Mark : Highlight several words in different colors simultaneously (Ingo Karkat)
This is a mirror of http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2666
created by
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Ingo Karkat
script type
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utility
description
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This plugin adds mappings and a `:Mark` command to highlight several words in
different colors simultaneously, similar to the built-in `hlsearch`
highlighting of search results and the `*` command. For example, when you
are browsing a big program file, you could highlight multiple identifiers in
parallel. This will make it easier to trace the source code.
This is a continuation of vimscript #1238 by Yuheng Xie, who doesn't maintain
his original version anymore and recommends switching to this fork. This
plugin offers the following advantages over the original:
- Much faster, all colored words can now be highlighted, no more clashes with
syntax highlighting (due to use of matchadd()).
- Many bug fixes.
- Jumps behave like the built-in search, including wrap and error messages.
- Like the built-in commands, jumps take an optional [count] to quickly skip
over some marks.
- Marks can be persisted, and patterns can be added / subtracted from
mark highlight groups.
SEE ALSO
- SearchAlternatives.vim (vimscript #4146) provides mappings and commands to
add and subtract alternative branches to the current search pattern.
- SearchHighlighting.vim (vimscript #4320) can change the semantics of the
start command *, extends it to visual mode (like Mark) and has auto-search
functionality which instantly highlights the word under the cursor when
typing or moving around, like in many IDEs.
RELATED WORKS
- MultipleSearch (vimscript #479) can highlight in a single window and in all
buffers, but still relies on the :syntax highlighting method, which is
slower and less reliable.
- http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Highlight_multiple_words offers control over the
color used by mapping the 1-9 keys on the numeric keypad, persistence, and
highlights only a single window.
- highlight.vim (vimscript #1599) highlights lines or patterns of interest in
different colors, using mappings that start with CTRL-H and work on cword.
- quickhl.vim (vimscript #3692) can also list the matches with colors and in
addition offers on-the-fly highlighting of the current word (like many IDEs
do).
- Highlight (http://www.drchip.org/astronaut/vim/index.html#HIGHLIGHT) has
commands and mappings for highlighting and searching, uses matchadd(), but
limits the scope of highlightings to the current window.
- TempKeyword (vimscript #4636) is a simple plugin that can matchadd() the
word under the cursor with \0 - \9 mappings. (And clear with \c0 etc.)
- simple_highlighting (vimscript #4688) has commands and mappings to highlight
8 different slots in all buffers.
- searchmatch (vimscript #4869) has commands and mappings for :[1,2,3]match,
in the current window only.
HIGHLIGHTING
<Leader>m Mark the word under the cursor, similar to the star
command. The next free highlight group is used.
If already on a mark: Clear the mark, like
<Leader>n.
{Visual}<Leader>m Mark or unmark the visual selection.
[N]<Leader>m With [N], mark the word under the cursor with the
named highlight group [N]. When that group is not
empty, the word is added as an alternative match, so
you can highlight multiple words with the same color.
When the word is already contained in the list of
alternatives, it is removed.
When [N] is greater than the number of defined mark
groups, a summary of marks is printed. Active mark
groups are prefixed with "*" (or "M*" when there are
M pattern alternatives), the default next group with
">", the last used search with "/" (like :Marks
does). Input the mark group, accept the default with
<CR>, or abort with <Esc> or any other key.
This way, when unsure about which number represents
which color, just use 99<Leader>n and pick the color
interactively!
{Visual}[N]<Leader>m Ditto, based on the visual selection.
[N]<Leader>r Manually input a regular expression to mark.
{Visual}[N]<Leader>r Ditto, based on the visual selection.
<Leader>n Clear the mark under the cursor.
If not on a mark: Disable all marks, similar to
:nohlsearch.
[N]<Leader>n Clear the marks represented by highlight group [N].
:[N]Mark Clear the marks represented by highlight group [N].
:[N]Mark[!] {pattern} Mark or unmark {pattern}. Unless [N] is given, the
next free highlight group is used for marking.
With [N], mark {pattern} with the named highlight
group [N]. When that group is not empty, the word is
added as an alternative match, so you can highlight
multiple words with the same color, unless [!] is
given; then, {pattern} overrides the existing mark.
When the word is already contained in the list of
alternatives, it is removed.
For implementation reasons, {pattern} cannot use the
'smartcase' setting, only 'ignorecase'.
:Mark Disable all marks, similar to :nohlsearch. Marks
will automatically re-enable when a mark is added or
removed, or a search for marks is performed.
:MarkClear Clear all marks. In contrast to disabling marks, the
actual mark information is cleared, the next mark will
use the first highlight group. This cannot be undone.
SEARCHING
[count]* [count]#
[count]<Leader>* [count]<Leader>#
[count]<Leader>/ [count]<Leader>?
Use these six keys to jump to the [count]'th next /
previous occurrence of a mark.
You could also use Vim's / and ? to search, since the
mark patterns are (optionally, see configuration)
added to the search history, too.
Cursor over mark Cursor not over mark
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<Leader>* Jump to the next occurrence of Jump to the next occurrence of
current mark, and remember it "last mark".
as "last mark".
<Leader>/ Jump to the next occurrence of Same as left.
ANY mark.
* If <Leader>* is the most recently Do Vim's original * command.
used, do a <Leader>*; otherwise
(<Leader>/ is the most recently
used), do a <Leader>/.
If you work with multiple highlight groups and assign special meaning to them
(e.g. group 1 for notable functions, 2 for variables, 3 for includes), you can
use the 1-9 keys on the numerical keypad to jump to occurrences of a
particular highlight group. With the general * and # commands above, you'd
first need to locate a nearby occurrence of the desired highlight group if
it's not the last mark used.
<k1> .. <k9> Jump to the [count]'th next occurrence of the mark
belonging to highlight group 1..9.
<C-k1> .. <C-k9> Jump to the [count]'th previous occurrence of the mark
belonging to highlight group 1..9.
Note that these commands only work when the "Num Lock"
indicator of your keyboard is ON; otherwise, the
keypad is used for cursor movement.
MARK PERSISTENCE
The marks can be kept and restored across Vim sessions, using the viminfo
file. For this to work, the "!" flag must be part of the 'viminfo' setting:
set viminfo+=! " Save and restore global variables.
:MarkLoad Restore the marks from the previous Vim session. All
current marks are discarded.
:MarkLoad {slot} Restore the marks stored in the named {slot}. All
current marks are discarded.
:MarkSave Save the currently defined marks (or clear the
persisted marks if no marks are currently defined) for
use in a future Vim session.
:MarkSave {slot} Save the currently defined marks in the named {slot}.
If {slot} is all UPPERCASE, the marks are persisted
and can be |:MarkLoad|ed in a future Vim session;
otherwise, you can just recall within the current
session. When no marks are currently defined, the
{slot} is cleared.
MARK INFORMATION
Both mark-highlighting and mark-searching commands print information about
the mark and search pattern, e.g.
mark-1/\<pattern\>
This is especially useful when you want to add or subtract patterns to a mark
highlight group via [N].
:Marks List all mark highlight groups and the search patterns
defined for them.
The group that will be used for the next :Mark or
<Leader>m command (with [N]) is shown with a ">".
The last mark used for a search (via <Leader>*) is
shown with a "/".
MARK HIGHLIGHTING PALETTES
The plugin comes with three predefined palettes: original, extended, and
maximum. You can dynamically toggle between them, e.g. when you need more
marks or a different set of colors.
:MarkPalette {palette} Highlight existing and future marks with the colors
defined in {palette}. If the new palette contains less
mark groups than the current one, the additional marks
are lost.
You can use :command-completion for {palette}.
install details
INSTALLATION
This script is packaged as a vimball. If you have the "gunzip" decompressor
in your PATH, simply edit the *.vmb.gz package in Vim; otherwise, decompress
the archive first, e.g. using WinZip. Inside Vim, install by sourcing the
vimball or via the :UseVimball command.
vim mark*.vmb.gz
:so %
To uninstall, use the :RmVimball command.
DEPENDENCIES
- Requires Vim 7.1 with matchadd(), or Vim 7.2 or higher.
CONFIGURATION
For a permanent configuration, put the following commands into your vimrc.
This plugin defines 6 mark groups:
1: Cyan 2:Green 3:Yellow 4:Red 5:Magenta 6:Blue
Higher numbers always take precedence and are displayed above lower ones.
Especially if you use GVIM, you can switch to a richer palette of up to 18
colors:
let g:mwDefaultHighlightingPalette = 'extended'
Or, if you have both good eyes and display, you can try a palette that defines
27, 58, or even 77 colors, depending on the number of available colors:
let g:mwDefaultHighlightingPalette = 'maximum'
If you like the additional colors, but don't need that many of them, restrict
their number via:
let g:mwDefaultHighlightingNum = 9
If none of the default highlightings suits you, define your own colors in your
vimrc file (or anywhere before this plugin is sourced, but after any
:colorscheme), in the following form (where N = 1..):
highlight MarkWordN ctermbg=Cyan ctermfg=Black guibg=#8CCBEA guifg=Black
You can also use this form to redefine only some of the default highlightings.
If you want to avoid losing the highlightings on :colorscheme commands, you
need to re-apply your highlights on the ColorScheme event, similar to how
this plugin does. Or you define the palette not via :highlight commands, but
use the plugin's infrastructure:
let g:mwDefaultHighlightingPalette = [
\ { 'ctermbg':'Cyan', 'ctermfg':'Black', 'guibg':'#8CCBEA', 'guifg':'Black' },
\ ...
\]
If you want to switch multiple palettes during runtime, you need to define
them as proper palettes:
let g:mwPalettes['mypalette'] = [
\ { 'ctermbg':'Cyan', 'ctermfg':'Black', 'guibg':'#8CCBEA', 'guifg':'Black' },
\ ...
\]
let g:mwPalettes['other'] = [ ... ]
let g:mwDefaultHighlightingPalette = 'mypalette'
To add your palette to the existing ones, do this after the default palette
has been defined, e.g. in .vim/after/plugin/mark.vim). Alternatively, you can
also completely redefine all available palettes in .vimrc.
The search type highlighting (in the search message) can be changed via:
highlight link SearchSpecialSearchType MoreMsg
By default, any marked words are also added to the search (/) and input (@)
history; if you don't want that, remove the corresponding symbols from:
let g:mwHistAdd = '/@'
To enable the automatic restore of marks from a previous Vim session:
let g:mwAutoLoadMarks = 1
To turn off the automatic persistence of marks across Vim sessions:
let g:mwAutoSaveMarks = 0
You can still explicitly save marks via :MarkSave.
If you have set 'ignorecase', but want marks to be case-insensitive, you can
override the default behavior of using 'ignorecase' by setting:
let g:mwIgnoreCase = 0
You can use different mappings by mapping to the <Plug>Mark... mappings (use
":map <Plug>Mark" to list them all) before this plugin is sourced.
There are no default mappings for toggling all marks and for the :MarkClear
command, but you can define some yourself:
nmap <Leader>M <Plug>MarkToggle
nmap <Leader>N <Plug>MarkAllClear
To remove the default overriding of * and #, use:
nmap <Plug>IgnoreMarkSearchNext <Plug>MarkSearchNext
nmap <Plug>IgnoreMarkSearchPrev <Plug>MarkSearchPrev
If you don't want the * and # mappings remember the last search type and
instead always search for the next occurrence of the current mark, with a
fallback to Vim's original * command, use:
nmap * <Plug>MarkSearchOrCurNext
nmap # <Plug>MarkSearchOrCurPrev
The search mappings (*, #, etc.) interpret [count] as the number of
occurrences to jump over. If you don't want to use the separate
mark-keypad-searching mappings, and rather want [count] select the highlight
group to target (and you can live with jumps restricted to the very next
match), (re-)define to these mapping targets:
nmap * <Plug>MarkSearchGroupNext
nmap # <Plug>MarkSearchGroupPrev
You can remap the direct group searches (by default via the keypad 1-9 keys):
nmap <Leader>1 <Plug>MarkSearchGroup1Next
nmap <Leader>! <Plug>MarkSearchGroup1Prev
If you need more / less groups, this can be configured via:
let g:mwDirectGroupJumpMappingNum = 20
Set to 0 to completely turn off the keypad mappings. This is easier than
remapping all <Plug>-mappings.
Some people like to create a mark based on the visual selection, like
v_<Leader>m, but have whitespace in the selection match any whitespace when
searching (searching for "hello world" will also find "hello<Tab>world" as
well as "hello" at the end of a line, with "world" at the start of the next
line). The Vim Tips Wiki describes such a setup for the built-in search at
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Search_for_visually_selected_text
You can achieve the same with the Mark plugin through the <Plug>MarkIWhiteSet
mapping target: Using this, you can assign a new visual mode mapping <Leader>*
xmap <Leader>* <Plug>MarkIWhiteSet
or override the default v_<Leader>m mapping, in case you always want this
behavior:
vmap <Plug>IgnoreMarkSet <Plug>MarkSet
xmap <Leader>m <Plug>MarkIWhiteSet
INTEGRATION
The following functions offer (read-only) access to the number of marks and
individual patterns:
- mark#GetNum()
- mark#GetPattern([{index}])