vim-autolist

A plugin that automatically continues lists.

When typing out a list, going to the next line will automatically insert your list marker.

Installation

You can install with Vundle or similar plugin managers using:

    Plugin 'bradford-smith94/vim-autolist'

Or you can use the Pathogen method:

    cd ~/.vim/bundle
    git clone git://github.com/bradford-smith94/vim-autolist.git

Once installed and help tags have been generated you can read the help with :help autolist.

Usage

This plugin exposes normal mode mappings:

    <Plug>AutolistNewLineAbove
    <Plug>AutolistNewLineBelow
    <Plug>AutolistReturn

These need to be mapped to keys in order to be used.

A sample mapping example would be:

    "these are mapped for all filetypes all the time
    imap <CR> <Esc><Plug>AutolistReturn
    nmap o <Plug>AutolistNewLineBelow
    nmap O <Plug>AutolistNewLineAbove

Note: using the noremap family of mappings will NOT work because Vim needs to remap the command in order for the <Plug> style mappings to work.

This example makes the Enter key in insert mode call autolist as well as the o and O keys in normal mode, so that while you are normally typing out a list autolist will work automatically.

Configuration

In order to enable this plugin for specific filetypes you can make your mapping inside an autocmd; for example, the following makes a buffer local mapping for the enter key only in markdown files:

    autocmd Filetype markdown imap <buffer> <CR> <Esc><Plug>AutolistReturn

The other way to make filetype specific mappings would be to put the mapping in an ftplugin file.

    "in ~/.vim/ftplugin/markdown.vim
    imap <buffer> <CR> <Esc><Plug>AutolistReturn

Defining Custom Markers

The list markers that are detected by autolist can be configured. The following variables will set the recognized markers for ordered and unordered lists respectively, their default values are shown. Override these in your vimrc or other configuration file to change what markers autolist will recognize.

    g:autolist_numbered_markers = ['#.', '#)', '#-']
    g:autolist_unordered_markers = ['-', '*', '+']

Numbered markers must contain a # character, this is where autolist will insert the list item number.

If your marker needs to have a \ in it then you need to place two in a row (\\), this properly escapes it so that autolist can use it as a regular expression in order to recognize it.

Markers must not have the value emptylistitem (and why would they anyway?) this is the value autolist uses to internally recognize when it matches an empty item (line with just a marker and whitespace) so that it can delete it automatically.

Buffer Local Markers

List markers can also be defined buffer-locally using b:autolist_numbered_markers and b:autolist_unordered_markers. These variables have the same syntax as their global counterparts. By default autolist will check for buffer-local markers as well as global markers, if you only want the buffer-local ones to be checked you can define either

    g:autolist_override_global_markers = 1

or

    b:autolist_override_global_markers = 1

in order to always override or override for this buffer respectively.

Credits

I got the idea for this plugin from sedm0784's gist Vim Auto List Completion.