One Great Plugin: Which-Key
Learn new commands faster, and organize and document your custom keybindings
I don’t actually use many plugins. My normal setup has maybe six? And I have at times gone years with basically zero configuration in my editor setup.
This means that I have been missing out on some solid gold software, like Folke’s which-key.
I was recently introduced to this plugin by friend-of-the-newsletter Samir Talwar, and wow.
I mean look at this!
When I’m in normal mode and I hit “c”
It pops up with this display that tells me
that I’ve started a
+Change
command, in the very lower left hand cornera big list of my options for what to type next
And then when I follow that up with “i”
I get, again, that little display on the lower left hand that tells me what command I’m in, and then the Big List of Options.
This is great for someone like me who technically knows that commands like ciw
or ci’
exist, but never remembers to use them.
I had been vaguely aware of it as “a plugin that makes custom key mappings nicer,” and had ignored it because I haven’t done much with custom key mappings. (See: “monastically spare Nvim configuration,” above.) And it does help you organize and document keybindings but it also shows suggestions for built-ins — not just motions, but also marks and registers.
Add it to your config right now.
What’s your favorite plugin?
Like I said, I don’t use many of ‘em — so I’m kind of in the market right now. I don’t plan to go nuts with them in my example config, but I’ve been working on a configuration generator and I’d like to be able to offer a curated selection of really top-shelf plugins once I’ve got that working.