wrapping.nvim

This is a NeoVim plugin designed to make it easy to use appropriate settings for 'soft' and 'hard' wrapping modes when editing text-like files (e.g. text, Markdown, LaTeX, AsciiDoc, etc.). Some "soft" text-like files have no hard carriage returns to wrap text - each paragraph is one long line (some Markdown files are like this). Other files use "hard" wrapping (like this README, for example), where each line ending is "hard" wrapped using the author's preference for line length (typically in the 78-80 character range).

wrapping.nvim attempts to detect the natural wrapping style of text-like files when first opening them, setting the relevant NeoVim settings to make it "natural" to edit the file that way (this automatic detection can be disabled). It also makes it easy to toggle between the relevant NeoVim settings on the occasion that the wrong mode is detected. It does not (currently) support modifying the content of the file or converting between files of those types.

⚠️ Note: This plugin used to be called vim-wrapping-softhard, and has been renamed to wrapping.nvim and rewritten in Lua, so is only suitable for NeoVim. If you are still using Vim, the vim-viml tag is against the last VimL-based version suitable for using with vim.

Demo

x.mp4

What the Mode Affects

At the moment, this plugin sets the textwidth and wrap/nowrap settings (locally to the file's buffer) when switching between hard and soft wrapping modes, which makes lines reflow naturally in 'soft' mode. It will also re-map the <Up> and <Down> keys depending on the wrapping style, so they move by screen line in soft mode. I would welcome issues / pull requests if there are other settings that would be useful to alter under these different modes.

Installation

Requires NeoVim 0.8+.

wrapping.nvim is a standard NeoVim plugin and can be installed using any standard package manager.

Example for lazy.nvim:

require("lazy").setup({
    ...
    {
        "andrewferrier/wrapping.nvim",
        config = function()
            require("wrapping").setup()
        end
    },
    ...
}

Example for packer.nvim:

packer.startup(function(use)
    ...
    use({
        "andrewferrier/wrapping.nvim",
        config = function()
            require("wrapping").setup()
        end,
    })
    ...
end)

Changing the Defaults

wrapping.nvim attempts to do the right thing out of the box, and tries to detect and set the wrapping mode if the filetype matches a built-in allowlist of files it considers 'textual'. However, you can customize a variety of options.

To do this, add an opts object to the setup method:

opts = { ... }

use({
    "andrewferrier/wrapping.nvim",
    config = function()
        require("wrapping").setup(opts)
    end,
})

The sections below detail the allowed options.

Commands and Keymappings

By default, the plugin will create the following commands to set/override a wrapping mode in case it is not autodetected correctly:

• HardWrapMode
• SoftWrapMode
• ToggleWrapMode

As well as the following normal-mode keymappings:

• [ow (soft wrap mode)
• ]ow (hard wrap mode)
• yow (toggle wrap mode)

(these are similar to vim-unimpaired)

And the following utility command to open a debug log showing what wrapping.nvim is doing:

• WrappingOpenLog

Disable these commands and/or keymappings by setting these options accordingly:

opts = {
    create_commands = false,
    create_keymaps = false,
    ...
}

You can create your own instead by invoking these functions:

• require('wrapping').hard_wrap_mode()
• require('wrapping').soft_wrap_mode()
• require('wrapping').toggle_wrap_mode()

Notifications

By default, wrapping.nvim will output a message to the command line when the hard or soft mode is set. You can disable this with:

opts = {
    notify_on_switch = false
    ...
}

Automatic Heuristic Mode

By default, the plugin will set the hard or soft mode automatically when any file loads (for a specific set of file types, see below), using the BufWinEnter event in an autocmd. It uses a variety of heuristics (which aren't documented in detail here as they will evolve over time as wrapping.nvim becomes more sophisticated).

Controlling Filetypes that Trigger Heuristics

If you want to control the filetypes that the automatic heuristic mode triggers for, you can change this list:

opts = {
    auto_set_mode_filetype_allowlist = {
        "asciidoc",
        "gitcommit",
        "latex",
        "mail",
        "markdown",
        "rst",
        "tex",
        "text",
    },
}

(the list above is the default list; if you are aware of other filetypes supported by NeoVim which are typically treated as text, please open an issue so we can add it to this default list).

If you set auto_set_mode_filetype_allowlist to {}, you can instead set auto_set_mode_filetype_denylist to a list of filetypes, and any files with a filetype not in that list will be heuristically detected instead.

Disabling Heuristics Entirely

To disable automatic heuristics entirely, you can set:

opts = {
    auto_set_mode_heuristically = false
    ...
}

You can then trigger the automatic logic yourself from wherever you want - e.g. from a ftdetect plugin. Note that this will ignore the auto_set_mode_filetype_allowlist and auto_set_mode_filetype_denylist options.

require('wrapping').set_mode_heuristically()

You can also ignore heuristics entirely and just use the commands and/or keymappings listed above to switch between modes for a file.

If Heuristics Make the Wrong Choice

You have two options:

1. Override the 'softener' value for that file type. By default, this is 1.0 for every file. Setting the value higher makes it more likely that the file will be detected as having 'soft' line wrapping (this value is multiplied by the average line length and then compared to the textwidth in use for that filetype). Setting it to true means that files of that type will always be treated as having soft line endings. Setting it to false means that files of that type will always be treated as having hard line endings. For example, this sets the softener value to 1.3 for Markdown files:

       require("wrapping").setup({
           softener = { markdown = 1.3 },
       })

   For more advanced use cases, you can set this 'softener' value to a callback function that performs some of your own custom logic. It should then return true, false, or a numeric value (interpreted the same way as described above). Example:

       require("wrapping").setup({
           softener = {
               markdown = function()
                   -- Some custom logic
                   return value
               end
           }
       })

   Note that certain heuristics are evaluated before the softener value, in which case it will have no effect. These should be 'foolproof', but if they are not, and you are sure a file is being detected incorrectly, please move to option (2)…

2. Open an issue with an example of the file that's being incorrectly detected and explain why you think it should be detected as having hard or soft line breaks, and we'll review to see if there are ways to improve the heuristics of wrapping.nvim. In this case, please also run the command WrappingOpenLog, and include the relevant sections of the log file that's displayed, to help diagnose why wrapping.nvim isn't doing what you want.

Modifying Treesitter Queries (Advanced)

By default, wrapping.nvim excludes some lines from the softening calculation based on treesitter queries (the defaults can be seen in the init.lua file, in the OPTION_DEFAULTS object, and this currently only supports Markdown files). If you wish, you can modify/add to these in the opts object. Details are left as an exercise for the advanced reader! Please open an issue if you wish to do this and the process is not obvious.

Disable NeoVim defaults change

By default, wrapping.nvim will tweak some NeoVim defaults (linebreak and wrap) to make it operate more smoothly. If for some reason you don't want this to happen:

opts = {
    set_nvim_opt_defaults = false
    ...
}

Status Lines

If you have a custom status line, you can get the current mode for a file - 'hard', 'soft', or '' (wrapping.nvim not activated for that file) by invoking require('wrapping').get_current_mode().