Nerd Column

A rewrite of smartcolumn.nvim with performance improvements, saner defaults, and more features.

It is a plugin to automatically disable the colour column when it is not needed.

Table of contents

• Video demonstration
• Requirements
• Installation
• Configuration
• Buffer-specific toggle
• Commands
• Licence

Video demonstration

Below is a video demonstration of the plugin in action.

demo.mp4

Requirements

• Neovim v0.10+

Installation

lazy.nvim

{
    "hankertrix/nerd_column.nvim",
    event = "BufEnter",
    opts = {}
}

vim.pack

vim.pack.add({ "https://github.com/hankertrix/nerd_column.nvim" })

pckr.nvim

{
    "hankertrix/nerd_column.nvim",
    config = function() require("nerd_column").setup() end
}

packer.nvim

use("hankertrix/nerd_column.nvim")

vim-plug

Plug("hankertrix/nerd_column.nvim")

Setup

Set up the plugin in your init.lua. This is not needed with lazy.nvim and pckr.nvim if following the installation instructions above.

require("nerd_column").setup()

Configuration

colour_column

The colour_column can be an integer or a list of integers.

For example:

---@type integer|integer[]
colour_column = 80
colour_column = { 80, 120 }

custom_colour_column

The custom_colour_column can either be a table of file types mapped to an integer or a list of integers. It can also be a function that takes an integer representing the buffer ID, an integer representing the window ID, and a string representing the file type, and returns an integer or a list of integers.

For example:

---@type integer|integer[]
custom_colour_column = {
    lua = { 80, 120 },
    markdown = 100,
}

---@type fun(
---    buffer: integer,
---    window: integer,
---    file_type: string,
---): integer|integer[]
custom_colour_column = function(buffer, window, file_type)
    return 120
end

scope

The scope option refers to the scope within which to check whether the lines have exceeded the colour column configuration. It can be either file, window, or line.

• file refers to the entire file.
• window refers to the visible part of the current window.
• line refers to the current line.

For example:

---@type "file"|"window"|"line"
scope = "window"

respect_editor_config

The respect_editor_config option tells the plugin whether it should respect the max_line_length configuration in the .editorconfig file. It can be either true or false.

For example:

---@type boolean
respect_editor_config = true

Note that this option overrides the custom_colour_column configuration.

enabled

The enabled option enables the plugin.

For example:

---@type boolean
enabled = true

always_show

The always_show option sets whether the plugin should always show the colour column.

However, your disabled_file_types configuration will be respected when always_show is set to true, which means the colour column will not show on buffers with file types inside the disabled_file_types list when always_show is set to true.

For example:

---@type boolean
always_show = true

maximum_line_count

The maximum_line_count option sets the maximum number of lines the plugin will check. When a file has more lines than the maximum_line_count, the plugin will automatically change the scope to window so that Neovim doesn't become unbearably slow and laggy to use.

For example:

---@type integer
maximum_line_count = 40000

transform_colour_column

The transform_colour_column option is a function that transforms the colour column before it is actually displayed, allowing you to trigger the colour column display on a certain line length, but display the colour column at a different column from the colour column that triggered the display of the colour column.

For example, if you would like to have the colour column be displayed when the line length is past 80, but you want the colour column to show up at column 81, you can use the function below to achieve that:

---@type fun(colour_column: integer|integer[]): integer|integer[]
transform_colour_column = function(colour_column)
    return colour_column + 1
end

The transform_colour_column function receives the colour column as an argument which is either an integer or a list of integers, and returns the modified colour column, which is either an integer or a list of integers.

If you have multiple colour columns in your configuration, i.e. a list of colour columns, make sure you handle them in the transform_colour_column function, like shown below, or you will break the plugin.

---@type fun(colour_column: integer|integer[]): integer|integer[]
transform_colour_column = function(colour_column)
    if type(colour_column) == "table" then
        return vim.tbl_map(function(item) return item + 1 end, colour_column)
    end
    return colour_column + 1
end

disabled_file_types

The disabled_file_types option is a list of file types in which the plugin should be disabled. It is a list of strings. You can use * at the end of a file type to match a file type prefix, like Neogit*.

For example:

---@type string[]
disabled_file_types = { "help", "checkhealth", "netrw", "qf" }

Default configuration

The default configuration for the plugin is as follows:

---@type NerdColumn.Config
local default_config = {
    colour_column = 80,
    custom_colour_column = {},
    scope = "file",
    respect_editor_config = true,
    enabled = true,
    always_show = false,
    maximum_line_count = 40000,
    transform_colour_column = function(colour_column) return colour_column end,
    disabled_file_types = {
        "help",
        "checkhealth",
        "netrw",
        "qf",
        "man",

        -- Plugin specific file types
        "packer",
        "dirvish",
        "dirbuf",
        "diff",
        "mason",
        "lazy",
        "lspinfo",
        "null-ls-info",
        "fugitive",
        "undotree",
        "aerial",
        "harpoon",
        "minifiles",
        "trouble",
        "spectre_panel",
        "noice",
        "fish",
        "zsh",
        "typr",
        "typrstats",
        "Trouble",
        "NvimTree",
        "WhichKey",
        "Telescope*",
        "Neogit*",
        "snacks_*",
    },
}

You don't have to pass the configuration above to the setup function if you want to use the default configuration.

If you would like to make use of the default configuration options in your own configuration, like the disabled_file_types for example, you can use the following snippet to access it.

require("nerd_column").default_config

Buffer-specific toggle

You can control the state of the plugin via the use of the global option vim.g.nerd_column_enabled and the buffer-local option vim.b.nerd_column_enabled. If you have set the plugin to be enabled by default by setting enabled to true in your configuration, the global option vim.g.nerd_column_enabled will be automatically set to true when the plugin is set up.

The value of the buffer-local option vim.b.nerd_column_enabled is checked first, and if it is not set, i.e. vim.b.nerd_column_enabled is nil, then the value of the global option vim.g.nerd_column_enabled will be used instead.

This way, you can disable the plugin in specific buffers by setting vim.b.nerd_column_enabled to false.

Commands

Nerd Column provides 4 commands:

• NerdColumnEnable to enable the plugin. It can also be accessed from Lua by using:

  require("nerd_column").enable()

  This command will set both vim.g.nerd_column_enabled and vim.b.nerd_column_enabled to true, as most users would expect the command to work globally.

  You can also pass true to the function to enable the plugin in all buffers.

• NerdColumnDisable to disable the plugin. It can also be accessed from Lua by using:

  require("nerd_column").disable()

  This command will set both vim.g.nerd_column_enabled and vim.b.nerd_column_enabled to false, as most users would expect the command to work globally.

  You can also pass true to the function to enable the plugin in all buffers.

• NerdColumnToggle to toggle the plugin. It can also be accessed from Lua by using:

  require("nerd_column").toggle()

  This command will get the current state of the plugin from vim.b.nerd_column_enabled first. If vim.b.nerd_column_enabled is not set, i.e. vim.b.nerd_column_enabled is nil, then it will take the value of vim.g.nerd_column_enabled. Then, the command will toggle the plugin state and set both vim.g.nerd_column_enabled and vim.b.nerd_column_enabled to the toggled state. The reason for this is that most users would expect the command to work globally, and that the toggle should act on the current state of the plugin in the current buffer.

  You can also pass true to the function to enable the plugin in all buffers.

• NerdColumnReveal to reveal the first location in the scope that exceeded the minimum colour column by moving the cursor to that location.

  It can also be accessed from Lua by using:

  require("nerd_column").reveal()

  The plugin saves the first location that exceeds the colour column into vim.b.nerd_column_exceeded_position. It is set to nil if the colour column has not been exceeded or the plugin is disabled. Otherwise, you can get the line number from vim.b.nerd_column_exceeded_position.line and the column number from vim.b.nerd_column_exceeded_position.column.

Licence

This plugin is licenced under the GNU AGPL v3 licence.