Vim 8's most anticipated feature is undoubtedly the :smile command. This
command increases the happiness of Vim users, and by doing so increases their
productivity.
However, not everyone can enjoy this new functionality. Some developers are
stuck with old Linux distributions that have old Vim builds, and can't upgrade
to Vim 8. Others use Neovim, which heartlessly
refuses to port the :smile
command.
This plugin implements the :smile command in Vimscript, so that everyone can
enjoy it. It also extends the mechanism to allow plugin authors to create their
own smiles.
If you are able to use a recent Vim build that supports :smile you should
prefer the native implementation as it is more performant.
Use the :Smile command to show a smile and increase your happiness. Use
:Smile type-of-smile to show a specific smile. :Smile smile is the same
as :Smile.
To create your own smile, create in one of the directories listed in
runtimepath a directory named "autoload/smile/resource/"(if it does not
already exist), and put in there a file with the .sml extension. The file
format is as follows:
-
First line - the name of the default highlight group. This will be the highlight group of all characters that don't have a special highlight group specified.
-
A list of special hightlight groups. Each line will consist of a highlight group name, a single space, and a list of unseparated characters. These characters will be highlight with that highlight group. Take care to not separate the characters with commas or spaces or anything. or the separator character will also be highlighted.
-
A blank line. This marks the end of the header.
-
The ASCII art of the smile itself.
To use your smile, run :Smile with the name of the file minus the extension
as the argument.
For example, if your file is "autoload/smile/resource/hello.sml", run:
:Smile hello