Expander

Description

Expander is a Vim plugin for expanding newline characters inserted between pairs of enclosing elements, including brackets, XML-like tags, and user-defined pairs.

The main goal of Expander is to be easy to use and fast.

How to Install

There are many ways to install the plugin in Vim.

Vim Package Feature

Step 1

To install the plugin using the Vim package feature, first create a new folder inside your Vim files folder matching the pattern pack/*/opt/<name>, where <name> is a name of your choice. In unix this can be:

mkdir -p ~/.vim/pack/plugin/opt/expander
cd ~/.vim/pack/plugin/opt/expander
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/victorspt/expander.git .

In Windows this can be:

mkdir ~\vimfiles\pack\plugin\opt\expander
cd ~\vimfiles\pack\plugin\opt\expander
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/victorspt/expander.git .

Step 2

Then add the command packadd <name> to your vimrc file to enable the plugin where <name> is the same name you chose in the previous step. For instance in unix this can look like:

" ~/.vimrc
packadd expander

And in Windows this can look like:

" ~\_vimrc
packadd expander

A Vim Plugin Manager

Check with your preferred Vim plugin manager for instructions on how to install a new plugin.

Options

Some global variables control specific behaviors and can be changed to customize how the plugin works.

g:isExpanderEnabled

default value: 1

Change the value to 0 to turn off the plugin. For example in the vimrc file:

" Turn off Expander:
let g:isExpanderEnabled = 0

g:ExpanderCustomPairs

default value: []

Stores the list of custom pairs for expansion. Each pair must be a list of the strings that represent the opening and the closing elements, regular expressions are supported as in the search() built-in function and the :s command. Example of custom pair in the vimrc file:

" Expand C++ alternative tokens for curly brackets:
let g:ExpanderCustomPairs = [ ["<:", ":>"] ]