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
8 plugin to run code at times other than startup. The naming scheme is
9 `onAction(view)`. For example a function which is run every time the user saves
19 The `view` variable is a reference to the view the action is being executed on.
20 This is almost always the current view, which you can get with `CurView()` as well.
22 All available actions are listed in the keybindings section of the help.
24 These functions should also return a boolean specifying whether the view
25 should be relocated to the cursor or not after the action is complete.
27 Note that these callbacks occur after the action has been completed. If you
28 want a callback before the action is executed, use `preAction()`. In this case
29 the boolean returned specifies whether or not the action should be executed
30 after the lua code completes.
32 Another useful callback to know about which is not a action is
33 `onViewOpen(view)` which is called whenever a new view is opened and the new
34 view is passed in. This is useful for setting local options based on the filetype,
35 for example turning off `tabstospaces` only for Go files when they are opened.
39 There are a number of functions and variables that are available to you in
40 order to access the inner workings of micro. Here is a list (the type signatures
41 for functions are given using Go's type system):
43 * `OS`: variable which gives the OS micro is currently running on (this is the same
44 as Go's GOOS variable, so `darwin`, `windows`, `linux`, `freebsd`...)
46 * `tabs`: a list of all the tabs currently in use
48 * `curTab`: the index of the current tabs in the tabs list
50 * `messenger`: lets you send messages to the user or create prompts
52 * `GetOption(name string)`: returns the value of the requested option
54 * `AddOption(name string, value interface{})`: sets the given option with the given
55 value (`interface{}` means any type in Go)
57 * `SetOption(option, value string)`: sets the given option to the value. This will
58 set the option globally, unless it is a local only option.
60 * `SetLocalOption(option, value string, buffer *Buffer)`: sets the given option to
61 the value locally in the given buffer
63 * `BindKey(key, action string)`: binds `key` to `action`
65 * `MakeCommand(name, function string, completions ...Completion)`:
66 creates a command with `name` which will call `function` when executed.
67 Use 0 for completions to get NoCompletion.
69 * `MakeCompletion(function string)`:
70 creates a `Completion` to use with `MakeCommand`
72 * `CurView()`: returns the current view
74 * `HandleCommand(cmd string)`: runs the given command
76 * `HandleShellCommand(shellCmd string, interactive bool, waitToClose bool)`: runs the given shell
77 command. The `interactive` bool specifies whether the command should run in the background. The
78 `waitToClose` bool only applies if `interactive` is true and means that it should wait before
79 returning to the editor.
81 * `JobStart(cmd string, onStdout, onStderr, onExit string, userargs ...string)`:
82 Starts running the given shell command in the background. `onStdout` `onStderr` and `onExit`
83 are callbacks to lua functions which will be called when the given actions happen
84 to the background process.
85 `userargs` are the arguments which will get passed to the callback functions
87 * `JobSend(cmd *exec.Cmd, data string)`: send a string into the stdin of the job process
89 * `JobStop(cmd *exec.Cmd)`: kill a job
91 This may seem like a small list of available functions but some of the objects
92 returned by the functions have many methods. `CurView()` returns a view object
93 which has all the actions which you can call. For example `CurView():Save(false)`.
94 You can see the full list of possible actions in the keybindings help topic.
95 The boolean on all the actions indicates whether or not the lua callbacks should
96 be run. I would recommend generally sticking to false when making a plugin to
97 avoid recursive problems, for example if you call `CurView():Save(true)` in `onSave()`.
98 Just use `CurView():Save(false)` so that it won't call `onSave()` again.
100 Using the view object, you can also access the buffer associated with that view
101 by using `CurView().Buf`, which lets you access the `FileType`, `Path`, `Name`...
103 The possible methods which you can call using the `messenger` variable are:
105 * `messenger.Message(msg ...interface{})`
106 * `messenger.Error(msg ...interface{})`
107 * `messenger.YesNoPrompt(prompt string) (bool, bool)`
108 * `messenger.Prompt(prompt, historyType string, completionType Completion) (string, bool)`
110 If you want a standard prompt, just use `messenger.Prompt(prompt, "", 0)`
112 # Autocomplete command arguments
114 See this example to learn how to use `MakeCompletion` and `MakeCommand`
117 local function StartsWith(String,Start)
118 String = String:upper()
119 Start = Start:upper()
120 return string.sub(String,1,string.len(Start))==Start
123 function complete(input)
124 local allCompletions = {"Hello", "World", "Foo", "Bar"}
127 for i,v in pairs(allCompletions) do
128 if StartsWith(v, input) then
129 table.insert(result, v)
136 messenger:Message(arg)
139 MakeCommand("foo", "example.foo", MakeCompletion("example.complete"))
144 For examples of plugins, see the default plugins `linter`, `go`, and `autoclose`.
145 They are stored in Micro's GitHub repository [here](https://github.com/zyedidia/micro/tree/master/runtime/plugins).