Preface

I use vscode for markdown editing and vscode has a CTRL+backtick hot key to toggle internal terminal. I use it a lot and it's very handy. At the meantime both vim/nvim have internal terminal too, but most of us still prefer working in a tmux split rather than using the internal terminal.

Therefor, I started to wonder, is there something I can do, to make vim's internal terminal has a better experience ? As a result, here this plugin exists with three little changes:

Firstly, this plugin setup a keymap ALT+= (can be changed) to toggle terminal window, like vscode's CTRL+backtick. When you press ALT+= it will open a new terminal below your current window, and initiate the shell working directory to where the parent directory of current file. Most time you want to do something to the current file, so open the shell in the current file directory will make life easier.

When you finished, just press ALT+= again to hide the terminal, so you always press ALT+= to toggle your terminal window, but if you run exit and quit the previous terminal session and hit ALT+= again, a new terminal will be created.

In addition, you are able to use ALT+SHIFT+h/j/k/l to move around between windows. Most vim users uses CTRL+h/j/k/l for window switching, but these keys are heavily used in the terminal applications, for example if you use tnoremap to override CTRL+j or CTRL+k, you will not be able to use them in fzf. So CTRL+h/j/k/l will not be used for tnoremap, terminal-help encourage you to use the new ALT+SHIFT+h/j/k/l to jump between windows.

Finally, it provides a drop command in the internal terminal to tell outside vim to open a file. When you are working in the internal terminal and you want to edit a file in the current directory (not vim's pwd), how do you do ? Especially the pwd in the terminal is different of vim's pwd. You have to switch to terminal normal mode and use vim e command with a long path name.

With drop command, it is simple to tell outside vim open a specific file precisely:

cd /xxx/some/where
drop abc.txt

I always believe that small changes can make big difference.

Requirements

• vim: 8.1
• neovim: 0.3 and install neovim-remote package if you need the drop command.

Installation

Plug 'skywind3000/vim-terminal-help'

Usage

• ALT + =: toggle terminal below.
• ALT + SHIFT + h: move to the window on the left.
• ALT + SHIFT + l: move to the window on the right.
• ALT + SHIFT + j: move to the window below.
• ALT + SHIFT + k: move to the window above.
• ALT + SHIFT + n: move to the previous window.
• ALT + -: paste register 0 to terminal.
• ALT + q: switch to terminal normal mode.

Inside the terminal:

drop abc.txt

tell vim to open abc.txt

Command

This plugin provide a single command H:

:H {shell command}

You can type ":H uname -a" in vim's command line, it will send to the terminal directly without actually enter the terminal.

Settings

• g:terminal_key: which key will be used to toggle terminal window, default to <m-=>.
• g:terminal_cwd: initialize working dir: 0 for unchanged, 1 for file path and 2 for project root.
• g:terminal_height: new terminal height, default to 10.
• g:terminal_pos: where to open the terminal, default to rightbelow.
• g:terminal_shell: specify shell rather than default one.
• g:terminal_edit: command to open the file in vim, default to tab drop.
• g:terminal_kill: set to term to kill term session when exiting vim.
• g:terminal_list: set to 0 to hide terminal buffer in the buffer list.
• g:terminal_fixheight: set to 1 to set winfixheight for the terminal window.
• g:terminal_close: set to 1 to close window if process finished.

Remember

The internal terminal in both vim/neovim has NORMAL and INSERT mode. When you are in INSERT mode, you can enter shell commands. And if you want to scroll terminal screen or copy / paste texts to a normal vim buffer, you need to switch to NORMAL mode by <c-\><c-n> (like tmux's <c-b> + left square bracket).

This plugin has defined a <m-q> map for <c-\><c-n>, which makes switching to terminal normal mode a little easier.

If you want to re-enter INSERT mode, just press i or a, and you can input shell commands again.

Integration

This plugin defined a runner thelp for asyncrun.vim, which enables you use terminal-help to execute asyncrun commands:

:AsyncRun -mode=term -pos=thelp echo 123

And it is also useful when you are using asynctasks.vim:

[test-task]
command=echo 123
output=terminal
pos=thelp

You can either set g:asynctasks_term_pos to thelp or use pos field in task option directly. After this:

:AsyncTask test-task

Can run the task in the terminal-help's window.