transcribe.nvim

Transcribe is a NeoVim plugin aimed at helping humans to transcribe recondings to text.

Warning : this project is still in a very early stage of development. It's not feature complete yet and you can expect breaking changes.

Table of contents

• Features
• Installation
• Quick start
  • Playback control
  • Progress and time codes
  • Mappings
• Why?

Features

• Control media playback directly from NeoVim rather than juggling with another software in the background and using media keys
  • Load media (local file or remote URL), play and pause
  • Set playback speed
  • Seek forward or backward
• Time code management:
  • Insert current time position in the buffer
  • Directly go to time code under the cursor / on the current line
• Sync mode:
  • Always keep the playback in sync with your position in the file, using time codes.

Installation

Using vim-plug:

Plug 'gaalcaras/transcribe.nvim', { 'do': 'make install' }

Transcribe relies on mpv and python-mpv for media playback. Run make install to make sure they are both installed, or install them manually. Don't forget to run :UpdateRemotePlugins and restart NeoVim to properly install or update the plugin.

Quick start

This is a quick introduction to the plugin. Please read the documentation for an exhaustive overview of the plugin.

First things first: load a local file or an URL.

:TranscribeAudio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8NPllzkFhE

Playback should start automatically. Transcribe will then load commands and mappings.

Playback control

• Pause or resume playback using the command :TranscribePause
• Increase/decrease playback speed by 0.1 increments with :TranscribeSpeedInc/:TranscribeSpeedDec or directly set it with :TranscribeSpeedSet 0.8
• Seek forward/backward by 15 seconds increments with :TranscribeSeekForward/:TranscribeSeekBackward or directly set it with : :TranscribeSeek -34

Progress and time codes

• See where you are in media playback with :TranscribeProgress
• Jump to time code with :TranscribeGoto 00:34:23
• Toggle sync mode on/off with :TranscribeSyncMode

Mappings

Mapping	Action	Mode	Plug
<leader><space>	Pause/Resume	Normal	<plug>(transcribe-toggle-pause)
<C-space>	Pause/Resume	Insert	<plug>(transcribe-toggle-pause)
<leader>k	Increase speed by 0.1	Normal	<plug>(transcribe-speed-inc)
<C-k>	Increase speed by 0.1	Insert	<plug>(transcribe-speed-inc)
<leader>j	Decrease speed by 0.1	Normal	<plug>(transcribe-speed-dec)
<C-j>	Decrease speed by 0.1	Insert	<plug>(transcribe-speed-dec)
<leader>l	Seek forward by 15s	Normal	<plug>(transcribe-seek-forward)
<C-l>	Seek forward by 15s	Insert	<plug>(transcribe-seek-forward)
<leader>h	Seek backward by 15s	Normal	<plug>(transcribe-seek-backward)
<C-h>	Seek backward by 15s	Insert	<plug>(transcribe-seek-backward)
<leader>p	See playback progress	Normal	<plug>(transcribe-progress)
<C-t>	Insert current time position	Insert	<plug>(transcribe-timepos-get)
<leader>gw	Go to time code under cursor	Normal	<plug>(transcribe-timepos-curword)
<leader>gl	Go to first time code on current line	Normal	<plug>(transcribe-timepos-curline)
<C-l>	Go to first time code on current line	Insert	<plug>(transcribe-timepos-curline)
<leader>ms	Toggle sync mode on/off	Normal	<plug>(transcribe-sync-mode)

Why?

As far as I know, no plugin implements transcription features properly in vim or NeoVim, probably because the intersection between vim users and transcription work is very thin.

While I have found some projects with the same goal as Transcribe, they all relied on mpv's slave mode. Even though slave mode is hackable and fun, I found it unreliable when used repeatedly. NeoVim remote plugin allows Transcribe to communicate with mpv asynchronously through the API.