Things you can do with fzf and Vim.

fzf itself is not a Vim plugin, and the official repository only provides the basic wrapper function for Vim. It's up to the users to write their own Vim commands with it. However, I've learned that many users of fzf are not familiar with Vimscript and are looking for the "default" implementation of the features they can find in the alternative Vim plugins.

This repository is a bundle of fzf-based commands and mappings extracted from my .vimrc to address such needs. They are not designed to be flexible or configurable, and there's no guarantee of backward-compatibility.

Because you can and you love fzf.

fzf runs asynchronously and can be orders of magnitude faster than similar Vim plugins. However, the benefit may not be noticeable if the size of the input is small, which is the case for many of the commands provided here. Nevertheless I wrote them anyway since it's really easy to implement custom selector with fzf.

fzf.vim depends on the basic Vim plugin of the main fzf repository, which means you need to set up both "fzf" and "fzf.vim" on Vim. To learn more about fzf/Vim integration, see README-VIM.

Plug 'junegunn/fzf', { 'do': { -> fzf#install() } }
Plug 'junegunn/fzf.vim'

fzf#install() makes sure that you have the latest binary, but it's optional, so you can omit it if you use a plugin manager that doesn't support hooks.

• fzf 0.23.0 or above
• For syntax-highlighted preview, install bat
• If delta is available, GF?, Commits and BCommits will use it to format git diff output.
• Ag requires The Silver Searcher (ag)
• Rg requires ripgrep (rg)
• Tags and Helptags require Perl

• Most commands support CTRL-T / CTRL-X / CTRL-V key bindings to open in a new tab, a new split, or in a new vertical split
• Bang-versions of the commands (e.g. Ag!) will open fzf in fullscreen
• You can set g:fzf_command_prefix to give the same prefix to the commands
  • e.g. let g:fzf_command_prefix = 'Fzf' and you have FzfFiles, etc.

(1: Helptags will shadow the command of the same name from pathogen. But its functionality is still available via call pathogen#helptags(). ↩)

Every command in fzf.vim internally calls fzf#wrap function of the main repository which supports a set of global option variables. So please read through README-VIM to learn more about them.

Some commands will show the preview window on the right. You can customize the behavior with g:fzf_preview_window. Here are some examples:

" This is the default option:
"   - Preview window on the right with 50% width
"   - CTRL-/ will toggle preview window.
" - Note that this array is passed as arguments to fzf#vim#with_preview function.
" - To learn more about preview window options, see `--preview-window` section of `man fzf`.
let g:fzf_preview_window = ['right,50%', 'ctrl-/']

" Preview window is hidden by default. You can toggle it with ctrl-/.
" It will show on the right with 50% width, but if the width is smaller
" than 70 columns, it will show above the candidate list
let g:fzf_preview_window = ['hidden,right,50%,<70(up,40%)', 'ctrl-/']

" Empty value to disable preview window altogether
let g:fzf_preview_window = []

" fzf.vim needs bash to display the preview window.
" On Windows, fzf.vim will first see if bash is in $PATH, then if
" Git bash (C:\Program Files\Git\bin\bash.exe) is available.
" If you want it to use a different bash, set this variable.
" let g:fzf_preview_bash = 'C:\Git\bin\bash.exe'

A few commands in fzf.vim can be customized with global option variables shown below.

" [Buffers] Jump to the existing window if possible
let g:fzf_buffers_jump = 1

" [[B]Commits] Customize the options used by 'git log':
let g:fzf_commits_log_options = '--graph --color=always --format="%C(auto)%h%d %s %C(black)%C(bold)%cr"'

" [Tags] Command to generate tags file
let g:fzf_tags_command = 'ctags -R'

" [Commands] --expect expression for directly executing the command
let g:fzf_commands_expect = 'alt-enter,ctrl-x'

Each command in fzf.vim is backed by a Vim function. You can override a command or define a variation of it by calling its corresponding function.

(We can see that the last two optional arguments of each function are identical. They are directly passed to fzf#wrap function. If you haven't read README-VIM already, please read it before proceeding.)

This is the default definition of Files command:

command! -bang -nargs=? -complete=dir Files call fzf#vim#files(<q-args>, <bang>0)

Let's say you want to a variation of it called ProjectFiles that only searches inside ~/projects directory. Then you can do it like this:

command! -bang ProjectFiles call fzf#vim#files('~/projects', <bang>0)

Or, if you want to override the command with different fzf options, just pass a custom spec to the function.

command! -bang -nargs=? -complete=dir Files
    \ call fzf#vim#files(<q-args>, {'options': ['--layout=reverse', '--info=inline']}, <bang>0)

Want a preview window?

command! -bang -nargs=? -complete=dir Files
    \ call fzf#vim#files(<q-args>, {'options': ['--layout=reverse', '--info=inline', '--preview', 'cat {}']}, <bang>0)

It kind of works, but you probably want a nicer previewer program than cat. fzf.vim ships a versatile preview script you can readily use. It internally executes bat for syntax highlighting, so make sure to install it.

command! -bang -nargs=? -complete=dir Files
    \ call fzf#vim#files(<q-args>, {'options': ['--layout=reverse', '--info=inline', '--preview', '~/.vim/plugged/fzf.vim/bin/preview.sh {}']}, <bang>0)

However, it's not ideal to hard-code the path to the script which can be different in different circumstances. So in order to make it easier to set up the previewer, fzf.vim provides fzf#vim#with_preview helper function. Similarly to fzf#wrap, it takes a spec dictionary and returns a copy of it with additional preview options.

command! -bang -nargs=? -complete=dir Files
    \ call fzf#vim#files(<q-args>, fzf#vim#with_preview({'options': ['--layout=reverse', '--info=inline']}), <bang>0)

You can just omit the spec argument if you only want the previewer.

command! -bang -nargs=? -complete=dir Files
    \ call fzf#vim#files(<q-args>, fzf#vim#with_preview(), <bang>0)

The following example implements GGrep command that works similarly to predefined Ag or Rg using fzf#vim#grep.

• The second argument to fzf#vim#grep is 0 (false), because git grep does not print column numbers.
• We set the base directory to git root by setting dir attribute in spec dictionary.
• The preview script supports grep format (FILE_PATH:LINE_NO:...), so we can just wrap the spec with fzf#vim#with_preview as before to enable previewer.

command! -bang -nargs=* GGrep
  \ call fzf#vim#grep(
  \   'git grep --line-number -- '.shellescape(<q-args>), 0,
  \   fzf#vim#with_preview({'dir': systemlist('git rev-parse --show-toplevel')[0]}), <bang>0)

You can see the definition of Rg command with :command Rg. With the information, you can redefine it with the preview window enabled. In this case, we're only interested in setting up the preview window, so we will omit the spec argument to fzf#vim#preview.

command! -bang -nargs=* Rg
  \ call fzf#vim#grep(
  \   'rg --column --line-number --no-heading --color=always --smart-case -- '.shellescape(<q-args>), 1,
  \   fzf#vim#with_preview(), <bang>0)

In the default implementation of Rg, ripgrep process starts only once with the initial query (e.g. :Rg foo) and fzf filters the output of the process.

This is okay in most cases because fzf is quite performant even with millions of lines, but we can make fzf completely delegate its search responsibliity to ripgrep process by making it restart ripgrep whenever the query string is updated. In this scenario, fzf becomes a simple selector interface rather than a "fuzzy finder".

• We will name the new command all-uppercase RG so we can still access the default version.
• --bind 'change:reload:rg ... {q}' will make fzf restart ripgrep process whenever the query string, denoted by {q}, is changed.
• With --disabled option, fzf will no longer perform search. The query string you type on fzf prompt is only used for restarting ripgrep process.
• Also note that we enabled previewer with fzf#vim#with_preview. The last argument to the function, ctrl-/, is the key to toggle the preview window.

function! RipgrepFzf(query, fullscreen)
  let command_fmt = 'rg --column --line-number --no-heading --color=always --smart-case -- %s || true'
  let initial_command = printf(command_fmt, shellescape(a:query))
  let reload_command = printf(command_fmt, '{q}')
  let spec = {'options': ['--disabled', '--query', a:query, '--bind', 'change:reload:'.reload_command]}
  let spec = fzf#vim#with_preview(spec, 'right', 'ctrl-/')
  call fzf#vim#grep(initial_command, 1, spec, a:fullscreen)
endfunction

command! -nargs=* -bang RG call RipgrepFzf(<q-args>, <bang>0)

" Mapping selecting mappings
nmap <leader><tab> <plug>(fzf-maps-n)
xmap <leader><tab> <plug>(fzf-maps-x)
omap <leader><tab> <plug>(fzf-maps-o)

" Insert mode completion
imap <c-x><c-k> <plug>(fzf-complete-word)
imap <c-x><c-f> <plug>(fzf-complete-path)
imap <c-x><c-l> <plug>(fzf-complete-line)

" Path completion with custom source command
inoremap <expr> <c-x><c-f> fzf#vim#complete#path('fd')
inoremap <expr> <c-x><c-f> fzf#vim#complete#path('rg --files')

" Word completion with custom spec with popup layout option
inoremap <expr> <c-x><c-k> fzf#vim#complete#word({'window': { 'width': 0.2, 'height': 0.9, 'xoffset': 1 }})

fzf#vim#complete is a helper function for creating custom fuzzy completion using fzf. If the first parameter is a command string or a Vim list, it will be used as the source.

" Replace the default dictionary completion with fzf-based fuzzy completion
inoremap <expr> <c-x><c-k> fzf#vim#complete('cat /usr/share/dict/words')

For advanced uses, you can pass an options dictionary to the function. The set of options is pretty much identical to that for fzf#run only with the following exceptions:

• reducer (funcref)
  • Reducer transforms the output lines of fzf into a single string value
• prefix (string or funcref; default: \k*$)
  • Regular expression pattern to extract the completion prefix
  • Or a function to extract completion prefix
• Both source and options can be given as funcrefs that take the completion prefix as the argument and return the final value
• sink or sink* are ignored

" Global line completion (not just open buffers. ripgrep required.)
inoremap <expr> <c-x><c-l> fzf#vim#complete(fzf#wrap({
  \ 'prefix': '^.*$',
  \ 'source': 'rg -n ^ --color always',
  \ 'options': '--ansi --delimiter : --nth 3..',
  \ 'reducer': { lines -> join(split(lines[0], ':\zs')[2:], '') }}))

function! s:make_sentence(lines)
  return substitute(join(a:lines), '^.', '\=toupper(submatch(0))', '').'.'
endfunction

inoremap <expr> <c-x><c-s> fzf#vim#complete({
  \ 'source':  'cat /usr/share/dict/words',
  \ 'reducer': function('<sid>make_sentence'),
  \ 'options': '--multi --reverse --margin 15%,0',
  \ 'left':    20})

When fzf starts in a terminal buffer (see fzf/README-VIM.md), you may want to customize the statusline of the containing buffer.

autocmd! FileType fzf set laststatus=0 noshowmode noruler
  \| autocmd BufLeave <buffer> set laststatus=2 showmode ruler

function! s:fzf_statusline()
  " Override statusline as you like
  highlight fzf1 ctermfg=161 ctermbg=251
  highlight fzf2 ctermfg=23 ctermbg=251
  highlight fzf3 ctermfg=237 ctermbg=251
  setlocal statusline=%#fzf1#\ >\ %#fzf2#fz%#fzf3#f
endfunction

autocmd! User FzfStatusLine call <SID>fzf_statusline()

MIT