🧊 Helpview.nvim

A hackable & fancy vimdoc viewer for Neovim.

📖 Table of contents

• ✨ Features

• 📚 Requirements

• 📐 Installation

• 🧭 Configuration

• 🎇 Commands

• 🎨 Highlight groups

✨ Features

• Adds various decorations to make vimdoc files nicer to look at.

• No external dependencies(other than the vimdoc parser)!

• Supports a variety of vimdoc syntaxes such as,

  • Arguments.
  • Code blocks.
  • Headings(& column headings).
  • Highlight group names.
  • Horizontal rules.
  • Inline codes.
  • Keycodes.
  • Vim modeline.
  • Notes.
  • Option links.
  • Tags.
  • Tag links.

• Custom renderer support.

• Dynamic highlight groups.

• Hybrid mode for viewing & writing together.

• Splitview for side-by-side viewing of the file being edited.

• Help command wrappers(:Help, :H) to change where help is shown.

📚 Requirements

System,

• Neovim: 0.10.3

---

Colorscheme,

• Any tree-sitter based colorscheme is recommended.

External icon providers,

[!NOTE] You need to change the config to use the desired icon provider.

{
    preview = {
        icon_provider = "internal", -- "mini" or "devicons"
    }
}

• mini.icons
• nvim-web-devicons

Parsers,

[!TIP] You can use nvim-treesitter to easily install parsers. You can install all the parsers with the following command,

:TSInstall vimdoc

• vimdoc

Fonts,

• Nerd fonts are recommended.

[!TIP] It is recommended to run :checkhealth helpview after installing the plugin to check if any potential issues exist.

📐 Installation

🧩 Vim-plug

Add this to your plugin list.

Plug "OXY2DEV/helpview.nvim"

💤 Lazy.nvim

[!WARNING] Do not lazy load this plugin as it is already lazy-loaded.

Lazy-loading will cause more time for the previews to load when starting Neovim.

The plugin should be loaded after your colorscheme to ensure the correct highlight groups are used.

-- For `plugins/helpview.lua` users.
return {
    "OXY2DEV/helpview.nvim",
    lazy = false
};

-- For `plugins.lua` users.
{
    "OXY2DEV/helpview.nvim",
    lazy = false
},

🦠 Mini.deps

local MiniDeps = require("mini.deps");

MiniDeps.add({
    source = "OXY2DEV/helpview.nvim"
});

🌒 Rocks.nvim

[!WARNING] luarocks package may sometimes be a bit behind main.

:Rocks install helpview.nvim

📥 GitHub release

Tagged releases can be found in the release page.

[!NOTE] Github releases may sometimes be slightly behind main.

🚨 Development version

You can use the dev branch to use test features.

[!WARNING] Development releases can contain breaking changes and experimental changes. Use at your own risk!

return {
    "OXY2DEV/helpview.nvim",
    branch = "dev",
    lazy = false
};

🧭 Configuration

Check the wiki for the entire configuration table. A simplified version is given below.

--- Configuration for `helpview.nvim`.
---@class helpview.config
---
--- Preview options.
---@field preview? helpview.preview
---
--- Configuration options for vimdoc.
---@field vimdoc? helpview.vimdoc
---
--- Custom highlight groups.
---@field highlight_groups? table[]
---
--- Custom renderers
---@field renderers? { [string]: function }
{
	renderers = {},

	preview = {
		enable = true,
		enable_hybrid_mode = true,

		modes = { "n", "c", "no" },
		hybrid_modes = {},
		linewise_hybrid_mode = false,

		filetypes = { "help" },
		ignore_previews = {},
		ignore_buftypes = {},
		condition = nil,

		max_buf_lines = 500,
		draw_range = { 2 * vim.o.lines, 2 * vim.o.lines },
		edit_range = { 0, 0 },

		debounce = 150,
		callbacks = {},

		icon_provider = "internal",

		splitview_winopts = { split = "right" },
		preview_winopts = { width = math.floor(80) }
	},

    vimdoc = {
        arguments = {},
        code_blocks = {},
        headings = {},
        highlight_groups = {},
        horizontal_rules = {},
        inline_codes = {},
        keycodes = {},
        modelines = {},
        notes = {},
        optionlinks = {},
        tags = {},
        taglinks = {},
        urls = {}
    }
}

🎇 Commands

This plugin follows the sub-commands approach for creating commands. There is only a single :Helpview command.

It comes with the following sub-commands,

[!NOTE] When no sub-command name is provided(or an invalid sub-command is used) :Helpview will run :Helpview Toggle.

[!TIP] buffer defaults to the current buffer. So, you can run commands on the current buffer without providing the buffer.

:Helpview toggle "Toggles preview of the current buffer.

🎨 Highlight groups

helpview.nvim creates a number of primary highlight groups that are used by most of the decorations.

[!IMPORTANT] These groups are all generated during runtime and as such their colors may look different.

If you want to create your own dynamic highlight groups or modify existing ones, see the custom highlight groups section.

The source highlight group's values are turned into Lab color-space and then mixed to reduce unwanted results.

These groups are then used as links by other groups responsible for various preview elements,

[!NOTE] These groups exist for the sake of backwards compatibility and ease of use.

You will see something like fg: Normal, it means the fg of Normal was used as the fg of that group.

* = The color is converted to HSL and it's luminosity(L) is increased/decreased by the specified amount.

** = The background color of HelpviewCode is added to the groups.

*** = Linearly interpolated value between 2 highlight groups fg.

There are also highlight groups that are made using the default highlight groups