[mini.pick] Project Picker

[wroyca]

Here's a tiny project picker that I thought I'd share. It's "hardcoded" to use ~/Projects for performance. Keep in mind that it hasn't been thoroughly tested and was mainly an ad hoc prototype for my own use :)

local projects = function(_, opts)
  local projects = {}
  local projects_dir = vim.fn.expand("~/Projects")

  for name, type in vim.fs.dir(projects_dir) do
    if type == "directory" then
      table.insert(projects, { text = name, dir = projects_dir .. '/' .. name })
    end
  end

  local choose = function(item)
    if not item then return end
    vim.fn.chdir(item.dir)

    -- Schedule to focus mini.files, as it doesn't otherwise.
    vim.schedule(function()
      require("mini.files").open(item.dir)
    end)
  end

  local preview = function(buf_id, item)
    if not item then return end

    local files = {}
    for name, type in vim.fs.dir(item.dir) do
      if type == "file" and not name:match("^%.") then
        table.insert(files, name)
      end
    end

    vim.api.nvim_buf_set_lines(buf_id, 0, -1, false, files)
  end

  local source = { items = projects, name = "Projects", choose = choose, preview = preview }
  opts = vim.tbl_deep_extend("force", { source = source }, opts or {})
  return MiniPick.start(opts)
end

[echasnovski]

Nice! This can be simplified, though:

• Instead of using CLI find, I'd recommend using vim.fn.readdir() (possibly together with vim.fn.isdirectory()). Or even vim.fs.dir() which already returns an iterator over entry name and its type (file, directory, etc.).
• vim.cmd.cd(item.dir) can be vim.fn.chdir(item.dir). There are tiny differences (like the latter will automatically set the "most local" working directory), but otherwise they are the same. It's just usually cleaner to use function directly (if it exists) than command through vim.cmd.
• I am not really sure about motivation behind showing only files in preview. I'd say that just listing directory contents is more universally useful.

[echasnovski]

When I need to switch to another project, it's likely because I need to work on it directly, so having mini.files for renaming, editing, or moving files is necessary.

I tend to have both "work on the project" and "open file from that project for reference". The first one is covered by sessions and MiniSessions.select(), i.e. if there is "work on the project" then there should be session for it. The second one is also quite frequent (like take a look at specific Neovim source code file, for example) and which this new "projects" picker is intended to remedy. Up until now using :Pick visit_paths was enough (and even more straightforward as there is no need to pick the project first), but I'll try this one instead.

[evantravers]

I came here looking for this… I wanted to be able to access my folder of notes anywhere on my system.

It makes me kind of wish that :Pick files could take a path= option to cover options like this.

[echasnovski]

You can make it accept cwd option, which is the same effect. There is an example just for that.

The reason this is not built-in is because cwd is something that any source can have, so in that case it would have made sense to add to every source. But the latter is a bit too much.

[evantravers]

It makes a lot of sense. I did read through the docs and was able to scrabble this ugly one liner that does (I believe) the same thing: https://github.com/evantravers/dotfiles/blob/3a33131a6a4dbe042fff09b1622494c557ff6f3a/home-manager/nvim/default.nix#L211

[echasnovski]

Yep, it is the same. Using vim.fn.expand is unnecessary, though. 'mini.pick' is smart enough to work with '~' at the start of the path.

[wroyca]

If you happen to have a minute to spare, any recommendations on how I could approach adding icons? I did a vague attempt yesterday based on the pick source code and ended up adding the whole plumbing for H.get_icon, and it ... didn’t go well :)

[echasnovski]

Where specifically do you want icons? If in "main" item list, then MiniExtra.pickers.explorer() wrapper already has it out of the box and I'd suggest just using it.

As a general suggestion for icons I'd recommend to make custom show which calls MiniPick.default_show(buf_id, items, query, { show_icons = true }). For it to work properly items should be compatible with common item structure for paths. In particular, either be tables with path being full path or plain strings (needs properly set source.cwd for relative paths to work).

[wroyca]

Where specifically do you want icons?

directories and files (normal and preview)

If in "main" item list, then MiniExtra.pickers.explorer() wrapper already has it out of the box and I'd suggest just using it.

I did actually give it a fair chance yesterday, but it didn't fit well with my needs. 😅

{ show_icons = true }

Interesting, will check it out. Thanks!