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 Plugins use Lua but also have access to many functions both from micro
41 and from the Go standard library. Many callbacks are also defined which
42 are called when certain events happen. Here is the list of callbacks
45 * `init()`: this function should be used for your plugin initialization.
47 * `onBufferOpen(buf)`: runs when a buffer is opened. The input contains
50 * `onBufPaneOpen(bufpane)`: runs when a bufpane is opened. The input
51 contains the bufpane object.
53 * `onAction(bufpane)`: runs when `Action` is triggered by the user, where
54 `Action` is a bindable action (see `> help keybindings`). A bufpane
55 is passed as input and the function should return a boolean defining
56 whether the view should be relocated after this action is performed.
58 * `preAction(bufpane)`: runs immediately before `Action` is triggered
59 by the user. Returns a boolean which defines whether the action should
62 For example a function which is run every time the user saves the buffer
72 The `bp` variable is a reference to the bufpane the action is being executed
73 within. This is almost always the current bufpane.
75 All available actions are listed in the keybindings section of the help.
77 For callbacks to mouse actions, you are also given the event info:
80 function onMousePress(view, event)
81 local x, y = event:Position()
87 These functions should also return a boolean specifying whether the bufpane
88 should be relocated to the cursor or not after the action is complete.
90 ## Accessing micro functions
92 Some of micro's internal information is exposed in the form of packages which
93 can be imported by Lua plugins. A package can be imported in Lua and a value
94 within it can be accessed using the following syntax:
97 local micro = import("micro")
101 The packages and functions are listed below (in Go type signatures):
104 - `TermMessage(msg interface{}...)`: temporarily close micro and print a
107 - `TermError(filename string, lineNum int, err string)`: temporarily close
108 micro and print an error formatted as `filename, lineNum: err`.
110 - `InfoBar()`: return the infobar BufPane object.
112 - `Log(msg interface{}...)`: write a message to `log.txt` (requires
113 `-debug` flag, or binary built with `build-dbg`).
115 - `SetStatusInfoFn(fn string)`: register the given lua function as
116 accessible from the statusline formatting options
118 - `MakeCommand(name string, action func(bp *BufPane, args[]string),
119 completer buffer.Completer)`:
120 create a command with the given name, and lua callback function when
121 the command is run. A completer may also be given to specify how
122 autocompletion should work with the custom command.
124 - `FileComplete`: autocomplete using files in the current directory
125 - `HelpComplete`: autocomplete using names of help documents
126 - `OptionComplete`: autocomplete using names of options
127 - `OptionValueComplete`: autocomplete using names of options, and valid
129 - `NoComplete`: no autocompletion suggestions
131 - `TryBindKey(k, v string, overwrite bool) (bool, error)`: bind the key
132 `k` to the string `v` in the `bindings.json` file. If `overwrite` is
133 true, this will overwrite any existing binding to key `k`. Returns true
134 if the binding was made, and a possible error (for example writing to
135 `bindings.json` can cause an error).
137 - `Reload()`: reload configuration files.
139 - `AddRuntimeFileFromMemory(filetype RTFiletype, filename, data string)`:
140 add a runtime file to the `filetype` runtime filetype, with name
141 `filename` and data `data`.
143 - `AddRuntimeFilesFromDirectory(plugin string, filetype RTFiletype,
144 directory, pattern string)`:
145 add runtime files for the given plugin with the given RTFiletype from
146 a directory within the plugin root. Only adds files that match the
147 pattern using Go's `filepath.Match`
149 - `AddRuntimeFile(plugin string, filetype RTFiletype, filepath string)`:
150 add a given file inside the plugin root directory as a runtime file
151 to the given RTFiletype category.
153 - `ListRuntimeFiles(fileType RTFiletype) []string`: returns a list of
154 names of runtime files of the given type.
156 - `ReadRuntimeFile(fileType RTFiletype, name string) string`: returns the
157 contents of a given runtime file.
159 - `NewRTFiletype() int`: creates a new RTFiletype, and returns its value.
161 - `RTColorscheme`: runtime files for colorschemes.
162 - `RTSyntax`: runtime files for syntax files.
163 - `RTHelp`: runtime files for help documents.
164 - `RTPlugin`: runtime files for plugin source code.
166 - `RegisterCommonOption(pl string, name string, defaultvalue interface{})`:
167 registers a new option with for the given plugin. The name of the
168 option will be `pl.name`, and will have the given default value. Since
169 this registers a common option, the option will be modifiable on a
170 per-buffer basis, while also having a global value (in the
173 - `RegisterGlobalOption(pl string, name string, defaultvalue interface{})`:
174 same as `RegisterCommonOption` but the option cannot be modified
175 locally to each buffer.
177 - `GetGlobalOption(name string) interface{}`: returns the value of a
178 given plugin in the `GlobalSettings` map.
180 - `SetGlobalOption(option, value string) error`: sets an option to a
181 given value. Same as using the `> set` command. This will parse the
182 value to the actual value type.
184 - `SetGlobalOptionNative(option string, value interface{}) error`: sets
185 an option to a given value, where the type of value is the actual
186 type of the value internally.
188 - `ExecCommand(name string, arg ...string) (string, error)`: runs an
189 executable with the given arguments, and pipes the output (stderr
190 and stdout) of the executable to an internal buffer, which is
191 returned as a string, along with a possible error.
193 - `RunCommand(input string) (string, error)`: same as `ExecCommand`,
194 except this uses micro's argument parser to parse the arguments from
195 the input. For example `cat 'hello world.txt' file.txt`, will pass
196 two arguments in the `ExecCommand` argument list (quoting arguments
197 will preserve spaces).
199 - `RunBackgroundShell(input string) (func() string, error)`: returns a
200 function that will run the given shell command and return its output.
202 - `RunInteractiveShell(input string, wait bool, getOutput bool)
204 temporarily closes micro and runs the given command in the terminal.
205 If `wait` is true, micro will wait for the user to press enter before
206 returning to text editing. If `getOutput` is true, micro redirect
207 stdout from the command to the returned string.
209 - `JobStart(cmd string, onStdout, onStderr,
210 onExit func(string, []interface{}), userargs ...interface{})
212 Starts a background job by running the shell on the given command
213 (using `sh -c`). Three callbacks can be provided which will be called
214 when the command generates stdout, stderr, or exits. The userargs will
215 be passed to the callbacks, along with the output as the first
216 argument of the callback.
218 - `JobSpawn(cmd string, cmdArgs []string, onStdout, onStderr,
219 onExit func(string, []interface{}), userargs ...interface{})
221 same as `JobStart`, except doesn't run the command through the shell
222 and instead takes as inputs the list of arguments.
224 - `JobStop(cmd *exec.Cmd)`: kills a job.
225 - `JobSend(cmd *exec.Cmd, data string)`: sends some data to a job's stdin.
227 - `RunTermEmulator(h *BufPane, input string, wait bool, getOutput bool,
228 callback func(out string, userargs []interface{}),
229 userargs []interface{}) error`:
230 starts a terminal emulator from a given BufPane with the input command.
231 If `wait` is true it will wait for the user to exit by pressing enter
232 once the executable has terminated and if `getOutput` is true it will
233 redirect the stdout of the process to a pipe which will be passed to
234 the callback which is a function that takes a string and a list of
235 optional user arguments. This function returns an error on systems
236 where the terminal emulator is not supported.
238 - `TermEmuSupported`: true on systems where the terminal emulator is
239 supported and false otherwise. Supported systems:
247 - `NewMessage(owner string, msg string, start, end, Loc, kind MsgType)
249 creates a new message with an owner over a range given by the start
252 - `NewMessageAtLine(owner string, msg string, line int, kindMsgType)
254 creates a new message with owner, type and message at a given line.
256 - `MTInfo`: info message.
257 - `MTWarning`: warning message.
258 - `MTError` error message.
260 - `Loc(x, y int) Loc`: creates a new location struct.
262 - `BTDefault`: default buffer type.
263 - `BTLog`: log buffer type.
264 - `BTRaw`: raw buffer type.
265 - `BTInfo`: info buffer type.
267 - `NewBuffer(text, path string) *Buffer`: creates a new buffer with the
268 given text at a certain path.
270 - `NewBufferFromFile(path string) (*Buffer, error)`: creates a new
271 buffer by reading from disk at the given path.
273 - `ByteOffset(pos Loc, buf *Buffer) int`: returns the byte index of the
274 given position in a buffer.
276 - `Log(s string)`: writes a string to the log buffer.
277 - `LogBuf() *Buffer`: returns the log buffer.
279 - `RuneAt(str string, idx int) string`: returns the utf8 rune at a
280 given index within a string.
281 - `GetLeadingWhitespace(s string) string`: returns the leading
282 whitespace of a string.
283 - `IsWordChar(s string) bool`: returns true if the first rune in a
284 string is a word character.
285 - `String(b []byte) string`: converts a byte array to a string.
286 - `RuneStr(r rune) string`: converts a rune to a string.
288 This may seem like a small list of available functions but some of the objects
289 returned by the functions have many methods. The Lua plugin may access any
290 public methods of an object returned by any of the functions above.
291 Unfortunately it is not possible to list all the available functions on this
292 page. Please go to the internal documentation at
293 https://godoc.org/github.com/zyedidia/micro to see the full list of available
294 methods. Note that only methods of types that are available to plugins via
295 the functions above can be called from a plugin. For an even more detailed
296 reference see the source code on Github.
298 For example, with a BufPane object called `bp`, you could call the `Save`
299 function in Lua with `bp:Save()`.
301 Note that Lua uses the `:` syntax to call a function rather than Go's `.`
305 micro.InfoBar().Message()
311 micro.InfoBar():Message()
314 ## Accessing the Go standard library
316 It is possible for your lua code to access many of the functions in the Go
319 Simply import the package you'd like and then you can use it. For example:
322 local ioutil = import("io/ioutil")
323 local fmt = import("fmt")
324 local micro = import("micro")
326 local data, err = ioutil.ReadFile("SomeFile.txt")
329 micro.InfoBar():Error("Error reading file: SomeFile.txt")
331 -- Data is returned as an array of bytes
332 -- Using Sprintf will convert it to a string
333 local str = fmt.Sprintf("%s", data)
335 -- Do something with the file you just read!
340 Here are the packages from the Go standard library that you can access.
341 Nearly all functions from these packages are supported. For an exact
342 list of which functions are supported you can look through `lua.go`
343 (which should be easy to understand).
362 For documentation for each of these functions, see the Go standard
363 library documentation at https://golang.org/pkg/ (for the packages
364 exposed to micro plugins). The Lua standard library is also available
365 to plugins though it is rather small.
367 ## Adding help files, syntax files, or colorschemes in your plugin
369 You can use the `AddRuntimeFile(name string, type config.RTFiletype,
371 function to add various kinds of files to your plugin. For example, if you'd
372 like to add a help topic to your plugin called `test`, you would create a
373 `test.md` file, and call the function:
376 config = import("micro/config")
377 config.AddRuntimeFile("test", config.RTHelp, "test.md")
380 Use `AddRuntimeFilesFromDirectory(name, type, dir, pattern)` to add a number of
381 files to the runtime. To read the content of a runtime file use
382 `ReadRuntimeFile(fileType, name string)` or `ListRuntimeFiles(fileType string)`
383 for all runtime files. In addition, there is `AddRuntimeFileFromMemory` which
384 adds a runtime file based on a string that may have been constructed at
389 There are 6 default plugins that come pre-installed with micro. These are
391 * `autoclose`: automatically closes brackets, quotes, etc...
392 * `comment`: provides automatic commenting for a number of languages
393 * `ftoptions`: alters some default options depending on the filetype
394 * `linter`: provides extensible linting for many languages
395 * `literate`: provides advanced syntax highlighting for the Literate
397 * `status`: provides some extensions to the status line (integration with
400 See `> help linter`, `> help comment`, and `> help status` for additional
401 documentation specific to those plugins.
403 These are good examples for many use-cases if you are looking to write
408 Micro also has a built in plugin manager which you can invoke with the
409 `> plugin ...` command, or in the shell with `micro -plugin ...`.
411 For the valid commands you can use, see the `command` help topic.
413 The manager fetches plugins from the channels (which is simply a list of plugin
414 metadata) which it knows about. By default, micro only knows about the official
415 channel which is located at github.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel but you can
416 add your own third-party channels using the `pluginchannels` option and you can
417 directly link third-party plugins to allow installation through the plugin
418 manager with the `pluginrepos` option.
420 If you'd like to publish a plugin you've made as an official plugin, you should
421 upload your plugin online (to Github preferably) and add a `repo.json` file.
422 This file will contain the metadata for your plugin. Here is an example:
426 "Name": "pluginname",
427 "Description": "Here is a nice concise description of my plugin",
428 "Website": "https://github.com/user/plugin",
429 "Tags": ["python", "linting"],
433 "Url": "https://github.com/user/plugin/archive/v1.0.0.zip",
442 Then open a pull request at github.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel adding a
443 link to the raw `repo.json` that is in your plugin repository.
445 To make updating the plugin work, the first line of your plugins lua code
446 should contain the version of the plugin. (Like this: `VERSION = "1.0.0"`)
447 Please make sure to use [semver](http://semver.org/) for versioning.