The Best K NeoVim Remap

If you aren't a NeoVim user, I am sorry for you're loss. If you are a NeoVim user, keep reading, this is for you:

If you read the title carefully, I am talking about remapping "K", not "k". So for those that are unaware, "K" usually will try and run a man.lua file for the current word that your cursor is over. This is great, and I want to keep this functionality. But for certain languages, like rust or JavaScript, most of the time I am reading documentation from these three websites:

So my normal usages will usually involve the task of copying something from my code, googling the copied text, and maybe adding a few refining keywords or site filters. It may sound like that is a short task, but the time it takes to do this does add up after a while. So after thinking about it for a bit, I remembered that services like google and duckduckgo have the "I'm feeling lucky" operation. This operation will instantly redirect you to the most likely web result. Once I remembered this, I thought: Why not modify "K" to do this instead?

So that's what I did for Rust files:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ "BufEnter", "BufWinEnter" }, {
  pattern = { "*.rs"},
  callback = function()
	vim.keymap.set("n", "K", [[:!firefox https\:\/\/duckduckgo.com\/\?t=h\_\&q=\!+<C-r><C-w>+site\:docs\.rs<CR>]])
  end,
})

as well as for JavaScript files:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ "BufEnter", "BufWinEnter" }, {
  pattern = { "*.js"},
  callback = function()
	vim.keymap.set("n", "K", [[:!firefox https\:\/\/duckduckgo.com\/\?t=h\_\&q=\!+<C-r><C-w>+site\:developer\.mozilla\.org+OR+site\:docs\.servicenow\.com<CR>]])
  end,
})

So what's going on here? Well, ignoring the terrible wrapping because I suck at css, NeoVim is taking the current word (just like normal "K") and then building a "I'm feeling lucky" link with duckduckgo - I am using duckduckgo because google seems to make more of a fuss when I try and do this - I have specified different link criteria for each file type i.e.:

site:docs.rs                                            // for Rust

site:developer.mozilla.org+OR+site:docs.servicenow.com  // for JS

So that way, the chances of me landing at the correct page are higher. Once the link is built, I can then launch the link in Firefox:

[[:!firefox <LINK HERE>]]

I am thinking about building this out to be a full plugin system at some point. The issue is that I am also trying to build my own text editor, so I am trying to keep my distance from relying on vim as my long term dev tool. Its a difficult line to draw.

A Caveat

Something that I have noticed with vim is that when using this:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ "BufEnter", "BufWinEnter" }, {

along with telescope, things seem to not fully work when switching buffers via fuzzy finder. The autocmd seems to only run post saving after switching buffers. If anyone knows a way around this please let me know.

After Thoughts

I will probably keep writing about NeoVim even though I eventually plan to switch to my own editor because to be honest, the editor is pretty much just going to be a NeoVim clone but just built into a terminal emulator for easier copy-paste support. So if you enjoyed this article, stay tuned as there will be more NeoVim articles and:

j̶o̶i̶n̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶ ̶l̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶

If you have a blog, don't do that, its annoying. Nobody make money on blogs anymore anyways. Either include an rss feed for the nerds or just hope your audience comes back. Don't spam emails.

Anyways, that's all folks.