firenvim

Firenvim Turn your browser¹ into a Neovim client (demos: justinmk 🇺🇸, Sean Feng 🇨🇳). ¹ Firefox and Chrome are specifically supported. Other Chromium based browsers such as Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, and Arc should also work but are not specifically tested. How to use Just click on any textarea and it will be immediately replaced by an instance of Firenvim. To set the content of the now hidden textarea to the content of the Neovim instance, simply :w. If you want to close the Firenvim overlay and return to the textarea, use :q. If you selected an element where you expected the Firenvim frame to appear and it didn't, try pressing <C-e>. Installing Before installing anything please read SECURITY.md and make sure you're okay with everything mentioned. In the event you think of a way to compromise Firenvim, please send me an email (you can find my address on my website). Install Firenvim as a regular Neovim plugin, then run the built-in post-install script. lazy { 'glacambre/firenvim', build = ":call firenvim#install(0)" } vim-plug Plug 'glacambre/firenvim', { 'do': { _ -> firenvim#install(0) } } minpac call minpac#add('glacambre/firenvim', { 'type': 'opt', 'do': 'packadd firenvim | call firenvim#install(0)'}) if exists('g:started_by_firenvim') packadd firenvim endif vundle, others Install the plugin as you usually would, then run this shell command: $ nvim --headless "+call firenvim#install(0) | q" Install the Firenvim addon for your browser from Mozilla's store or Google's. If you would rather build and install Firenvim from source, check CONTRIBUTING.md. Other browsers Other browsers aren't supported for now. Opera, Vivaldi and other Chromium-based browsers should however work just like in Chromium and have similar install steps. Brave, Edge, and Arc might work, Safari doesn't (it doesn't support Webextensions). Permissions Firenvim currently requires the following permissions for the following reasons: Access your data for all websites: this is necessary in order to be able to append elements (= the Neovim iframe) to the DOM. Exchange messages with programs other than Firefox: this is necessary in order to be able to start Neovim instances. Configuring Firenvim Manually triggering Firenvim You can configure the keybinding to manually trigger Firenvim (<C-e> by default) in the shortcuts menu in about:addons on Firefox, or in chrome://extensions/shortcuts on Chrome. Temporarily disabling Firenvim in a tab Temporarily disabling (and re-enabling) Firenvim in a tab can be done either by clicking on the Firenvim button next to the urlbar or by configuring a browser shortcut (see the previous section to find out how browser shortcuts can be configured). Building a Firenvim-specific config Note: If you would prefer VimScript examples, you can consult the (outdated) readme from commit 132979166a02319f0b49815135e60a4e4599de91 or earlier. New: With Neovim nightly builds from 2023/02/17 or more recent, you can use $NVIM_APPNAME to define a completely separate firenvim config. In order to do that, make sure "NVIM_APPNAME" is appropriately set when you run firenvim#install(). When it starts Neovim, Firenvim sets the variable g:started_by_firenvim which you can check to run different code in your init.lua. For example: if vim.g.started_by_firenvim == true then vim.o.laststatus = 0 else vim.o.laststatus = 2 end Alternatively, you can detect when Firenvim connects to Neovim by using the UIEnter autocmd event: vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({'UIEnter'}, { callback = function(event) local client = vim.api.nvim_get_chan_info(vim.v.event.chan).client if client ~= nil and client.name == "Firenvim" then vim.o.laststatus = 0 end end }) Similarly, you can detect when Firenvim disconnects from a Neovim instance with the UILeave autocommand. Using different settings depending on the url/page/element being edited The Neovim buffer loaded into a textarea is given a unique name. All buffers are named something like this: domainname_page_selector.txt (see the toFileName function). This alows you to configure different settings by creating autocommands targeting/matching the buffername for that url/page/element. For example, this will set file type to markdown for all GitHub buffers: vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({'BufEnter'}, { pattern = "github.com_*.txt", command = "set filetype=markdown" }) To view the buffername of your Neovim instance in a textarea, use :buffers. Understanding Firenvim's configuration object You can configure everything else about Firenvim by creating a dictionary named vim.g.firenvim_config in your init.lua and setting the keys "globalSettings" and "localSettings". In the dictionary vim.g.firenvim_config["localSettings"] you can map Javascript patterns that match against the full URL to settings that are used for all URLs matched by that pattern. When multiple patterns match a URL, the pattern with the highest "priority" value is used. Here is an example (the settings and their possible values will be explained in the next subsections): vim.g.firenvim_config = { globalSettings = { alt = "all" }, localSettings = { [".*"] = { cmdline = "neovim", content = "text", priority = 0, selector = "textarea", takeover = "always" } } } With this configuration, takeover will be set to always on all websites. If we wanted to override this value on british websites, we could add the following lines to our init.vim. Notice how the priority of this new regex is higher than that of the .* regex: vim.g.firenvim_config.localSettings["https?://[^/]+\\.co\\.uk/"] = { takeover = 'never', priority = 1 } Configuring what elements Firenvim should appear on The selector attribute of a localSetting controls what elements Firenvim automatically takes over. Here's the default value: vim.g.firenvim_config.localSettings['.*'] = { selector = 'textarea:not([readonly],