🔒 yanklock.nvim

What is yanklock?

A simple Neovim plugin that temporarily 'locks' the yank register used by the paste (p or P) motions to "0, allowing you to safely use motions like d, c, x, s, and their uppercase counterparts, or paste over text in visual mode with p, while keeping the most recent yanked (y) content easily accessible.

This plugin was born out of a need to avoid typing "0p repeatedly when making a series of edits. I wanted a quicker, more efficient way to handle this process without hesitation. The existing plugins didn't 'cut' it, I was looking for a simpler and a completely reversible solution to keep the vanilla Vim motions for the most part, but have this functionality handy if I ever need it.

Alternatives

First of all you may use P in the visual mode to paste over the selected text - this operation will not replace the contents of the " register. This basically solves it for the visual mode's select and replace.

There are some much more powerful plugins that improve the yank functionality, some of which can achieve a similar functionality. The one worth mentioning is cutlass.nvim. Use it if you'd prefer to make this behavior permanent.

Other plugins that may interest you, some of which can achieve similar behavior:

• yanky.nvim
• nvim-miniyank
• yankbank-nvim

Getting Started

Installation

Using init.lua

With defaults

require('yanklock').setup()

With custom options

require('yanklock').setup({
  -- your options go here. see: ### Customization section in this readme
})

The plugin doesn't set any keymap by default, so to make it work you will have to add this line somewhere in your config (e.g. in init.lua or keymaps.lua)

vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>yl", ":lua require('yanklock').toggle()<cr>", { desc = "yanklock toggle" })

Using lazy.nvim

Add a plugins/yanklock.lua file with these contents

return {
  dir = "daltongd/yanklock.nvim",
  opts = {
    notify = true, -- optional
  },
  keys = {
    {
      "<leader>yl",
      function()
        require("yanklock").toggle()
      end,
      desc = "yanklock toggle",
    },
  },
}

Or add this to your plugins.lua

{
  dir = "daltongd/yanklock.nvim",
  opts = {
    notify = true, -- optional
  },
  keys = {
    {
      "<leader>yl",
      function()
        require("yanklock").toggle()
      end,
      desc = "yanklock toggle",
    },
  },
},

Note: opts = { notify = true } is especially useful when paired with a notification plugin like noice.nvim.

Docs

To access more info about the available lua functions see:

:help yanklock

Note: if you're using lazy.nvim to load the plugin, the help may not be available until it's loaded (used for the first time in the session).

Usage

Toggle the lock on/off

:lua require('yanklock').toggle()

Locking

:lua require('yanklock').lock()

Unlocking

:lua require('yanklock').unlock()

Customization

Defaults

{
  modes = { "n", "x" },
  notify = false,
}

• modes: select the modes that should be affected by the lock
• notify: choose whether you'd like to get notified about the state changes - especially useful when paired with a notification plugin like noice.nvim

Example config

{
  dir = "daltongd/yanklock.nvim",
  opts = {
    modes = { "n", "x" },
    notify = true,
  },
  keys = {
    {
      "<leader>yl",
      function()
        require("yanklock").toggle()
      end,
      desc = "yanklock toggle",
    },
  },
},

Or in init.lua

require('yanklock').setup({
  modes = { "n", "x" },
  notify = true,
})

Contributions

Contributions are more than welcome. If you have a problem with the plugin feel free to submit an issue.

Acknowledgements

• telescope.nvim - a great inspiration, and a well written plugin I learned a lot from
• plenary.nvim - an awesome set of tools, used by this plugin for it's testing framework