A vim plugin that provides hyperlinks for text files (a la textlink) and a browsing history. Written mainly in Python.
Your Vim must support Python scripts. Either Python2 or Python3 should be fine.
Unix-type operating systems: Place navi.vim and navi.py in your global vim plugin directory or in ~/.vim/plugin/navi to install just for your own user account.
If you are using git you can simply git clone https://github.com/alexvoss/navi.git You might want to watch the repository to be notified of updates.
Windows: Place navi.vim and navi.py in ... or in ...
The simplest usage is to create a link to a section in the current file. Links are delimited by the caret character (^) and can contain arbitrary text. The plugin will search the current file for this string from the top (ignoring the links of course). For example, here is a link to ^USAGE^, the section heading above. It is up to you, the user, to provide suitable target that are unique within the file. With the default key mapping, in command mode, place the cursor over the link above and hit the backquote character (`) on your keyboard in normal mode. The cursor should jump to the heading of this section.
Links can also go to external files, which will be opened in a vertical split window The plugin will detect if the file is already open and switch to the corresponding window. For example, here is a link to the python source for the plugin:
^@navi.py^
To open a specific section of this file, add the string to search for in front of the at sign (@) in the above. For example, to link to the findLink() function in the python source, use a link like this:
^def findLink@navi.py^
Navi keeps a history of locations, so it is possible to switch back to a previous location. The is done using the tilde character (~) on your keyboard in normal mode. If you have closed the window you activated a link from then the location is removed from the history without switching windows. If you have more than one window for a file, then one of them is used but not necessarily the one you used to activate the link. (fix this?)
Navi is inspired by Robert KellyIV's textlink plugin 1. It does feature some additional functionality, a syntax that I find nicer but as mainly witten as an exercise in writing vim plugins in python.
I had a look at VimScript and turned away with horror (there is a reason the standard work on this is called "Learn VimScript the Hard Way" 2. So why stick with vim? The answer is muscle memory 3 as well as the fact that vim is still one of the few text editors that allow you to get your work done without having to use the mouse (ot touch your screen), which does improve efficiency.