better top

[micro.git] / runtime / help / plugins.md

diff --git a/runtime/help/plugins.md b/runtime/help/plugins.md
index 4c6e15fde4048976c3ff2f2e19986e59f52af50d..8c8b3a5090296cd610f1af7a39db3a95a106c341 100644 (file)
--- a/runtime/help/plugins.md
+++ b/runtime/help/plugins.md
@@ -9,12 +9,36 @@ plugin's website, dependencies, etc... Here is an example info file
 from the go plugin, which has the following file structure:
 
 ```
 from the go plugin, which has the following file structure:
 
 ```

-~/.config/micro/plug/go-plugin
+~/.config/micro/plug/go-plugin/

     go.lua
     info.json
     go.lua
     info.json

+    help/
+        go-plugin.md

 ```
 
 ```
 

-info.json:
+The `go.lua` file contains the main code for the plugin, though the
+code may be distributed across multiple Lua files. The `info.json`
+file contains information about the plugin such as the website,
+description, version, and any requirements. Plugins may also
+have additional files which can be added to micro's runtime files,
+of which there are 5 types:
+
+* Colorschemes
+* Syntax files
+* Help files
+* Plugin files
+* Syntax header files
+
+In most cases, a plugin will want to add help files, but in certain
+cases a plugin may also want to add colorschemes or syntax files. It
+is unlikely for a plugin to need to add plugin files at runtime or
+syntax header files. No directory structure is enforced but keeping
+runtime files in their own directories is good practice.
+
+# Info file
+
+The `info.json` for the Go plugin is the following:
+

 ```
 {
     "name": "go",
 ```
 {
     "name": "go",


@@ -35,6 +59,10 @@ the website should point to a valid website. The install field should
 provide info about installing the plugin, or point to a website that
 provides information.
 
 provide info about installing the plugin, or point to a website that
 provides information.
 

+Note that the name of the plugin is defined by the name field in
+the `info.json` and not by the installation path. Some functions micro
+exposes to plugins require passing the name of the plugin.
+

 ## Lua callbacks
 
 Plugins use Lua but also have access to many functions both from micro
 ## Lua callbacks
 
 Plugins use Lua but also have access to many functions both from micro


@@ -69,8 +97,8 @@ function onSave(bp)
 end
 ```
 
 end
 ```
 

-The `bp` variable is a reference to the bufpane the action is being executed within.
-This is almost always the current bufpane.
+The `bp` variable is a reference to the bufpane the action is being executed
+within.  This is almost always the current bufpane.

 
 All available actions are listed in the keybindings section of the help.
 
 
 All available actions are listed in the keybindings section of the help.
 


@@ -84,8 +112,8 @@ function onMousePress(view, event)
 end
 ```
 
 end
 ```
 

-These functions should also return a boolean specifying whether the bufpane should
-be relocated to the cursor or not after the action is complete.
+These functions should also return a boolean specifying whether the bufpane
+should be relocated to the cursor or not after the action is complete.

 
 ## Accessing micro functions
 
 
 ## Accessing micro functions
 


@@ -98,71 +126,208 @@ local micro = import("micro")
 micro.Log("Hello")
 ```
 
 micro.Log("Hello")
 ```
 

-The packages and functions are listed below:
+The packages and functions are listed below (in Go type signatures):

 
 * `micro`
 
 * `micro`

-    - `TermMessage(msg interface{}...)`
-    - `TermError()`
-    - `InfoBar()`
-    - `Log(msg interface{}...)`
-    - `SetStatusInfoFn`
+    - `TermMessage(msg interface{}...)`: temporarily close micro and print a
+       message
+
+    - `TermError(filename string, lineNum int, err string)`: temporarily close
+       micro and print an error formatted as `filename, lineNum: err`.
+
+    - `InfoBar()`: return the infobar BufPane object.
+
+    - `Log(msg interface{}...)`: write a message to `log.txt` (requires
+       `-debug` flag, or binary built with `build-dbg`).
+
+    - `SetStatusInfoFn(fn string)`: register the given lua function as
+       accessible from the statusline formatting options

 * `micro/config`
 * `micro/config`

-    - `MakeCommand`
-    - `FileComplete`
-    - `HelpComplete`
-    - `OptionComplete`
-    - `OptionValueComplete`
-    - `NoComplete`
-    - `TryBindKey`
-    - `Reload`
-    - `AddRuntimeFilesFromDirectory`
-    - `AddRuntimeFileFromMemory`
-    - `AddRuntimeFile`
-    - `ListRuntimeFiles`
-    - `ReadRuntimeFile`
-    - `RTColorscheme`
-    - `RTSyntax`
-    - `RTHelp`
-    - `RTPlugin`
-    - `RegisterCommonOption`
-    - `RegisterGlobalOption`
+       - `MakeCommand(name string, action func(bp *BufPane, args[]string),
+                   completer buffer.Completer)`:
+       create a command with the given name, and lua callback function when
+       the command is run. A completer may also be given to specify how
+       autocompletion should work with the custom command.
+
+       - `FileComplete`: autocomplete using files in the current directory
+       - `HelpComplete`: autocomplete using names of help documents
+       - `OptionComplete`: autocomplete using names of options
+       - `OptionValueComplete`: autocomplete using names of options, and valid
+       values afterwards
+       - `NoComplete`: no autocompletion suggestions
+
+       - `TryBindKey(k, v string, overwrite bool) (bool, error)`: bind the key
+       `k` to the string `v` in the `bindings.json` file.  If `overwrite` is
+       true, this will overwrite any existing binding to key `k`. Returns true
+       if the binding was made, and a possible error (for example writing to
+       `bindings.json` can cause an error).
+
+       - `Reload()`: reload configuration files.
+
+       - `AddRuntimeFileFromMemory(filetype RTFiletype, filename, data string)`:
+       add a runtime file to the `filetype` runtime filetype, with name
+       `filename` and data `data`.
+
+       - `AddRuntimeFilesFromDirectory(plugin string, filetype RTFiletype,
+                                    directory, pattern string)`:
+       add runtime files for the given plugin with the given RTFiletype from
+       a directory within the plugin root. Only adds files that match the
+       pattern using Go's `filepath.Match`
+
+       - `AddRuntimeFile(plugin string, filetype RTFiletype, filepath string)`:
+       add a given file inside the plugin root directory as a runtime file
+       to the given RTFiletype category.
+
+       - `ListRuntimeFiles(fileType RTFiletype) []string`: returns a list of
+       names of runtime files of the given type.
+
+       - `ReadRuntimeFile(fileType RTFiletype, name string) string`: returns the
+       contents of a given runtime file.
+
+       - `NewRTFiletype() int`: creates a new RTFiletype, and returns its value.
+
+       - `RTColorscheme`: runtime files for colorschemes.
+       - `RTSyntax`: runtime files for syntax files.
+       - `RTHelp`: runtime files for help documents.
+       - `RTPlugin`: runtime files for plugin source code.
+
+       - `RegisterCommonOption(pl string, name string, defaultvalue interface{})`:
+       registers a new option with for the given plugin. The name of the
+       option will be `pl.name`, and will have the given default value. Since
+       this registers a common option, the option will be modifiable on a
+       per-buffer basis, while also having a global value (in the
+       GlobalSettings map).
+
+       - `RegisterGlobalOption(pl string, name string, defaultvalue interface{})`:
+       same as `RegisterCommonOption` but the option cannot be modified
+       locally to each buffer.
+
+       - `GetGlobalOption(name string) interface{}`: returns the value of a
+       given plugin in the `GlobalSettings` map.
+
+       - `SetGlobalOption(option, value string) error`: sets an option to a
+       given value. Same as using the `> set` command. This will parse the
+       value to the actual value type.
+
+       - `SetGlobalOptionNative(option string, value interface{}) error`: sets
+       an option to a given value, where the type of value is the actual
+       type of the value internally.

 * `micro/shell`
 * `micro/shell`

-    - `ExecCommand`
-    - `RunCommand`
-    - `RunBackgroundShell`
-    - `RunInteractiveShell`
-    - `JobStart`
-    - `JobSpawn`
-    - `JobStop`
-    - `JobStop`
-    - `RunTermEmulator`
-    - `TermEmuSupported`
+       - `ExecCommand(name string, arg ...string) (string, error)`: runs an
+       executable with the given arguments, and pipes the output (stderr
+       and stdout) of the executable to an internal buffer, which is
+       returned as a string, along with a possible error.
+
+       - `RunCommand(input string) (string, error)`: same as `ExecCommand`,
+       except this uses micro's argument parser to parse the arguments from
+       the input. For example `cat 'hello world.txt' file.txt`, will pass
+       two arguments in the `ExecCommand` argument list (quoting arguments
+       will preserve spaces).
+
+       - `RunBackgroundShell(input string) (func() string, error)`: returns a
+       function that will run the given shell command and return its output.
+
+       - `RunInteractiveShell(input string, wait bool, getOutput bool)
+                          (string, error)`:
+       temporarily closes micro and runs the given command in the terminal.
+       If `wait` is true, micro will wait for the user to press enter before
+       returning to text editing. If `getOutput` is true, micro redirect
+       stdout from the command to the returned string.
+
+       - `JobStart(cmd string, onStdout, onStderr,
+                onExit func(string, []interface{}), userargs ...interface{})
+                *exec.Cmd`:
+       Starts a background job by running the shell on the given command
+       (using `sh -c`). Three callbacks can be provided which will be called
+       when the command generates stdout, stderr, or exits. The userargs will
+       be passed to the callbacks, along with the output as the first
+       argument of the callback.
+
+       - `JobSpawn(cmd string, cmdArgs []string, onStdout, onStderr,
+                onExit func(string, []interface{}), userargs ...interface{})
+                *exec.Cmd`:
+       same as `JobStart`, except doesn't run the command through the shell
+       and instead takes as inputs the list of arguments.
+
+       - `JobStop(cmd *exec.Cmd)`: kills a job.
+       - `JobSend(cmd *exec.Cmd, data string)`: sends some data to a job's stdin.
+
+       - `RunTermEmulator(h *BufPane, input string, wait bool, getOutput bool,
+                       callback func(out string, userargs []interface{}),
+                       userargs []interface{}) error`:
+       starts a terminal emulator from a given BufPane with the input command.
+       If `wait` is true it will wait for the user to exit by pressing enter
+       once the executable has terminated and if `getOutput` is true it will
+       redirect the stdout of the process to a pipe which will be passed to
+       the callback which is a function that takes a string and a list of
+       optional user arguments. This function returns an error on systems
+       where the terminal emulator is not supported.
+
+       - `TermEmuSupported`: true on systems where the terminal emulator is
+       supported and false otherwise. Supported systems:
+        * Linux
+        * MacOS
+        * Dragonfly
+        * OpenBSD
+        * FreeBSD
+

 * `micro/buffer`
 * `micro/buffer`

-    - `NewMessage`
-    - `NewMessageAtLine`
-    - `MTInfo`
-    - `MTWarning`
-    - `MTError`
-    - `Loc`
-    - `BTDefault`
-    - `BTLog`
-    - `BTRaw`
-    - `BTInfo`
-    - `NewBufferFromFile`
-    - `ByteOffset`
-* `micro/util`
-    - `RuneAt`
-    - `GetLeadingWhitespace`
-    - `IsWordChar`
+    - `NewMessage(owner string, msg string, start, end, Loc, kind MsgType)
+                  *Message`:
+       creates a new message with an owner over a range given by the start
+       and end locations.
+
+    - `NewMessageAtLine(owner string, msg string, line int, kindMsgType)
+                        *Message`:
+       creates a new message with owner, type and message at a given line.
+
+    - `MTInfo`: info message.
+    - `MTWarning`: warning message.
+    - `MTError` error message.
+
+    - `Loc(x, y int) Loc`: creates a new location struct.
+
+    - `BTDefault`: default buffer type.
+    - `BTLog`: log buffer type.
+    - `BTRaw`: raw buffer type.
+    - `BTInfo`: info buffer type.
+
+    - `NewBuffer(text, path string) *Buffer`: creates a new buffer with the
+       given text at a certain path.

 
 

+    - `NewBufferFromFile(path string) (*Buffer, error)`: creates a new
+       buffer by reading from disk at the given path.
+
+    - `ByteOffset(pos Loc, buf *Buffer) int`: returns the byte index of the
+       given position in a buffer.
+
+    - `Log(s string)`: writes a string to the log buffer.
+    - `LogBuf() *Buffer`: returns the log buffer.
+* `micro/util`
+    - `RuneAt(str string, idx int) string`: returns the utf8 rune at a
+       given index within a string.
+    - `GetLeadingWhitespace(s string) string`: returns the leading
+       whitespace of a string.
+    - `IsWordChar(s string) bool`: returns true if the first rune in a
+       string is a word character.
+    - `String(b []byte) string`: converts a byte array to a string.
+    - `RuneStr(r rune) string`: converts a rune to a string.

 
 This may seem like a small list of available functions but some of the objects
 returned by the functions have many methods. The Lua plugin may access any
 
 This may seem like a small list of available functions but some of the objects
 returned by the functions have many methods. The Lua plugin may access any

-public methods of an object returned by any of the functions above. For example,
-with a BufPane object called `bp`, you could called the `Save` function in Lua
-with `bp:Save()`.
+public methods of an object returned by any of the functions above.
+Unfortunately it is not possible to list all the available functions on this
+page. Please go to the internal documentation at
+https://godoc.org/github.com/zyedidia/micro to see the full list of available
+methods. Note that only methods of types that are available to plugins via
+the functions above can be called from a plugin.  For an even more detailed
+reference see the source code on Github.
+
+For example, with a BufPane object called `bp`, you could call the `Save`
+function in Lua with `bp:Save()`.

 
 

-Note that Lua uses the `:` syntax to call a function rather than Go's `.` syntax.
+Note that Lua uses the `:` syntax to call a function rather than Go's `.`
+syntax.

 
 ```go
 micro.InfoBar().Message()
 
 ```go
 micro.InfoBar().Message()


@@ -222,68 +387,56 @@ errors
 time
 ```
 
 time
 ```
 

-For documentation for each of these functions, you can simply look
-through the Go standard library documentation.
+For documentation for each of these functions, see the Go standard
+library documentation at https://golang.org/pkg/ (for the packages
+exposed to micro plugins). The Lua standard library is also available
+to plugins though it is rather small.

 
 ## Adding help files, syntax files, or colorschemes in your plugin
 
 
 ## Adding help files, syntax files, or colorschemes in your plugin
 

-You can use the `AddRuntimeFile(name, type, path string)` function to add
-various kinds of files to your plugin. For example, if you'd like to add a help
-topic to your plugin called `test`, you would create a `test.md` file, and call
-the function:
+You can use the `AddRuntimeFile(name string, type config.RTFiletype,
+                                path string)`
+function to add various kinds of files to your plugin. For example, if you'd
+like to add a help topic to your plugin called `test`, you would create a
+`test.md` file, and call the function:

 
 ```lua
 
 ```lua

-AddRuntimeFile("test", "help", "test.md")
+config = import("micro/config")
+config.AddRuntimeFile("test", config.RTHelp, "test.md")

 ```
 
 Use `AddRuntimeFilesFromDirectory(name, type, dir, pattern)` to add a number of
 files to the runtime. To read the content of a runtime file use
 `ReadRuntimeFile(fileType, name string)` or `ListRuntimeFiles(fileType string)`
 ```
 
 Use `AddRuntimeFilesFromDirectory(name, type, dir, pattern)` to add a number of
 files to the runtime. To read the content of a runtime file use
 `ReadRuntimeFile(fileType, name string)` or `ListRuntimeFiles(fileType string)`

-for all runtime files.
-
-## Autocomplete command arguments
-
-See this example to learn how to use `MakeCompletion` and `MakeCommand`
-
-```lua
-local function StartsWith(String,Start)
-    String = String:upper()
-    Start = Start:upper() 
-    return string.sub(String,1,string.len(Start))==Start
-end
-
-function complete(input)
-    local allCompletions = {"Hello", "World", "Foo", "Bar"}
-    local result = {}
+for all runtime files. In addition, there is `AddRuntimeFileFromMemory` which
+adds a runtime file based on a string that may have been constructed at
+runtime.

 
 

-    for i,v in pairs(allCompletions) do
-        if StartsWith(v, input) then
-            table.insert(result, v)
-        end
-    end
-    return result
-end
+## Default plugins

 
 

-function foo(arg)
-    messenger:Message(arg)
-end
+There are 6 default plugins that come pre-installed with micro. These are

 
 

-MakeCommand("foo", "example.foo", MakeCompletion("example.complete"))
-```
+* `autoclose`: automatically closes brackets, quotes, etc...
+* `comment`: provides automatic commenting for a number of languages
+* `ftoptions`: alters some default options depending on the filetype
+* `linter`: provides extensible linting for many languages
+* `literate`: provides advanced syntax highlighting for the Literate
+   programming tool.
+* `status`: provides some extensions to the status line (integration with
+   Git and more).

 
 

-## Default plugins
+See `> help linter`, `> help comment`, and `> help status` for additional
+documentation specific to those plugins.

 
 

-For examples of plugins, see the default `autoclose` and `linter` plugins
-(stored in the normal micro core repo under `runtime/plugins`) as well as any
-plugins that are stored in the official channel
-[here](https://github.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel).
+These are good examples for many use-cases if you are looking to write
+your own plugins.

 
 ## Plugin Manager
 
 Micro also has a built in plugin manager which you can invoke with the
 
 ## Plugin Manager
 
 Micro also has a built in plugin manager which you can invoke with the

-`> plugin ...` command.
+`> plugin ...` command, or in the shell with `micro -plugin ...`.

 
 

-For the valid commands you can use, see the `commands` help topic.
+For the valid commands you can use, see the `command` help topic.

 
 The manager fetches plugins from the channels (which is simply a list of plugin
 metadata) which it knows about. By default, micro only knows about the official
 
 The manager fetches plugins from the channels (which is simply a list of plugin
 metadata) which it knows about. By default, micro only knows about the official


@@ -300,6 +453,7 @@ This file will contain the metadata for your plugin. Here is an example:
 [{
   "Name": "pluginname",
   "Description": "Here is a nice concise description of my plugin",
 [{
   "Name": "pluginname",
   "Description": "Here is a nice concise description of my plugin",

+  "Website": "https://github.com/user/plugin",

   "Tags": ["python", "linting"],
   "Versions": [
     {
   "Tags": ["python", "linting"],
   "Versions": [
     {


@@ -313,8 +467,9 @@ This file will contain the metadata for your plugin. Here is an example:
 }]
 ```
 
 }]
 ```
 

-Then open a pull request at github.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel adding a link
-to the raw `repo.json` that is in your plugin repository. To make updating the
-plugin work, the first line of your plugins lua code should contain the version
-of the plugin. (Like this: `VERSION = "1.0.0"`) Please make sure to use
-[semver](http://semver.org/) for versioning.
+Then open a pull request at github.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel adding a
+link to the raw `repo.json` that is in your plugin repository.
+
+To make updating the plugin work, the first line of your plugins lua code
+should contain the version of the plugin. (Like this: `VERSION = "1.0.0"`)
+Please make sure to use [semver](http://semver.org/) for versioning.