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What is cVim?

Vim for Google Chrome. I hate using the mouse, especially after learning Vim. With my desktop (Linux), I have a lot of key bindings that make doing things easier: I open Chrome with Alt+w, I close a window with Alt+Shift+d, I open a terminal with Alt+t. This is harder to do with Chrome because it has no section for customizing keyboard shortcuts, and it is still necessary to use the mouse to do things like click links. cVim aims to eliminate this problem as best as the Chrome extensions API will allow it to.

Where can I get cVim?

• There are two ways:
  • You can install it through the Chrome web store
  • You can download the .zip file here and enable cVim by going to the chrome://extensions URL and checking developer mode, then pointing Chrome to the unzipped folder via the Load unpacked extensions... button.

Why is this different than Vimium, ViChrome, or Vrome?

These extensions do a wonderful job of adding Vim-like keybindings to Google Chrome, but they lack many of the features that Firefox Addon, Pentadactyl, have.

• What features does cVim add to Chrome?
  • Google/IMDB/Wikipedia/Amazon/Duckduckgo/Yahoo/Bing search completion
  • Support for custom search engines
  • History and Bookmark search/completion with bookmark folder support
  • Caret/Visual mode
  • Efficient link hints (with support for custom mappings)
  • Support for custom keyboard mappings
  • Regex page search with highlighting
  • Command bar with tab-completion
  • Smooth scrolling

cVim Help

cVimrc

• Boolean cVimrc settings are enabled with the command 'set' + <SETTING_NAME> and disabled with the command 'set' + no<SETTING_NAME> (for example, set regexp and set noregexp)
• Boolean cVimrc settings can be inversed by adding "!" to the end
• Other settings are defined with = used as a separator and are prefixed by let (for example, let hintcharacters="abc")

Example configuration

" Settings
set nohud
set nosmoothscroll
set noautofocus " The opposite of autofocus; this setting stops
                " sites from focusing on an input box when they load
set typelinkhints
let searchlimit = 30
let scrollstep = 70
let barposition = "bottom"

let locale = "uk" " Current choices are 'jp' and 'uk'. This allows cVim to use sites like google.co.uk
                  " or google.co.jp to search rather than google.com. Support is currently limited.
                  " Let me know if you need a different locale for one of the completion/search engines
let hintcharacters = "abc123"

let searchengine dogpile = "http://www.dogpile.com/search/web?q=%s" " If you leave out the '%s' at the end of the URL,
                                                                    " your query will be appended to the link.
                                                                    " Otherwise, your query will replace the '%s'.

" This will do the same thing as above, except typing ':tabnew withbase' into to command bar
" without any search parameters will open 'http://www.dogpile.com'
let searchengine withbase = ["http://www.dogpile.com", "http://www.dogpile.com/search/web?q=%s"]

" alias ':g' to ':tabnew google'
command g tabnew google

let completionengines = ["google", "amazon", "imdb", "dogpile"]

let searchalias g = "google" " Create a shortcut for search engines.
                             " For example, typing ':tabnew g example'
                             " would act the same way as ':tabnew google example'

" Open all of these in a tab with `gna` or open one of these with <N>goa where <N>
let qmark a = ["http://www.reddit.com", "http://www.google.com", "http://twitter.com"]

let blacklists = ["https://mail.google.com/*", "*://mail.google.com/*", "@https://mail.google.com/mail/*"]
" blacklists prefixed by '@' act as a whitelist

let mapleader = ","

" Mappings

map <Leader>r reloadTabUncached
map <Leader>x :restore<Space>

" This remaps the default 'j' mapping
map j scrollUp

" You can use <Space>, which is interpreted as a
" literal " " character, to enter buffer completion mode
map gb :buffer<Space>

" This unmaps the default 'k' mapping
unmap k

" This unmaps the default 'h', 'j', 'k', and 'l' mappings
unmap h j k l

" This remaps the default 'f' mapping to the current 'F' mapping
map f F

" Toggle the current HUD display value
map <C-h> :set hud!<CR>

" Switch between alphabetical hint characters and numeric hints
map <C-i> :set numerichints!<CR>

map <C-u> rootFrame
map <M-h> previousTab
map <C-d> scrollPageDown
map <C-e> scrollPageUp
iunmap <C-y>
imap <C-m> deleteWord

" Create a variable that can be used/referenced in the command bar
let @@reddit_prog = 'http://www.reddit.com/r/programming'
let @@top_all = 'top?sort=top&t=all'
let @@top_day = 'top?sort=top&t=day'

" TA binding opens 'http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/top?sort=top&t=all' in a new tab
map TA :tabnew @@reddit_prog/@@top_all<CR>
map TD :tabnew @@reddit_prog/@@top_day<CR>

" Use paste buffer in mappings
map T :tabnew wikipedia @"<CR>

" Code blocks (see below for more info)
getIP() -> {{
httpRequest({url: 'http://api.ipify.org/?format=json', json: true},
            function(res) { Status.setMessage('IP: ' + res.ip); });
}}
" Displays your public IP address in the status bar
map ci :call getIP<CR>

" Script hints
echo(link) -> {{
  alert(link.href);
}}
map <C-f> createScriptHint(echo)

let configpath = '/path/to/your/.cvimrc'
set localconfig " Update settings via a local file (and the `:source` command) rather
                " than the default options page in chrome
" As long as localconfig is set in the .cvimrc file. cVim will continue to read
" settings from there

Blacklists

• The blacklists setting uses a custom implementation of Chrome's @match pattern guidelines. See https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/match_patterns for a description of the syntax.

Site-specific Configuration

• You can enable certain rc settings for sites using the blacklist match pattern as described above

  " this will enable the config block below on the domain 'reddit.com'
  site '*://*.reddit.com/*' {
    unmap j
    unmap k
    set numerichints
  }

Running commands when a page loads

• In a similar fashion to the site-specific configuration described above, cVim can run commands when a page is loaded with the call keyword

  " In this case, when pages with a file ending in '.js' are loaded,
  " cVim will pin the tab and then scroll down
  site '*://*/*.js' {
    call :pintab
    call scrollDown
  }

Mappings

• Normal mappings are defined with the following structure: map <KEY> <MAPPING_NAME>
• Insert mappings use the same structure, but use the command "imap" instead of "map"
• Control, meta, and alt can be used also:

  <C-u> " Ctrl + u
  <M-u> " Meta + u
  <A-u> " Alt  + u

• It is also possible to unmap default bindings with unmap <KEY> and insert bindings with iunmap <KEY>
• To unmap all default keybindings, use unmapAll. To unmap all default insert bindings, use iunmapAll

Tabs

• Commands that open links (:tabnew and :open) have three different properties
  • ! => Open in a new tab
  • $ => Open in a new window
  • | => Open in an incognito window
  • & => Open in a new tab (inactive/unfocused)
  • * => Pin the tab
  • ? => Treat the query as a search
  • = => Treat the query as a URL
• The use of these properties are best explained with examples:

:open! google<CR> " This is the same as :tabnew google<CR>

:open google!<CR> " This is another way of writing the above
                  " (these flags can can be added to either
                  " the base command or the end of the final command)

:open& google<CR> " This will open Google in a new inactive tab

:open$ google<CR> " This will open Google in a new window

:open&* google<CR> " The will open Google in a new inactive, pinned tab

:tabnew google&*<CR> " Once again, this will do the same thing as the above command

:open google&*<CR> " Again, same as above

:open google!& " Here, the & flag will cancel out the ! flag,
               " opening Google in a new inactive tab

" More examples
:bookmarks my_bookmark.com&  " inactive,new tab
:bookmarks&* my_bookmark.com " inactive,pinned,new tab
:bookmarks! my_bookmark.com  " new tab
:bookmarks$ my_bookmark.com  " new window
:bookmarks my_bookmark.com   " same tab

Code blocks

• Code blocks allow you to interact with cVim's content scripts via the cVimrc.
• Since code blocks use eval(...), you should only use them if you know what you're doing.

" To be used by the code block
set hintset_a

" Create a code block named switchHintCharacters
switchHintCharacters -> {{
  // We are now in JavaScript mode

  // Settings are contained in an object named settings
  settings.hintset_a = !settings.hintset_a;
  if (settings.hintset_a) {
    settings.hintcharacters = 'abc'; // equivalent to "let hintcharacters = 'abc'"
  } else {
    settings.hintcharacters = 'xyz';
  }

  // Propagate the current settings to all tabs for the
  // rest of the session
  PORT('syncSettings', { settings: settings });

  // Display cVim's status bar for 2 seconds.
  Status.setMessage('Hint Set: ' + (true ? 'a' : 'b'), 2);
}}

" Run the JavaScript block
map <Tab> :call switchHintCharacters<CR>

Completion Engines

• These are a list of completion engines that can be used in the command bar. They can be set by assigning their names to an array with the completionengines variable.
  • google, wikipedia, youtube, imdb, amazon, google-maps, wolframalpha, google-image, ebay, webster, wictionary, urbandictionary, duckduckgo, answers, google-trends, google-finance, yahoo, bing, themoviedb
• Example usage:

  let completionengines = ['google', 'google-image', 'youtube'] " Show only these engines in the command bar

Keybindings

Command Mode

Tips

• You can use @% in "open" commands to specify the current URL. For example, :open @% would essentially refresh the current page.
• Prepend a number to the command to repeat that command N times
• Use the up/down arrows in command/find mode to navigate through previously executed commands/searches -- you can also use this to search for previously executed commands starting with a certain combination of letters (for example, entering ta in the command bar and pressing the up arrow will search command history for all matches beginning with ta

Contributing

Nice that you want to spend some time improving this extension. Solving issues is always appreciated. If you're going to add a feature, it would be best to submit an issue. You'll get feedback whether it will likely be merged.

1. Run npm install in the repository's root folder
2. Run make
3. Navigate to chrome://extensions
4. Toggle into Developer Mode
5. Click on "Load Unpacked Extension..."
6. Select the cVim directory.