UltiSnips – Snippet Solution for Vim | Hacker News Reader

UltiSnips – Snippet Solution for Vim

github.com

35 pointshggh20 comments

If you're using Neovim, check out LuaSnip: https://github.com/L3MON4D3/LuaSnip

My go to these days has been https://github.com/hrsh7th/vim-vsnip. It is compatible with LSP and VSCode snippet format. Since it is in pure VimScript you don’t need to battle configuring python just to get the plug-in to work.

Ugh, this format is just hostile to bigger snippets and snippet-rich approach.

That said, it was vscode experience. Pretty sure I can easily create a couple of vim macros for [un]jsoning lines, so maybe it’s worth comparing vs snipmate.

I might be old fashioned, but I think that if you learn the Vim way you'll have no use for a snippet manager. Also, that using a snippet manager will prevent you from learning the Vim way.

Could you elaborate? Are you talking about :abbreviate and such?

As a heavy vim user for years, I've found myself getting more value out of snippets as of late.

To create a box around a text without snippets, type this:

    # section #<Esc>yyP:s/./#/g<CR>yyjpo

Instead of the more convenient:

    box<CTRL-X><CTRL-J>section<CTRL-J>

And to insert the current date and time in ISO 8601 format, type this:

    <Esc>:Man strftime<CR><CTRL-F><Repeat last key 7 times to scroll through the man page>:q<CR>gi=strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z")<CR>

Instead of this:

    iso8601<CTRL-X><CTRL-J>

To complete long snippets of text, type this:

    <Esc>:r path/to/snippet.txt<CR>kJ/<placeholder><CR>cgn<replacement text 1><Esc>cgn<replacement text 2><Esc>cgn

Instead of this:

    snippet<CTRL-X><CTRL-J><replacement text><CTRL-J><replacement text 1><CTRL-J><replacement text 2><CTRL-J>

The last one might not sound so bad until you realize that you can't have dynamic content in snippets, can't go back to previous placeholders without undoing every change made along the way, can't treat two different placeholders as being equivalent, and most importantly, can't reuse countless useful snippets made by the community.

Support for plugins is a first class feature of Vim. While I agree that being aware of the built-in features is a good thing, there's no shame in using plugins that extend Vim in a useful way.

Correction:

    <Esc>:Man strftime<CR><CTRL-F><Repeat last key 7 times to scroll through the man page>:q<CR>gi=strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z")<CR>

was supposed to be this:

    <Esc>:Man strftime<CR><CTRL-F><Repeat last key 7 times to scroll through the man page>:q<CR>gi<CTRL-R>=strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z")<CR>

:r!date -Iseconds

I wasn't familiar with gn, thanks! Using :r for snippets is neat too, if crude.

GP was clearly gatekeeping, but by asking sincerely I hoped to learn something new. And so I have!

All the best.

I’m using snippets all the time, e.g. there are snippets for express app, telegraf bot, Intl stuff, frontend boilerplates, etc etc. I could map or abbr these and map placeholder jumps, but that quickly becomes unmaintainable and typo-prone. Snippets are great in that you can just paste existing code and parametrize it, then update when needed.

Also I dislike the fact that you have to actively prevent these expansions instead of actively triggering them.

Which vim way are you refering to? I'd like to check it out but I have no idea what to look for.

Apologies, I haven't logged in for a while. This article by Drew Neil explains it better than I ever could:

http://vimcasts.org/blog/2012/08/on-sharpening-the-saw/

I wonder how the health of this project will be affected by cody/copilot? Genuinely wondering if it's wort spending time setting up ultisnips vs. learning to use copilot well.

Like, I prefer to have my own snippets and set them up the way I want, but hey - the convenience of LLMs... idk

I like using UltiSnips to easily write lengthy commands, when typesetting mathematical notes using Vim as a text editor for the LaTeX software.

For example, if I want to add an image to a document, the necessary full command to type this might be `\includegraphics[scale=0.5]{Image_file_name}`, which is a lot to type for image-heavy documents.

But with UltiSnips, I can write any shortcut (e.g. by typing `img` and pressing the `Tab` key or alternatively letting it auto-complete depending on my snippet setting), then the whole command is typed out: `\includegraphics[scale=0.5]{$1}$0`. My cursor would immediately be placed at the $1 position, and pressing the `Tab` key would take me outside to the $0 position, so I can keep typing.

It's simple and predictable for myself as a user to easily write the full command, whereas I predict that a solution that uses an large language model (LLM) for this context may add complexity without making the task easier for my purposes (though LLM-based software may be more useful in other contexts).

It isn't worth considering LLMs for code, and I don't think they can ever solve the issue in a way that satisfies all the legal and ethical constraints.

Also, why wouldn't you just use both? Snippets let you quickly use known patterns, LLMs let you quickly write the more generic case of boilerplate that doesn't align well with snippet use.

Snippets are deterministic, so you can use them without having to check their output.

that's valid

One of these things needs an internet connection to function. The other does not.

point for utilsnips

There's plenty of snippets that are well known per language/framework, and might as well be instant AND consistent instead of spinning on an API call.

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