autopreview.vim

Autopreview (autopreview.vim) is a Vim plugin that automatically renders and serves a Markdown buffer as a live-updating HTML view in your browser. It uses a small server, written in Go, which serves a static HTML page with some Javascript and WebSocket magic to receive live updates of the buffer contents from the server. Whenever you modify your Vim buffer, Autopreview pushes the new contents to the server which then sends it down to the web page.

Installation

The Autopreview server component is written in Go and is built with gb. The plugin comes with a Makefile to help you get gb and build the Autopreview server.

$ git clone https://github.com/mpetazzoni/autopreview.vim ~/.vim/bundle/
$ cd ~/.vim/bundle/autopreview.vim/
$ make

Usage

:AutoPreview

To enable the live preview, simply call :Autopreview in your buffer. For best results, make sure you do that in a Markdown buffer :-) You should see a message in Vim's message window with the URL to open in your browser:

Started Autopreview at http://localhost:5555/

If you want to enable Autopreview automatically when you open a Markdown file, add the following line to your Vimrc:

au BufNewFile,BufEnter *.md call autopreview#autopreview()

:AutoPreviewOpen

Opens a new tab or window in your web browser pointing at the Autopreview server to see the live preview (by executing open g:autopreview_server_url).

:AutoPreviewStop

Manually stops the Autopreview server. Vim will also automatically stop the Autopreview server when exiting.

Configuration

g:autopreview_slow_refresh

When set to 1, Autopreview will be less aggressive in sending buffer updates to the Autopreview server. This might be useful if you're experiencing performance issues in Vim with Autopreview enabled.

When operating in slow refresh mode, Autopreview will only update the live preview when you enter the buffer, save the file or after a few seconds of inactivity (in INSERT mode).

g:autopreview_server_url

Set this variable to override the Autopreview server URL. Note that the server started automatically by the plugin listens on localhost:5555, which is also the default value for this configuration parameter.

g:autopreview_server_path

Overrides the path to the server's executable. Defaults to <plugin path>/../server/server.

g:autopreview_timeout

Overrides the timeout (in seconds) used when making requests to the Autopreview server -- either to push new buffer contents or to stop the server. Defaults to 1 second.