TITLE: FZF in vim and bash
DATE: 2021-05-05
AUTHOR: John L. Godlee
====================================================================
I took some time to get my notes in order and to properly implement
FZF, both in Bash and Vim. I have known about FZF for a long time,
and use it regularly to choose internet radio stations, but I know
that it's a very adapatable program, and I'd seen some cool FZF
applications online, so I wanted to try and use it more deeply for
myself.
[choose internet radio stations]: /2020/03/25/radio.html
First are the default variables. Like many others I use ripgrep to
list files faster within FZF. By default I choose to show hidden
files (--hidden), but exclude files inside .git directories (--glob
"!.git/*"). I enable multi-selection with (-m) and enable ANSI
colour codes (--ansi). These variables live in my ~/.bashrc.
[ripgrep]:
https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep
export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='rg --files --hidden --glob
"!.git/*"'
export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS="-m --ansi"
I have a file-picker script, which smply lists files in the
directory tree, with a preview window:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
files=($(fzf \
--query="$1" \
--multi \
--select-1 \
--exit-0 \
--preview='bat --color=always --line-range=:100 {}' \
--preview-window 'right:50%:sharp:+{2}-/3:~3'))
[ -n "$files" ]] && ${EDITOR:-vim} "${files[@
I have the same functionality in vim using junegunn/fzf.vim, with
nnoremap <Leader>p :Files<CR>, like the old ctrl-p plugin.
I have a similar script which instead searches both the contents
and names of files:
files=($(rg --line-number --no-heading --color=always
--smart-case --hidden --glob "!.git/*" "${*:-}" |
fzf \
--multi \
--delimiter=: \
--preview='bat --color=always {1} --highlight-line={2}' \
--preview-window 'right:50%:sharp:+{2}-/3:~3' |
sed 's/:.*//'))
[ -n "$files" ]] && ${EDITOR} "${files[@
In vim this is accomplished by nnoremap <Leader>f :Rg<CR>.
A neat extra feature I have in vim is to search from the root of a
git repository:
command! -bang -nargs=* ProjRg
\ call fzf#vim#grep(
\ "rg --column --line-number --no-heading --color=always
--smart-case --hidden --glob \"!.git/*\" --
".shellescape(<q-args>), 1,
\ fzf#vim#with_preview({'dir': systemlist('git rev-parse
--show-toplevel')[0]}), <bang>0)
nnoremap <Leader>g :ProjRg<CR>
This bash script searches the macOS Applications directory to allow
me to open GUI apps from the terminal:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
open "$(find /Applications -name '*app' -maxdepth 1 |\
sed 's|\/Applications\/\(.*\).app|\1|' |\
fzf |\
sed 's|$|.app|' |\
sed 's|^|\/Applications\/|')"
