Introduction

A tree-sitter based markdown -> vimdoc conversion tool.

Originally, this plugin was written by @mjlbach and was named babelfish.nvim, the original version required the markdown parser from @ikatyang tree-sitter-markdown.

I was looking for a markdown -> vimdoc tool that wasn't dependent on anything but neovim (+treesitter) and came across it but the code was very rudimentary and didn't work on the fzf-lua README.md so I modified the logic quite substantially.

Since then @MDeiml wrote tree-sitter-markdown which is now split into 2 different parsers markdown and markdown_inline, now the default parsers for neovim-treesitter, this required a total makeover of the original recursion logic.

@mjlbach is no longer associated with neovim and also deleted all of his neovim repositories (the former upstream repo) so it made very little sense to keep the fork dependency or the old name which makes it quite obscure and harder to find.

There is much to be desired when it comes to optimizing this code, cleaning up the API, having proper unit testing, etc, but it's not high on my priority list, as long as it doesn't croak while generating a vimdoc, I'm content, nevertheless feel free to open issues and I will address them when I have time.

I personally recommend also trying out kdheepak/panvimdoc, it uses pandoc style markdown and can also be set as a github CI action for the "fire and forget" approach.

Usage as a plugin

NOTE: CURRENTLY, REQUIRES USING NEOVIM-NIGHTLY (>=0.8)

If you use from within your current neovim session you need to install nvim-treesitter and both markdown parsers markdown and markdown_inline (will be downloaded automatically by the treesitter plugin from tree-sitter-markdown):

Use your favorite plugin manager to install nvim-treesitter with the below configuration:

require'nvim-treesitter.configs'.setup {
  ensure_installed = { "markdown", "markdown_inline" },
}

And make sure both parsers are installed by running:

:TSUpdateSync markdown
:TSUpdateSync markdown_inline

To generate vimdoc run:

require('ts-vimdoc').docgen({
	input_file='README.md',
	output_file = 'doc/ts-vimdoc.txt',
	project_name='ts-vimdoc',
})

Usage as standalone

If you don't wish to configure treesitter you can use the supplied scripts/docgen.sh, the script will create a temporary environment under /tmp/ts-vimdoc.nvim and run a neovim headless instance to perform the vimdoc conversion.

The script requires 3 parameters (same as the docgen function): input file, output file and project name (to be used for generating headers):

❯ ./scripts/docgen.sh README.md doc/ts-vimdoc.txt ts-vimdoc

If you wish to make local changes to this project docgen.sh will link your local ts-vimdoc.nvim plugin as long as it's located in the same subtree of the plugin you wish to generate, for example, this is how I use it to generate fzf-lua vimdoc, I have both plugins downloaded in the same folder:

❯ ls -l
drwxr-xr-x - bhagwan bhagwan 2022-06-30 20:47 fzf-lua
drwxr-xr-x - bhagwan bhagwan 2022-07-01 06:14 ts-vimdoc.nvim

I can then run docgen.sh from inside the fzf-lua folder:

❯ ./ts-vimdoc.nvim/scripts/docgen.sh ./fzf-lua/README.md ./fzf-lua/doc/fzf-lua.txt fzf-lua

Or from inside the fzf-lua folder:

❯ cd fzf-lua
❯ ../ts-vimdoc.nvim/scripts/docgen.sh README.md doc/fzf-lua.txt fzf-lua

Usage in CI

Below is an example of using ts-vimdoc in CI with github action with fzf-lua:

TO USE WITH YOUR PROJECT:

• Set the correct branch, currently set to main (line 6)
• Replace doc/fzf-lua.txt with <output path of your vimdoc> (lines 40,51)
• Replace project_name='fzf-lua' with project_name='<your project>' (line 40)

name: vimdoc

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  vimdocgen:
    runs-on: [ubuntu-latest]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - run: date +%F > todays-date
      - name: Restore cache for today's nightly.
        uses: actions/cache@v3
        with:
          path: build
          key: ${{ runner.os }}-appimage-${{ hashFiles('todays-date') }}
      - name: Install FUSE
        run: sudo apt-get install -y libfuse2
      - name: Setup neovim nightly and install plugins
        run: |
          test -d build || {
            mkdir -p build
            wget https://github.com/neovim/neovim/releases/download/nightly/nvim.appimage
            chmod +x nvim.appimage
            mv nvim.appimage ./build/nvim
          }
          mkdir -p ~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/vendor/start
          git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ibhagwan/ts-vimdoc.nvim ~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/vendor/start/ts-vimdoc.nvim
          git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter ~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/vendor/start/nvim-treesitter
      - name: Build parser
        run: |
          export PACKPATH=$HOME/.local/share/nvim/site
          ./build/nvim --headless -u ~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/vendor/start/ts-vimdoc.nvim/scripts/init.lua -c "TSUpdateSync markdown" -c "TSUpdateSync markdown_inline" -c "qa"
      - name: Generating docs
        run: |
          export PATH="${PWD}/build/:${PATH}"
          export PACKPATH=$HOME/.local/share/nvim/site
          ./build/nvim --headless -u ~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/vendor/start/ts-vimdoc.nvim/scripts/init.lua  -c "lua require('ts-vimdoc').docgen({input_file='README.md', output_file='doc/fzf-lua.txt', project_name='fzf-lua', version='For Neovim >= 0.8.0'})" -c "qa"
      - name: Commit changes
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          COMMIT_MSG: |
            [docgen] CI: autogenerate vimdoc
            skip-checks: true
        run: |
          git config user.email "actions@github"
          git config user.name "Github Actions"
          git remote set-url origin https://x-access-token:${GITHUB_TOKEN}@github.com/${GITHUB_REPOSITORY}.git
          git add doc/fzf-lua.txt
          # Only commit and push if we have changes
          git diff --quiet && git diff --staged --quiet || (git commit -m "${COMMIT_MSG}"; git push origin HEAD:${GITHUB_REF})