Journaling in vim

I came across this interesting post called journaling in vim by Danish Prakash which uses built-in functionality in Vim to make a painless digital journal workflow. The write-up is clear and I’ve been able to set up my workflow.

Following is what I’ve learned during the process.

Vim templates

Vim templates allow you to specify a template to be used for new files with a certain extension.

A template is a .skeleton file which is applied the Vim buffer.

See :help template for more.

Skeleton file example

A simple example is shell script. Shell scripts starts with the shebang.

#! /usr/bin/env bash

Create your skeleton file in in ~/.vim/skeleton.sh or ~/.vim/templates/skeleton.sh and add the shebang header. You can add other information such as usage or license to the template.

Preloading the buffer

Autocommands are used to popuplate the buffer from the skeleton file when the buffer metadata matches a certain pattern.

autocmd VimEnter */journal/**   0r ~/.vim/templates/journal.skeleton

Let’s break it down:

• autocmd - command to be executed automatically when read or writing a file, when entering or leaving a buffer or window and when exiting Vim.
• VimEnter - everytime vim is entered from the command line, the autocmd is trigger.
• */journal/** - the autocmd is triggered on the pattern */journal/**
• 0r - read into the buffer starting at line 0.
• ~/.vim/templates/journal.skeleton - the file to read into the new file

Autocommands structure

autocmd VimEnter */journal/**   0r ~/.vim/templates/journal.skeleton
        ^        ^              ^
        |        |              |
        |        |              The command to run. 
        |        |
        |        A "pattern" to filter the event.
        |
	The "event" to watch for.

Augroup

Autocommands can be put together. This is useful for removing or executing a group of autocommands.

augroup journal
    autocmd!

    " populate journal template
    autocmd VimEnter */journal/**   0r ~/.vim/templates/journal.skeleton
augroup end

• autocmd! - Remove ALL autocommands for the current group

Completion

Vim’s completion feature allows us to select custom sources. Setting a custom completion source:

autocmd VimEnter */journal/**   setlocal complete=k/Users/danish/journal/**/*

Break down:

• setlocal - set only the value local to the current buffer or window.
• complete=k - scan the files given the dictionary option.
• ** - wildcards stands for a recursive descent into subdirectories

If you want to keep other default locations, use :set complete+= to add to it.

See :help cpt for more.

Vimscript

Learning vimscript the hard way is in my to-do list.

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Notes

Populating files which does not match pattern

Vim can read skeleton into the buffer.

:read ~/.vim/templates/skeleton.sh

Use BufNewFile instead of VimEnter

If you re-open a file which has been populate by the augroup journal, there will be duplication of the skeleton. To avoid this, you can use BufNewFile.

• BufNewFile - When starting to edit a file that doesn’t exist.

augroup journal
    autocmd!

    " populate journal template
    autocmd BufNewFile */journal/**   0r ~/.vim/templates/journal.skeleton
augroup end

Resources:

https://levelup.gitconnected.com/reducing-boilerplate-with-vim-templates-83831f8ced12

https://shapeshed.com/vim-templates/