Vim Macros for Beancount | Hacker News Reader

Vim Macros for Beancount

tangled.sh

57 pointsxarcolade17 comments

Hello! Sharing on HN is a first for me. When I wrote this I thought I was producing something with a steady enough on-ramp that someone could follow along with a little bit of sustained curiosity. After sharing it with some friends I realise it might still be a steeper/poorly constructed ramp than I initially thought. Either way I'd love to hear from you if you found this interesting!

Very cool! A while ago i did something similar and tried to learn vim more in depth by creating some more complex macros - several of them, to convert some text snippets into markdown. Problem was, that several months later i could not exactly remember some details of these "reusable" macros - where exactly to place cursor when starting them, the order of execution and so on. Thankfully, vim has the amazing ability to run commands/script on text selection, so i rewrote my macros in a scripting language. It has several bonus points: i can store them in git and track changes, code can be self-documented via comments. My macros were not too complex, but still, using a proper scripting ended up being much better.

Macroing Tip: whenever possible start a macro with a motion that will move the cursor to a known location. E.g. for line-oriented macros use "0" and for paragraph oriented macros use "}{". Then the macro will work regardless of where you put the cursor.

Perfect! Great advice

Insightful! I have had the same issue with forgetting where exactly I need the cursor. I did not know you could run script/commands on text selection, I will definitely look into this. The extent of my vimscript journey so far is directly making system() calls to external scripts, and I've been using the ability to Ctrl-R while entering a :command to dump yanked text as a crutch. Your approach sounds much more sensible.

Glad you find it useful. Below is an example script to demonstrate the concept. It is awesomely powerful. In vim, select some text and do this:

  :'<,'>! ./example.py

  #!/bin/env python3
  #:'<,'>! ./example.py # ← this is how to use it
  import sys
  data = sys.stdin.readlines()
  for l in data:
    l = l.replace("a", "e").rstrip()
    print(l)

Also check out beancount-mode for emacs: https://github.com/beancount/beancount-mode

I've been struggling to on-ramp and sustain using Emacs for a while now. The paradigm shift from vim for me is frustratingly vast. I know I just need to give it the same patience I gave vim many years ago :)

Was in the same boat as you a couple of years ago. Now I use both daily. eMacs for GTD and vim for coding. I don’t like using a system without both installed :)

I really wanted to like the vim-beancount plugin but it's just too buggy for me, so I've always just come crawling back to beancount-mode in emacs. It's the only thing I use emacs for and I use evil mode for vim keybindings :)

Just wanted to chime in on my beancount workflow, which you may also want to check out.

I also use vim, and I use it a bit to edit my beancount files, but I mostly use fava, a most excellent web interface for beancount. In addition to having a built in editor (which does formatting and can catch errors and show you exactly where they are), it allows you to quickly add new transactions based on old ones — the dialog box allows you to choose from previously used accounts to speed up input. It’s a lifesaver. I don’t think I would have continued using beancount long term if it wasn’t for fava.

Just about the only negative thing I can say about fava is that it does formatting slightly differently from bean-format. I actually prefer it to beancount, but there are some cases where I prefer the native formatting (like when declaring/opening accounts). So for some months, I will switch from one to another. A minor nitpick, but it’s slightly annoying.

Fava is great. My only problem is that I was lazy and haven't imported anything for at least 2 years, and now it feels too daunting to try and catch up.

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