telepathy:

thought-transference.

telepath:

a person who uses telepathy.

telepath.nvim is a Leap extension that allows you to operate on remote textobjects like built-in ones, from treesitter and any others.

https://github.com/rasulomaroff/telepath.nvim/assets/80093436/e25033bb-2ec3-49d1-b879-0d53ff2e7653

Features

• Jump: jump directly to a place you plan to operate from
• Cursor restoration: return to your initial position after performing operations
• Recursion: support for recursive operations
• Search everywhere: telepath.nvim uses bidirectional search in all windows by default
• Textobjects: telepath.nvim doesn't create any textobjects. Instead, you can use all of yours.
• Window restoration: you can turn on/off window restoration for a source window, other windows or for all of them.

Why

Why creating a new plugin when we already have leap-spooky.nvim or flash.nvim?

First of all, telepath is for people who use Leap as their main jump engine instead of flash, but prefer flash's way to operate on remote textobjects. I personally also prefer flash's way just because you don't need to create custom mappings on every textobject you plan to operate remotely on. Most importantly, using this way of performing remote actions means that all of the textobjects (including ones from plugins or custom) you have are supported. It also feels more natural and intuitive to type dr for delete remote, so your final combination will look like this: dr{search}iw to delete a word and return back to your initial cursor position.

In short, the main idea is to take the best of 2 worlds, for me that's:

1. Leap's jump engine
2. Flash's way of operating on remote textobjects

Requirements

leap.nvim

Installation

With lazy.nvim:

To use default mappings:

{
  'rasulomaroff/telepath.nvim',
  dependencies = 'ggandor/leap.nvim',
  -- there's no sence in using lazy loading since telepath won't load the main module
  -- until you actually use mappings
  lazy = false,
  config = function()
    require('telepath').use_default_mappings()
  end
}

To use custom mappings:

{
  'rasulomaroff/telepath.nvim',
  dependencies = 'ggandor/leap.nvim',
  keys = {
    -- you can use your own keys
    { 'r', function() require('telepath').remote { restore = true } end, mode = 'o' },
    { 'R', function() require('telepath').remote { restore = true, recursive = true } end, mode = 'o' },
    { 'm', function() require('telepath').remote() end, mode = 'o' },
    { 'M', function() require('telepath').remote { recursive = true } end, mode = 'o' }
  }
}

Usage

I would recommend reading Leap's documentation as well to have a full understanding of it, but together with telepath your usage will look like that:

dr{search}{textobject}

• d - this is an operator. In this case it's delete, but you can use any, even custom ones.
• r - stands for remote. You can configure this key as well as you can configure the way it behaves. It must always go after an operator key.
• {search} - this is a 2 or 3 key pattern to jump to the specific location you want to operate on. More about it in Leap's documentation.
• {textobject} - this is a specific textobject you want to apply your operator on. For example i( - inside parentheses. You can use any textobject available in your configuration.

Curly brackets in search and textobject are meant to emphasize semantic meaning, you don't need to use them.

Configuration

Options

There're 6 options you can pass to the remote method:

1. restore - will restore your cursor to the original position after an operation. Default: false
2. recursive - will trigger leap mode with the same operator after every operation. Default: false
3. jumplist - will set jump points on every jump. Default: true
4. window_restore - will restore windows when leaving them or after a remote action. You can pass either a string to specify a restore strategy for all windows, you can pass false to disable restoration in all windows, or a table { source = 'cursor' | 'view' | false, rest = 'cursor' | 'view' | false } where source means a strategy for a source window and rest - for all windows except a source one. Default: 'view'. Possible strategies:

• view - restore a window view together with a cursor state
• cursor - restore only a cursor state

5. remap - will use your own mapping instead of a neovim's default one. For example, if you have your own mapping for y key, which uses neovim's default y operator and does some additional things or maybe you use this operator provided by a plugin. Not used by default.
6. hooks - a table of hooks that will be called during the flow. You can also use user commands. Possible hooks are the same as user commands, but with snake case instead: enter, leave, jump_pre, jump, window_restore_pre, window_restore, restore_pre, restore. All rules that are applied to user commands also applied for hooks, meaning that you can cancel restoration or use the data that's passed as a first argument.

Example:

require('telepath').remote {
  restore = false,
  recursive = false,
  jumplist = true,
  -- only restore other windows, but not the source one
  window_restore = { source = false, rest = 'view' },
  remap = {
    y = true, -- just put `true` to use a remapped version
    d = 'x' -- you can remap it to use another key that should do the same operation, but with additional side-effects
  },
  hooks = {
    restore_pre = function(data)
      if true then
        data.fn.cancel_restoration()
      end
    end
  }
}

User commands

telepath has a set of user commands that will be executed during the flow.

• TelepathEnter - called as soon as you evoke telepath.
• TelepathLeave - called after all the operations.
• TelepathJumpPre - called before jumping. Will be called on each jump when the recursive option is passed as true. Not called when returning a cursor back to the initial position.
• TelepathJump - called right after jumping. Will be called on each jump when the recursive option is passed as true. Not called when returning a cursor back to the initial position.
• TelepathWindowRestorePre - called before a window is restored. You can cancel window restoration here. Not called when restoring a source window.
• TelepathWindowRestore - called after a window was restored. Not called when restoring a source window.
• TelepathRestorePre - called before telepath restores the cursor to the initial position (only when restore=true in the remote() method). You can cancel restoration here.
• TelepathRestore - called after telepath restores the cursor to the inital position.

Example:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd('User', {
  pattern = 'TelepathEnter',
  callback = function(args)
    -- here's the data that's passed to each user command/hook
    vim.print(args.data)
  end
})

To each user command (as well as to each hook) this data is passed:

{
  opts: {
    action: {
      count: number,
      register: string,
      operator: string,
      regtype: string,
      remap?: string
    },
    restore: boolean,
    window_restore: {
      source: 'view' | 'cursor' | false,
      rest: 'view' | 'cursor' | false
    },
    recursive: boolean,
    jumplist: boolean
  },
  -- this field is only passed to `TelepathWindowRestorePre` and `TelepathRestorePre` commands
  fn: {
    -- only passed to `TelepathWindowRestorePre` command
    cancel_window_restoration: fun(),
    -- only passed to `TelepathRestorePre` command
    cancel_restoration: fun()
  }
}

Default mappings

All mappings are operator-pending mode only and listed below:

1. r - stands for restore or return. Operates on remote textobject and return you back to the initial position.
2. m - stands for magnet. The same as r, but won't return you back to the initial position.
3. R - stands for restore recursive. After performing any action, Leap's search mode will be triggered again with the same operator. You can exit this state by pressing escape and you'll be returned to your initial cursor position.
4. M - the same as R, but won't return you to the initial position.

To use default mappings, simply call use_default_mappings method:

require('telepath').use_default_mappings()

By default, telepath won't overwrite any existing mappings, if you want it to do so, pass overwrite boolean field:

require('telepath').use_default_mappings { overwrite = true }

If you only want to use certain default mappings, you can do it by passing keys field:

-- you can pass  the `overwrite` property here as well
require('telepath').use_default_mappings { keys = { 'r', 'm' } }

Custom mappings

To create a custom mapping, you need to use the remote method of the module, where you can pass optional params. After that, set that function to your preferred key:

vim.keymap.set('o', 'r', function()
  require('telepath').remote {
    -- options
  }
end, { desc = 'Remote action' })