Visidata plugin for Neovim

[CharlesARoy]

Visidata and Neovim are both amazing tools for working on the command line. I'd love to see a Visidata plugin for Neovim so that it can be used directly inside Neovim. (In the meantime, I can keep loading it with Toggleterm).

[abitrolly]

Do you mean opening vd when the file type is .csv? Or how it should work? Can you clarify the workflow from the moment of plugin installation?

[CharlesARoy]

I'm sure that the pairing would eventually be much more powerful than this simple use case, but this is what I had in mind:

Currently, if I open a tabular file in Neovim, it might look something like this:

If I want, I can use the Toggleterm plugin to launch a terminal inside Neovim and then load the file with Visidata like this:

However, it would be nice if, after opening the file, I could set some keymaps to load it in Visidata directly in a Neovim buffer.

The workflow might look something like this:

1. I have several files open in Neovim and am adverse to leaving it.
2. I open a new file and see that it's tabular data (and is poorly formatted in Neovim).
3. I type some key combo, e.g. <Leader>v and the buffer is converted to a Visidata page showing the same file.
4. I continue working on my other Neovim files, easily switching back and forth to the buffer in the Visidata view.

[abitrolly]

I guess creating the keymap to pass the buffer to vd via Toggleterm is not a problem. Is the problem that Toggleterm opens a new system window and now you need to switch between those using non-vim keys?

[rishabhjain4]

Instead of a plugin, It's better to use nvim with tmux. You can always have a new screen for visidata to work on. Also, keep the zoom keymap for tmux screen handy for this. I have been using this way.

[gennaro-tedesco]

I type some key combo, e.g. v and the buffer is converted to a Visidata page showing the same file.

what do you mean by "buffer being converted to a Visidata page"? Visidata being a terminal application, it needs to live in a terminal, so at most you can have it in a neovim terminal buffer. In which case why is the solution of having a keymap opening a terminal buffer and loading the sheet in Visidata not what you want?

[CharlesARoy]

@gennaro-tedesco your solution is likely sufficient and the entire request was probably misguided. These days I mostly load Nvim and Visidata in separate terminal windows or use fancy-ctrl-z to send Nvim to the background, do what I need to do in Visidata, and then bring it back to the foreground.

[emilBeBri]

I'm struggling with the similar problem, and as you seem to be on yourself, @CharlesARoy , it's likely a problem of not using the right concepts for the right job, so to speak. If you have the time, would you mind showing your solution/workflow to achieve this? It does not seem overly complicated but I'm struggling with it conceptually, so a practical solution would help.

[asteroidb612]

Here's a line from my init.vim for using visidata within nvim.

"I want my yank / paste to use the system copy/paste clipboard
set clipboard=unnamed

" I want to open the contents of this buffer in vd
nnoremap <Leader>v ggyG<C-o>:tabnew<CR>:terminal<CR>apbpaste \| vd<CR>

This fits my workflow, where I use nvim's tabs as my window manager (rather than tmux).

Note, this is on MacOS (that pbpaste above is mac specific, I believe), and may not be helpful outside that.