Add custom keybindings to Vim by language
Have you ever wanted an easy shortcut for running your tests or launching a REPL for a specific language? When writing Clojure code, for instance, I often want to run 'lein midje'. When writing Ruby code, I want to run 'rake test'. In both cases, I want my normal mode keybinding to be:
<leader>;;One easy solution is to add a couple Vim filetype plugins:
mkdir -p ~/.vim/ftplugin/clojure ~/.vim/ftplugin/ruby
cat <<EOF > ~/.vim/ftplugin/clojure/testbind.vim
nmap <leader>;; :!lein midje<cr>
EOF
cat <<EOF > ~/.vim/ftplugin/ruby/testbind.vim
nmap <leader>;; :!rake test<cr>
EOFNow my custom keybinding will run Rake when I edit Ruby files and Leiningen when I edit Clojure.
Written by Christian Romney
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1 Response
It's a good idea to make these mappings local to the buffer:
" ~/.vim/ftplugin/closure/testbind.vim
nmap <buffer> <leader>;; :!lein midje<cr>That way, if you're in a filetype that you haven't set up like this, you'll get an error instead of executing the wrong command. You can take this one step further by making a global mapping that shows a better error message, or doesn't error out at all:
" ~/.vimrc
nmap <leader>;; :echoerr "No testbind mapping for this buffer"<cr>
" or,
nmap <leader>;; :echomsg "No testbind mapping for this buffer"<cr>Have a fresh tip? Share with Coderwall community!
