utils.nvim

Powerful Utilities for Neovim Plugin Devs 🛠️🧰

utils.nvim is a Neovim plugin that provides a collection of utilities to simplify the development of other Neovim plugins.

✨ Features

• Notification Management: Offers functions to queue and display notifications, allowing seamless user communication within plugins.
• Command Execution: Includes capabilities to open commands or directories using the system's default tools, improving workflow efficiency.
• Asynchronous Shell Commands: Execute shell commands asynchronously with callback support, facilitating non-blocking operations.
• JSON Handling: Provides safe JSON decoding, making it easier to work with external data without risking errors.
• Caching Mechanism: Implements a caching system to store data and reduce unnecessary command execution, optimizing performance.
• Human-Readable Timestamps: Converts ISO 8601 timestamps to a more understandable format, enhancing date and time representation in the UI.
• Cache Management: Functions to clear cache files, helping maintain a clean environment.

⚡ Setup

⚙️ Requirements

• Latest version of neovim
• plenary.nvim

💻 Installation

utils.nvim is not meant to be installed by itself, but rather as a dependency for another plugin.

If you are building a plugin that requires the utilities provided by utils.nvim, you can add it as a dependency as shown below:

-- Lazy
{
    'yourname/plugin.nvim',
    dependencies = {
        '2kabhishek/utils.nvim'
    },
},

🚀 Usage

Functions

The utilities provided by utils.nvim can be directly used in your plugin as shown below:

local utils = require('utils')

utils.show_notification('Hello World!')

Below is a list of all the functions provided by utils.nvim.

utils.queue_notification(message: string, level?: number, title?: string, timeout?: number)

Adds a notification to the queue, to be processed and displayed later.

• Input:
  • message: The content of the notification.
  • level (optional): The log level of the notification (defaults to INFO).
  • title (optional): The title of the notification (defaults to "Notification").
  • timeout (optional): Duration to show the notification (defaults to 5000ms).
• Output: No return value. Adds a notification to the queue and schedules it.

utils.show_notification(message: string, level?: number, title?: string, timeout?: number)

Immediately shows a notification to the user.

• Input:

  • message: The content of the notification.
  • level (optional): The log level of the notification (defaults to INFO).
  • title (optional): The title of the notification (defaults to "Notification").
  • timeout (optional): Duration to show the notification (defaults to 5000ms).

• Output: No return value. Displays the notification.

utils.open_command(command: string)

Opens the given command in the default browser/terminal, depending on the system.

• Input:
  • command: A string that represents the URL or command to be opened.
• Output: No return value. Executes the open command using the system’s default tool.

utils.open_dir(dir: string)

Opens a directory inside a tmux session if running within tmux, or directly navigates in Neovim otherwise.

• Input:

  • dir: Path to the directory to be opened.

• Output: No return value. Either navigates to the directory in Neovim or attempts to open the directory in tmux.

utils.async_shell_execute(command: string, callback: fun(result: string))

Executes a shell command asynchronously and calls the callback with the result.

• Input:
  • command: The shell command to be executed.
  • callback: A function that is called with the result of the command execution.
• Output: No return value. The command result is passed to the callback function.

utils.safe_json_decode(str: string) -> table|nil

Safely decodes a JSON string into a Lua table, with error handling.

• Input:

  • str: The JSON string to decode.

• Output:

  • On success: Returns a Lua table representation of the JSON string.
  • On failure: Returns nil and logs an error notification.

utils.get_data_from_cache(cache_key: string, command: string, callback: fun(data: any), cache_timeout: number)

Fetches data from a cached file or executes a command to get fresh data if the cache is expired or missing.

• Input:

  • cache_key: The cache key to identify the cached data.
  • command: The shell command to execute if the cache is expired or missing.
  • callback: A function that receives the data (either from cache or after executing the command).
  • cache_timeout: The time (in seconds) before the cache expires.

• Output: No return value. The data is passed to the callback function.

utils.human_time(timestamp: string) -> string

Converts an ISO 8601 timestamp into a human-readable format.

• Input:

  • timestamp: A string in ISO 8601 format (e.g., "2024-10-10T14:00:00").

• Output:

  • Returns the formatted date and time (e.g., "10 Oct 2024, 02:00 PM").

utils.clear_cache(prefix: string)

Clears the cache by deleting all cached files.

• Input:
  • prefix: The prefix to identify cached files.
• Output: No return value. Clears all cache files and shows a notification confirming the action.

Commands

utils.nvim adds the following command:

• UtilsClearCache: Clears all cache files saved by the plugin. To execute it, run:

Help

Run :help nerdy for more details.

🏗️ What's Next

Planning to add <feature/module>.

✅ To-Do

• You tell me!

⛅ Behind The Code

🌈 Inspiration

utils.nvim was created while working on octohub.nvim which relied on a lot of common utilities like async shell execution, notifications, and caching.

💡 Challenges/Learnings

• Figuring out the callback mechanism for async functions was a bit tricky.
• Learned better ways to handle caching and notifications.

🔍 More Info

• octohub.nvim — All your GitHub features in Neovim, uses utils.nvim
• nerdy.nvim — Find nerd glyphs easily
• tdo.nvim — Fast and simple notes in Neovim

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