Browserlink is a live browser editing plugin for Vim.
Browserlink allows you to live edit CSS files, which are sent to the browser on change, without reloading or changing the state of the page.
Browserlink allows you to evaluate buffers or selections of JavaScript directly, or even call individual functions within the buffer, for instant feedback in the browser.
The Chrome inspector allows you to set source maps from network resources to the local filesystem. In the latest version of Browserlink, you can set
window.__BL_OVERRIDE_CACHE = true
to disable the cache breaker. After setting up Chrome as desired, enable :set autoread and you'll get results like this:
Browserlink is very simple. The plugin itself hooks autocommands for file changes (and other things) to the provided functions. The functions connect through HTTP to a node.js backend, which your webpage connects also to. The entire process happens extremely fast.
To install, either download the repo, or as I would recommend, use Pathogen.
git clone git://github.com/jaxbot/browserlink.vim.git
If you haven't already, you'll need to install Node.js (Node is used to send refresh commands to your page(s))
Lastly, you need some javascript on your page(s) to listen for the refresh commands. For this there are two options:
- Add this script to your page(s)
<script src='http://127.0.0.1:9001/js/socket.js'></script>
- OR Use a GreaseMonkey script to inject the javascript into your project:
Userscript injection extensions/solutions:
Userscript template (update the @match rule to the url of your local project):
// ==UserScript==
// @name Browserlink Embed
// @namespace http://use.i.E.your.homepage/
// @version 0.1
// @description enter something useful
// @match http://localhost/*
// @copyright 2012+, You
// ==/UserScript==
var src = document.createElement("script");
src.src = "http://127.0.0.1:9001/js/socket.js";
src.async = true;
document.head.appendChild(src);
I prefer the GreaseMonkey/Userscript method, as it's more universal and I don't have extra development junk in my projects. But it's totally up to you.
Once set up, Vim should now call the Node server whenever you save a .html, .js, .php, or .css file. Then just load up your web project like normal, and Vim should send signals over the websocket to reload the pages automatically. Nifty.
In addition:
:BLReloadPage
will reload the current pages
:BLReloadCSS
will reload the current stylesheets
:BLEvaluateBuffer
will evaluate the current buffer
You can also use be to evaluate selections or buffers, br to reload, and bc to reload stylesheets manually.
:BLConsole
An experimental feature that will print out console.log results from the webpage into a buffer. When in console mode:
i- shortcut to:BLEvalcc- clears console bufferr- refreshes console buffer<CR>- attempts to load the highlighted trace line
If you want to disable the overriding of console.log on your page, set:
window.__BL_NO_CONSOLE_OVERRIDE = true
:BLErrors
Load accumulated Javascript errors of the current session into the quickfix list
:BLClearErrors
Reset the error list.
If you want to get super efficient, you can hook an autocmd to when you leave insert mode (or other times) to reload, say, the stylesheets:
au InsertLeave *.css :BLReloadCSS
This function can be easily tweaked to fit your needs/workflow, and I highly recommend you do so to maximize your utility from this plugin.
g:bl_no_autoupdate
If set, Browserlink won't try to reload pages/CSS when you save respective files.
g:bl_no_eager
If set, Browserlink won't autostart the server when a command is run and the server does not respond.
g:bl_no_mappings
If set, Browserlink won't map be, br, and bc commands.
g:bl_serverpath
Set if your server is not hosted on 127.0.0.1:9001. You will also need to change the socket.js file.
g:bl_urlpaths
A dictionary defining mappings from URLs to filesystem paths. Set this if you want to use the quickfix list for pages not accessed via a file://-URL.
g:bl_pagefiletypes
A list of filetype strings that should trigger automatic page reloads on write.
Defaults to ['html', 'javascript', 'php'].
This is an experimental project, but it works really well for me, and I hope you enjoy it! I kept the source as simple as possible, and it's pretty easy to edit to your needs. I'm open to any suggestions, too, so let me know.
I hack around with Vim plugins, so follow me if you're into that kind of stuff (or just want to make my day) ;)