetype RTFiletype, filename, data string)`:
168 add a runtime file to the `filetype` runtime filetype, with name
169 `filename` and data `data`.
171 - `AddRuntimeFilesFromDirectory(plugin string, filetype RTFiletype,
172 directory, pattern string)`:
173 add runtime files for the given plugin with the given RTFiletype from
174 a directory within the plugin root. Only adds files that match the
175 pattern using Go's `filepath.Match`
177 - `AddRuntimeFile(plugin string, filetype RTFiletype, filepath string)`:
178 add a given file inside the plugin root directory as a runtime file
179 to the given RTFiletype category.
181 - `ListRuntimeFiles(fileType RTFiletype) []string`: returns a list of
182 names of runtime files of the given type.
184 - `ReadRuntimeFile(fileType RTFiletype, name string) string`: returns the
185 contents of a given runtime file.
187 - `NewRTFiletype() int`: creates a new RTFiletype, and returns its value.
189 - `RTColorscheme`: runtime files for colorschemes.
190 - `RTSyntax`: runtime files for syntax files.
191 - `RTHelp`: runtime files for help documents.
192 - `RTPlugin`: runtime files for plugin source code.
194 - `RegisterCommonOption(pl string, name string, defaultvalue interface{})`:
195 registers a new option with for the given plugin. The name of the
196 option will be `pl.name`, and will have the given default value. Since
197 this registers a common option, the option will be modifiable on a
198 per-buffer basis, while also having a global value (in the
201 - `RegisterGlobalOption(pl string, name string, defaultvalue interface{})`:
202 same as `RegisterCommonOption` but the option cannot be modified
203 locally to each buffer.
205 - `GetGlobalOption(name string) interface{}`: returns the value of a
206 given plugin in the `GlobalSettings` map.
208 - `SetGlobalOption(option, value string) error`: sets an option to a
209 given value. Same as using the `> set` command. This will parse the
210 value to the actual value type.
212 - `SetGlobalOptionNative(option string, value interface{}) error`: sets
213 an option to a given value, where the type of value is the actual
214 type of the value internally.
216 - `ExecCommand(name string, arg ...string) (string, error)`: runs an
217 executable with the given arguments, and pipes the output (stderr
218 and stdout) of the executable to an internal buffer, which is
219 returned as a string, along with a possible error.
221 - `RunCommand(input string) (string, error)`: same as `ExecCommand`,
222 except this uses micro's argument parser to parse the arguments from
223 the input. For example `cat 'hello world.txt' file.txt`, will pass
224 two arguments in the `ExecCommand` argument list (quoting arguments
225 will preserve spaces).
227 - `RunBackgroundShell(input string) (func() string, error)`: returns a
228 function that will run the given shell command and return its output.
230 - `RunInteractiveShell(input string, wait bool, getOutput bool)
232 temporarily closes micro and runs the given command in the terminal.
233 If `wait` is true, micro will wait for the user to press enter before
234 returning to text editing. If `getOutput` is true, micro redirect
235 stdout from the command to the returned string.
237 - `JobStart(cmd string, onStdout, onStderr,
238 onExit func(string, []interface{}), userargs ...interface{})
240 Starts a background job by running the shell on the given command
241 (using `sh -c`). Three callbacks can be provided which will be called
242 when the command generates stdout, stderr, or exits. The userargs will
243 be passed to the callbacks, along with the output as the first
244 argument of the callback.
246 - `JobSpawn(cmd string, cmdArgs []string, onStdout, onStderr,
247 onExit func(string, []interface{}), userargs ...interface{})
249 same as `JobStart`, except doesn't run the command through the shell
250 and instead takes as inputs the list of arguments.
252 - `JobStop(cmd *exec.Cmd)`: kills a job.
253 - `JobSend(cmd *exec.Cmd, data string)`: sends some data to a job's stdin.
255 - `RunTermEmulator(h *BufPane, input string, wait bool, getOutput bool,
256 callback func(out string, userargs []interface{}),
257 userargs []interface{}) error`:
258 starts a terminal emulator from a given BufPane with the input command.
259 If `wait` is true it will wait for the user to exit by pressing enter
260 once the executable has terminated and if `getOutput` is true it will
261 redirect the stdout of the process to a pipe which will be passed to
262 the callback which is a function that takes a string and a list of
263 optional user arguments. This function returns an error on systems
264 where the terminal emulator is not supported.
266 - `TermEmuSupported`: true on systems where the terminal emulator is
267 supported and false otherwise. Supported systems:
275 - `NewMessage(owner string, msg string, start, end, Loc, kind MsgType)
277 creates a new message with an owner over a range given by the start
280 - `NewMessageAtLine(owner string, msg string, line int, kindMsgType)
282 creates a new message with owner, type and message at a given line.
284 - `MTInfo`: info message.
285 - `MTWarning`: warning message.
286 - `MTError` error message.
288 - `Loc(x, y int) Loc`: creates a new location struct.
290 - `BTDefault`: default buffer type.
291 - `BTLog`: log buffer type.
292 - `BTRaw`: raw buffer type.
293 - `BTInfo`: info buffer type.
295 - `NewBuffer(text, path string) *Buffer`: creates a new buffer with the
296 given text at a certain path.
298 - `NewBufferFromFile(path string) (*Buffer, error)`: creates a new
299 buffer by reading from disk at the given path.
301 - `ByteOffset(pos Loc, buf *Buffer) int`: returns the byte index of the
302 given position in a buffer.
304 - `Log(s string)`: writes a string to the log buffer.
305 - `LogBuf() *Buffer`: returns the log buffer.
307 - `RuneAt(str string, idx int) string`: returns the utf8 rune at a
308 given index within a string.
309 - `GetLeadingWhitespace(s string) string`: returns the leading
310 whitespace of a string.
311 - `IsWordChar(s string) bool`: returns true if the first rune in a
312 string is a word character.
313 - `String(b []byte) string`: converts a byte array to a string.
314 - `RuneStr(r rune) string`: converts a rune to a string.
316 This may seem like a small list of available functions but some of the objects
317 returned by the functions have many methods. The Lua plugin may access any
318 public methods of an object returned by any of the functions above.
319 Unfortunately it is not possible to list all the available functions on this
320 page. Please go to the internal documentation at
321 https://godoc.org/github.com/zyedidia/micro to see the full list of available
322 methods. Note that only methods of types that are available to plugins via
323 the functions above can be called from a plugin. For an even more detailed
324 reference see the source code on Github.
326 For example, with a BufPane object called `bp`, you could call the `Save`
327 function in Lua with `bp:Save()`.
329 Note that Lua uses the `:` syntax to call a function rather than Go's `.`
333 micro.InfoBar().Message()
339 micro.InfoBar():Message()
342 ## Accessing the Go standard library
344 It is possible for your lua code to access many of the functions in the Go
347 Simply import the package you'd like and then you can use it. For example:
350 local ioutil = import("io/ioutil")
351 local fmt = import("fmt")
352 local micro = import("micro")
354 local data, err = ioutil.ReadFile("SomeFile.txt")
357 micro.InfoBar():Error("Error reading file: SomeFile.txt")
359 -- Data is returned as an array of bytes
360 -- Using Sprintf will convert it to a string
361 local str = fmt.Sprintf("%s", data)
363 -- Do something with the file you just read!
368 Here are the packages from the Go standard library that you can access.
369 Nearly all functions from these packages are supported. For an exact
370 list of which functions are supported you can look through `lua.go`
371 (which should be easy to understand).
390 For documentation for each of these functions, see the Go standard
391 library documentation at https://golang.org/pkg/ (for the packages
392 exposed to micro plugins). The Lua standard library is also available
393 to plugins though it is rather small.
395 ## Adding help files, syntax files, or colorschemes in your plugin
397 You can use the `AddRuntimeFile(name string, type config.RTFiletype,
399 function to add various kinds of files to your plugin. For example, if you'd
400 like to add a help topic to your plugin called `test`, you would create a
401 `test.md` file, and call the function:
404 config = import("micro/config")
405 config.AddRuntimeFile("test", config.RTHelp, "test.md")
408 Use `AddRuntimeFilesFromDirectory(name, type, dir, pattern)` to add a number of
409 files to the runtime. To read the content of a runtime file use
410 `ReadRuntimeFile(fileType, name string)` or `ListRuntimeFiles(fileType string)`
411 for all runtime files. In addition, there is `AddRuntimeFileFromMemory` which
412 adds a runtime file based on a string that may have been constructed at
417 There are 6 default plugins that come pre-installed with micro. These are
419 * `autoclose`: automatically closes brackets, quotes, etc...
420 * `comment`: provides automatic commenting for a number of languages
421 * `ftoptions`: alters some default options depending on the filetype
422 * `linter`: provides extensible linting for many languages
423 * `literate`: provides advanced syntax highlighting for the Literate
425 * `status`: provides some extensions to the status line (integration with
428 See `> help linter`, `> help comment`, and `> help status` for additional
429 documentation specific to those plugins.
431 These are good examples for many use-cases if you are looking to write
436 Micro also has a built in plugin manager which you can invoke with the
437 `> plugin ...` command, or in the shell with `micro -plugin ...`.
439 For the valid commands you can use, see the `command` help topic.
441 The manager fetches plugins from the channels (which is simply a list of plugin
442 metadata) which it knows about. By default, micro only knows about the official
443 channel which is located at github.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel but you can
444 add your own third-party channels using the `pluginchannels` option and you can
445 directly link third-party plugins to allow installation through the plugin
446 manager with the `pluginrepos` option.
448 If you'd like to publish a plugin you've made as an official plugin, you should
449 upload your plugin online (to Github preferably) and add a `repo.json` file.
450 This file will contain the metadata for your plugin. Here is an example:
454 "Name": "pluginname",
455 "Description": "Here is a nice concise description of my plugin",
456 "Website": "https://github.com/user/plugin",
457 "Tags": ["python", "linting"],
461 "Url": "https://github.com/user/plugin/archive/v1.0.0.zip",
470 Then open a pull request at github.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel adding a
471 link to the raw `repo.json` that is in your plugin repository.
473 To make updating the plugin work, the first line of your plugins lua code
474 should contain the version of the plugin. (Like this: `VERSION = "1.0.0"`)
475 Please make sure to use [semver](http://semver.org/) for versioning.