*mark.txt* Highlight several words in different colors simultaneously. MARK by Ingo Karkat (original version by Yuheng Xie) *mark.vim* description |mark-description| usage |mark-usage| installation |mark-installation| configuration |mark-configuration| limitations |mark-limitations| known problems |mark-known-problems| todo |mark-todo| history |mark-history| ============================================================================== DESCRIPTION *mark-description* This plugin adds mappings and a :Mark command to highlight several words in different colors simultaneously, similar to the built-in 'hlsearch' highlighting of search results and the * |star| command. For example, when you are browsing a big program file, you could highlight multiple identifiers in parallel. This will make it easier to trace the source code. This is a continuation of vimscript #1238 by Yuheng Xie, who doesn't maintain his original version anymore and recommends switching to this fork. This plugin offers the following advantages over the original: - Much faster, all colored words can now be highlighted, no more clashes with syntax highlighting (due to use of matchadd()). - Many bug fixes. - Jumps behave like the built-in search, including wrap and error messages. - Like the built-in commands, jumps take an optional [count] to quickly skip over some marks. - Marks can be persisted, and patterns can be added / subtracted from mark highlight groups. RELATED WORKS * - MultipleSearch (vimscript #479) can highlight in a single window and in all buffers, but still relies on the :syntax highlighting method, which is slower and less reliable. - http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Highlight_multiple_words offers control over the color used by mapping the 1-9 keys on the numeric keypad, persistence, and highlights only a single window. - highlight.vim (vimscript #1599) highlights lines or patterns of interest in different colors, using mappings that start with CTRL-H and work on cword. - quickhl.vim (vimscript #3692) can also list the matches with colors and in addition offers on-the-fly highlighting of the current word (like many IDEs do). ============================================================================== USAGE *mark-usage* HIGHLIGHTING *mark-highlighting* *m* *v_m* m Mark the word under the cursor, similar to the |star| command. The next free highlight group is used. If already on a mark: Clear the mark, like |n|. {Visual}m Mark or unmark the visual selection. [N]m With [N], mark the word under the cursor with the named highlight group [N]. When that group is not empty, the word is added as an alternative match, so you can highlight multiple words with the same color. When the word is already contained in the list of alternatives, it is removed. When [N] is greater than the number of defined mark groups, a summary of marks is printed. Active mark groups are prefixed with "*" (or "M*" when there are M pattern alternatives), the default next group with ">", the last used search with "/" (like |:Marks| does). Input the mark group, accept the default with , or abort with or any other key. This way, when unsure about which number represents which color, just use 99n and pick the color interactively! {Visual}[N]m Ditto, based on the visual selection. *r* *v_r* r Manually input a regular expression to mark. {Visual}r Ditto, based on the visual selection. In accordance with the built-in |star| command, all these mappings use 'ignorecase', but not 'smartcase'. *n* n Clear the mark under the cursor. If not on a mark: Disable all marks, similar to |:nohlsearch|. Note: Marks that span multiple lines are not detected, so the use of n on such a mark will unintentionally remove all marks! Use {Visual}r or :Mark {pattern} to clear multi-line marks (or pass [N] if you happen to know the group number). [N]n Clear the marks represented by highlight group [N]. *:Mark* :[N]Mark Clear the marks represented by highlight group [N]. :[N]Mark {pattern} Mark or unmark {pattern}. Unless [N] is given, the next free highlight group is used. With [N], mark the word under the cursor with the named highlight group [N]. When that group is not empty, the word is added as an alternative match, so you can highlight multiple words with the same color. When the word is already contained in the list of alternatives, it is removed. For implementation reasons, {pattern} cannot use the 'smartcase' setting, only 'ignorecase'. :Mark Disable all marks, similar to |:nohlsearch|. Marks will automatically re-enable when a mark is added or removed, or a search for marks is performed. *:MarkClear* :MarkClear Clear all marks. In contrast to disabling marks, the actual mark information is cleared, the next mark will use the first highlight group. This cannot be undone. SEARCHING *mark-searching* *star* *#* */* *?* [count]* [count]# [count]* [count]# [count]/ [count]? Use these six keys to jump to the [count]'th next / previous occurrence of a mark. You could also use Vim's / and ? to search, since the mark patterns are (optionally, see configuration) added to the search history, too. Cursor over mark Cursor not over mark --------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Jump to the next occurrence of Jump to the next occurrence of current mark, and remember it "last mark". as "last mark". / Jump to the next occurrence of Same as left. ANY mark. * If * is the most recently Do Vim's original * command. used, do a *; otherwise (/ is the most recently used), do a /. Note: When the cursor is on a mark, the backwards search does not jump to the beginning of the current mark (like the built-in search), but to the previous mark. The entire mark text is treated as one entity. You can use Vim's |jumplist| to go back to previous mark matches and the position before a mark search. MARK PERSISTENCE *mark-persistence* The marks can be kept and restored across Vim sessions, using the |viminfo| file. For this to work, the "!" flag must be part of the 'viminfo' setting: > set viminfo+=! " Save and restore global variables. < *:MarkLoad* :MarkLoad Restore the marks from the previous Vim session. All current marks are discarded. *:MarkSave* :MarkSave Save the currently defined marks (or clear the persisted marks if no marks are currently defined) for use in a future Vim session. By default, automatic persistence is enabled (so you don't need to explicitly |:MarkSave|), but you have to explicitly load the persisted marks in a new Vim session via |:MarkLoad|, to avoid that you accidentally drag along outdated highlightings from Vim session to session, and be surprised by the arbitrary highlight groups and occasional appearance of forgotten marks. If you want just that though and automatically restore any marks, set |g:mwAutoLoadMarks|. You can also initialize some marks (even using particular highlight groups) to static values, e.g. by including this in |vimrc|: > runtime plugin/mark.vim silent MarkClear 5Mark foo 6Mark bar Or you can define custom commands that preset certain marks: > command -bar MyMarks silent MarkClear | execute '5Mark foo' | execute '6Mark bar' Or a command that adds to the existing marks and then toggles them: > command -bar ToggleFooBarMarks execute 'Mark foo' | execute 'Mark bar' < MARK INFORMATION *mark-information* Both |mark-highlighting| and |mark-searching| commands print information about the mark and search pattern, e.g. mark-1/\ ~ This is especially useful when you want to add or subtract patterns to a mark highlight group via [N]. *:Marks* :Marks List all mark highlight groups and the search patterns defined for them. The group that will be used for the next |:Mark| or |m| command (with [N]) is shown with a ">". The last mark used for a search (via |*|) is shown with a "/". MARK HIGHLIGHTING PALETTES *mark-palette* The plugin comes with three predefined palettes: original, extended, and maximum. You can dynamically toggle between them, e.g. when you need more marks or a different set of colors. *:MarkPalette* :MarkPalette {palette} Highlight existing and future marks with the colors defined in {palette}. If the new palette contains less mark groups than the current one, the additional marks are lost. You can use |:command-completion| for {palette}. See |g:mwDefaultHighlightingPalette| for how to change the default palette, and |mark-palette-define| for how to add your own custom palettes. ============================================================================== INSTALLATION *mark-installation* This script is packaged as a |vimball|. If you have the "gunzip" decompressor in your PATH, simply edit the *.vmb.gz package in Vim; otherwise, decompress the archive first, e.g. using WinZip. Inside Vim, install by sourcing the vimball or via the |:UseVimball| command. > vim mark*.vmb.gz :so % To uninstall, use the |:RmVimball| command. DEPENDENCIES *mark-dependencies* - Requires Vim 7.1 with |matchadd()|, or Vim 7.2 or higher. ============================================================================== CONFIGURATION *mark-configuration* For a permanent configuration, put the following commands into your |vimrc|. *mark-colors* *mark-highlight-colors* This plugin defines 6 mark groups: 1: Cyan 2:Green 3:Yellow 4:Red 5:Magenta 6:Blue ~ Higher numbers always take precedence and are displayed above lower ones. *g:mwDefaultHighlightingPalette* Especially if you use GVIM, you can switch to a richer palette of up to 18 colors: > let g:mwDefaultHighlightingPalette = 'extended' Or, if you have both good eyes and display, you can try a palette that defines 27, 58, or even 77 colors, depending on the number of available colors: > let g:mwDefaultHighlightingPalette = 'maximum' < If you like the additional colors, but don't need that many of them, restrict their number via: > let g:mwDefaultHighlightingNum = 9 < *mark-colors-redefine* If none of the default highlightings suits you, define your own colors in your vimrc file (or anywhere before this plugin is sourced), in the following form (where N = 1..): > highlight MarkWordN ctermbg=Cyan ctermfg=Black guibg=#8CCBEA guifg=Black You can also use this form to redefine only some of the default highlightings. If you want to avoid losing the highlightings on |:colorscheme| commands, you need to re-apply your highlights on the |ColorScheme| event, similar to how this plugin does. Or you define the palette not via :highlight commands, but use the plugin's infrastructure: > let g:mwDefaultHighlightingPalette = [ \ { 'ctermbg':'Cyan', 'ctermfg':'Black', 'guibg':'#8CCBEA', 'guifg':'Black' }, \ ... \] < *mark-palette-define* If you want to switch multiple palettes during runtime, you need to define them as proper palettes: > let g:mwPalettes['mypalette'] = [ \ { 'ctermbg':'Cyan', 'ctermfg':'Black', 'guibg':'#8CCBEA', 'guifg':'Black' }, \ ... \] let g:mwPalettes['other'] = [ ... ] let g:mwDefaultHighlightingPalette = 'mypalette' To add your palette to the existing ones, do this after the default palette has been defined, e.g. in .vim/after/plugin/mark.vim). Alternatively, you can also completely redefine all available palettes in .vimrc. The search type highlighting (in the search message) can be changed via: > highlight link SearchSpecialSearchType MoreMsg < *g:mwHistAdd* By default, any marked words are also added to the search (/) and input (@) history; if you don't want that, remove the corresponding symbols from: > let g:mwHistAdd = '/@' < *g:mwAutoLoadMarks* To enable the automatic restore of marks from a previous Vim session: > let g:mwAutoLoadMarks = 1 < *g:mwAutoSaveMarks* To turn off the automatic persistence of marks across Vim sessions: > let g:mwAutoSaveMarks = 0 You can still explicitly save marks via |:MarkSave|. *g:mwIgnoreCase* If you have set 'ignorecase', but want marks to be case-insensitive, you can override the default behavior of using 'ignorecase' by setting: > let g:mwIgnoreCase = 0 < *mark-mappings* You can use different mappings by mapping to the Mark... mappings (use ":map Mark" to list them all) before this plugin is sourced. There are no default mappings for toggling all marks and for the |:MarkClear| command, but you can define some yourself: > nmap M MarkToggle nmap N MarkAllClear < To remove the default overriding of * and #, use: > nmap IgnoreMarkSearchNext MarkSearchNext nmap IgnoreMarkSearchPrev MarkSearchPrev < If you don't want the * and # mappings remember the last search type and instead always search for the next occurrence of the current mark, with a fallback to Vim's original * command, use: > nmap * MarkSearchOrCurNext nmap # MarkSearchOrCurPrev < *mark-whitespace-indifferent* Some people like to create a mark based on the visual selection, like |v_m|, but have whitespace in the selection match any whitespace when searching (searching for "hello world" will also find "helloworld" as well as "hello" at the end of a line, with "world" at the start of the next line). The Vim Tips Wiki describes such a setup for the built-in search at http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Search_for_visually_selected_text You can achieve the same with the Mark plugin through the following scriptlet: > function! s:GetVisualSelectionAsLiteralWhitespaceIndifferentPattern() return substitute(escape(mark#GetVisualSelection(), '\' . '^$.*[~'), '\_s\+', '\\_s\\+', 'g') endfunction vnoremap MarkWhitespaceIndifferent :if !mark#DoMark(v:count, GetVisualSelectionAsLiteralWhitespaceIndifferentPattern())execute "normal! \C-\>\C-n>\Esc>"endif Using this, you can assign a new visual mode mapping * > vmap * MarkWhitespaceIndifferent or override the default |v_m| mapping, in case you always want this behavior: > vmap IgnoreMarkSet MarkSet vmap m MarkWhitespaceIndifferent < ============================================================================== LIMITATIONS *mark-limitations* - If the 'ignorecase' setting is changed, there will be discrepancies between the highlighted marks and subsequent jumps to marks. - If {pattern} in a :Mark command contains atoms that change the semantics of the entire (|/\c|, |/\C|) or following (|/\v|,|/\V|, |/\M|) regular expression, there may be discrepancies between the highlighted marks and subsequent jumps to marks. KNOWN PROBLEMS *mark-known-problems* TODO *mark-todo* IDEAS *mark-ideas* Taken from an alternative implementation at http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Highlight_multiple_words: - Use keys 1-9 on the numeric keypad to toggle a highlight group number. ============================================================================== HISTORY *mark-history* 2.7.1 14-Sep-2012 - Enable alternative * / # mappings that do not remember the last search type through new MarkSearchOrCurNext, MarkSearchOrCurPrev, MarkSearchOrAnyNext, MarkSearchOrAnyPrev mappings. Based on an inquiry from Kevin Huanpeng Du. 2.7.0 04-Jul-2012 - ENH: Implement :MarkPalette command to switch mark highlighting on-the-fly during runtime. - Add "maximum" palette contributed by rockybalboa4. 2.6.5 24-Jun-2012 - Don't define the default m and r mappings in select mode, just visual mode. Thanks to rockybalboa4 for pointing this out. 2.6.4 23-Apr-2012 - Allow to override 'ignorecase' setting via g:mwIgnoreCase. Thanks to fanhe for the idea and sending a patch. 2.6.3 27-Mar-2012 - ENH: Allow choosing of palette and limiting of default mark highlight groups via g:mwDefaultHighlightingPalette and g:mwDefaultHighlightingNum. - ENH: Offer an extended color palette in addition to the original 6-color one. Enable this via :let g:mwDefaultHighlightingPalette = "extended" in your vimrc. 2.6.2 26-Mar-2012 - ENH: When a [count] exceeding the number of available mark groups is given, a summary of marks is given and the user is asked to select a mark group. This allows to interactively choose a color via 99m. If you use the |mark-whitespace-indifferent| mappings, *** PLEASE UPDATE THE vnoremap MarkWhitespaceIndifferent DEFINITION *** - ENH: Include count of alternative patterns in :Marks list. - CHG: Use ">" for next mark and "/" for last search in :Marks. 2.6.1 23-Mar-2012 - ENH: Add :Marks command that prints all mark highlight groups and their search patterns, plus information about the current search mark, next mark group, and whether marks are disabled. - ENH: Show which mark group a pattern was set / added / removed / cleared. - FIX: When the cursor is positioned on the current mark, [N]n / MarkClear with [N] appended the pattern for the current mark (again and again) instead of clearing it. Must not pass current mark pattern when [N] is given. - CHG: Show mark group number in same-mark search and rename search types from "any-mark", "same-mark", and "new-mark" to the shorter "mark-*", "mark-N", and "mark-N!", respectively. 2.6.0 22-Mar-2012 - ENH: Allow [count] for m and :Mark to add / subtract match to / from highlight group [count], and use [count]n to clear only highlight group [count]. This was also requested by Philipp Marek. - FIX: :Mark and n actually toggled marks back on when they were already off. Now, they stay off on multiple invocations. Use :call mark#Toggle() / MarkToggle if you want toggling. 2.5.3 02-Mar-2012 - BUG: Version check mistakenly excluded Vim 7.1 versions that do have the matchadd() function. Thanks to Philipp Marek for sending a patch. 2.5.2 09-Nov-2011 Fixed various problems with wrap-around warnings: - BUG: With a single match and 'wrapscan' set, a search error was issued. - FIX: Backwards search with single match leads to wrong error message instead. - FIX: Wrong logic for determining l:isWrapped lets wrap-around go undetected. 2.5.1 17-May-2011 - FIX: == comparison in s:DoMark() leads to wrong regexp (\A vs. \a) being cleared when 'ignorecase' is set. Use case-sensitive comparison ==# instead. - Refine :MarkLoad messages - Add whitespace-indifferent visual mark configuration example. Thanks to Greg Klein for the suggestion. 2.5.0 07-May-2011 - ENH: Add explicit mark persistence via :MarkLoad and :MarkSave commands and automatic persistence via the g:mwAutoLoadMarks and g:mwAutoSaveMarks configuration flags. (Request from Mun Johl, 16-Apr-2010) - Expose toggling of mark display (keeping the mark patterns) via new MarkToggle mapping. Offer :MarkClear command as a replacement for the old argumentless :Mark command, which now just disables, but not clears all marks. 2.4.4 18-Apr-2011 - BUG: Include trailing newline character in check for current mark, so that a mark that matches the entire line (e.g. created by Vm) can be cleared via n. Thanks to ping for reporting this. - FIX: On overlapping marks, mark#CurrentMark() returned the lowest, not the highest visible mark. So on overlapping marks, the one that was not visible at the cursor position was removed; very confusing! Use reverse iteration order. - FIX: To avoid an arbitrary ordering of highlightings when the highlighting group names roll over, and to avoid order inconsistencies across different windows and tabs, we assign a different priority based on the highlighting group. 2.4.3 16-Apr-2011 - Avoid losing the mark highlightings on :syn on or :colorscheme commands. Thanks to Zhou YiChao for alerting me to this issue and suggesting a fix. - Made the script more robust when somehow no highlightings have been defined or when the window-local reckoning of match IDs got lost. I had very occasionally encountered such script errors in the past. - Made global housekeeping variables script-local, only g:mwHistAdd is used for configuration. 2.4.2 14-Jan-2011 (unreleased) - FIX: Capturing the visual selection could still clobber the blockwise yank mode of the unnamed register. 2.4.1 13-Jan-2011 - FIX: Using a named register for capturing the visual selection on {Visual}m and {Visual}r clobbered the unnamed register. Now using the unnamed register. 2.4.0 13-Jul-2010 - ENH: The MarkSearch mappings ([*#/?]) add the original cursor position to the jump list, like the built-in [/?*#nN] commands. This allows to use the regular jump commands for mark matches, like with regular search matches. 2.3.3 19-Feb-2010 - BUG: Clearing of an accidental zero-width match (e.g. via :Mark \zs) results in endless loop. Thanks to Andy Wokula for the patch. 2.3.2 17-Nov-2009 - BUG: Creation of literal pattern via '\V' in {Visual}m mapping collided with individual escaping done in m mapping so that an escaped '\*' would be interpreted as a multi item when both modes are used for marking. Thanks to Andy Wokula for the patch. 2.3.1 06-Jul-2009 - Now working correctly when 'smartcase' is set. All mappings and the :Mark command use 'ignorecase', but not 'smartcase'. 2.3.0 04-Jul-2009 - All jump commands now take an optional [count], so you can quickly skip over some marks, as with the built-in */# and n/N commands. For this, the entire core search algorithm has been rewritten. The script's logic has been simplified through the use of Vim 7 features like Lists. - Now also printing a Vim-alike search error message when 'nowrapscan' is set. 2.2.0 02-Jul-2009 - Split off functions into autoload script. - Initialization of global variables and autocommands is now done lazily on the first use, not during loading of the plugin. This reduces Vim startup time and footprint as long as the functionality isn't yet used. - Split off documentation into separate help file. Now packaging as VimBall. 2.1.0 06-Jun-2009 - Replaced highlighting via :syntax with matchadd() / matchdelete(). This requires Vim 7.2 / 7.1 with patches. This method is faster, there are no more clashes with syntax highlighting (:match always has preference), and the background highlighting does not disappear under 'cursorline'. - Using winrestcmd() to fix effects of :windo: By entering a window, its height is potentially increased from 0 to 1. - Handling multiple tabs by calling s:UpdateScope() on the TabEnter event. 2.0.0 01-Jun-2009 - Now using Vim List for g:mwWord and thus requiring Vim 7. g:mwCycle is now zero-based, but the syntax groups "MarkWordx" are still one-based. - Factored :syntax operations out of s:DoMark() and s:UpdateMark() so that they can all be done in a single :windo. - Normal mode MarkSet now has the same semantics as its visual mode cousin: If the cursor is on an existing mark, the mark is removed. Beforehand, one could only remove a visually selected mark via again selecting it. Now, one simply can invoke the mapping when on such a mark. 1.6.1 31-May-2009 Publication of improved version by Ingo Karkat. - Now prepending search type ("any-mark", "same-mark", "new-mark") for better identification. - Retired the algorithm in s:PrevWord in favor of simply using , which makes mark.vim work like the * command. At the end of a line, non-keyword characters may now be marked; the previous algorithm preferred any preceding word. - BF: If 'iskeyword' contains characters that have a special meaning in a regexp (e.g. [.*]), these are now escaped properly. - Highlighting can now actually be overridden in the vimrc (anywhere _before_ sourcing this script) by using ':hi def'. - Added missing setter for re-inclusion guard. 1.5.0 01-Sep-2008 Bug fixes and enhancements by Ingo Karkat. - Added MarkAllClear (without a default mapping), which clears all marks, even when the cursor is on a mark. - Added ... mappings for hard-coded \*, \#, \/, \?, * and #, to allow re-mapping and disabling. Beforehand, there were some ... mappings and hard-coded ones; now, everything can be customized. - BF: Using :autocmd without to avoid removing _all_ autocmds for the BufWinEnter event. (Using a custom :augroup would be even better.) - BF: Explicitly defining s:current_mark_position; some execution paths left it undefined, causing errors. - ENH: Make the match according to the 'ignorecase' setting, like the star command. - ENH: The jumps to the next/prev occurrence now print 'search hit BOTTOM, continuing at TOP" and "Pattern not found:..." messages, like the * and n/N Vim search commands. - ENH: Jumps now open folds if the occurrence is inside a closed fold, just like n/N do. 1.1.8-g 25-Apr-2008 Last version published by Yuheng Xie on vim.org. 1.1.2 22-Mar-2005 Initial version published by Yuheng Xie on vim.org. ============================================================================== Copyright: (C) 2005-2008 Yuheng Xie (C) 2008-2012 Ingo Karkat The VIM LICENSE applies to this script; see |copyright|. Maintainer: Ingo Karkat ============================================================================== vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl: