zettel.vim 🔗

A plugin to hyperlink files, facilitating your Zettelkasten or Antinet or some other esoteric note-taking-knowledge-building system you may have.

Index

• Introduction
• Installation
• Key Bindings
• Commands
• Menu
• Global Variables
• Field Values

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Introduction

Essentially what this plugin does is help you create hyperlinks and jump across files that you edit in vim.

It does this by making use of vim's tag functionality (see :h tag) which is used to mark locations in a file. Generally you need a tool such as ctags to generate a populated tagfile. This helps you create your own tags and tagfiles and jump around the marked files using FZF.

There are two concepts used here:

1. tag: this marks a location in a file.
2. taglink: this points to a tag from another location.

Tags aren't visible in a file; taglinks are visible in a file, by default they have the following format z://[tagfile]/[tagname].

Usage

A simple way of using this plugin is:

1. Mark a location (A) using a tag (<leader>zi).
2. Place a taglink (<leader>zl) at another location (B).
3. Press Ctrl-] on the taglink (at B) it will jump to the tag (at A).
4. Pressing Ctrl-T will jump back (to B).

The locations (A, B) mentioned above can belong to the same file or different files.

Installation

This plugin makes use of FZF, check this md file if you haven't set it up for vim yet.

Using vim-plug

call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')
" ...
Plug '18alantom/zettel.vim'
" ...
call plug#end()

Key Bindings

These keybindings call commands defined by the plugin, some of which expect args. For more details on the commands, check the Commands section.

Binding	What it does
<leader>zi	Calls ZettelInsertTag which will insert a tag into a tag file. *
<leader>zj	Calls ZettelListTags, which will open an FZF window listing all the tags. <Enter> will select a tag and will open it in the current window.
<leader>zl	Calls ZettelInsertTagLink which will open an FZF window listing all the tags. Selected tag will cause its taglink to be inserted at the cursor position.
<leader>zd	Calls ZettelDeleteTag which will open a multiselect (using <Tab>) FZF window. Selected tags will be deleted forever.
<leader>zm	Runs the :emenu command for Zettel's commands, <Tab> completion and cursor keys can be used for navigating the menu, <enter> will it.
<C-]>	Jump to from taglink under cursor to a tag. If a taglink is not found then it falls back to default behaviour.

* requires args.

Note: The <leader> key by default is \, to change it to <space> you can add this let mapleader = "\<Space>" to your .vimrc. For more infor check :h leader or this SO post.

Prevent Default Bindings

To not use the default key bindings add this line to your .vimrc:

let g:zettel_prevent_default_bindings = 1

If you don't want to use the default bindings but still keep the Ctrl-] behaviour then add this to your .vimrc:

function s:OverloadCtrlSqBracket()
  let l:zettel_jump = zettel#tagLinkJump()
  if l:zettel_jump == 2
    return
  endif

  if !l:zettel_jump
    execute "normal!\<C-]>"
  endif
endfunction
nnoremap <silent> <C-]> :call <SID>OverloadCtrlSqBracket()<CR>

Commands

ZettelCreateNewTagFile

Creates a new tag file at g:zettel_root. Field values are optional.

• format — ZettelCreateNewTagFile {tagfile} [{field}={value}]
• example — :ZettelCreateNewTagFile recipes togit=0
  • A tag file named "recipes" is created with togit field value set to 0.

ZettelInsertTag

Inserts a tag into the specified tag file file. If tag file is not provided g:zettel_unscoped_tagfile_name is used. If the provided tag file doesn't exist then it is created first.

• format — ZettelInsertTag [{tagname|tagfile/tagname|@tagfile}] [{field}={value}]
• example — :ZettelInsertTag recipes/lasagne
  • A tag name "lasagne" is added to the tag file "recipes"

ZettelListTags

Opens an FZF window listing all the tags across all the tag files. On selection by typing <Enter>, the file pointed to by the tag is opened in the current window. Displayed tags can be filtered by tagfiles by adding them after the command.

• format — :ZettelListTags [tagfile_1] [tagfile_2] [...]
• example — :ZettelListTags recipes
  • All tags in the tagfile "recipes" is listed out in an FZF window.

ZettelInsertTagLink

Opens an FZF window listing all the tags across all the tag files. On selection by typing <Enter>, a taglink to the selected tag is inserted after the cursor.

• format — :ZettelInsertTagLink

ZettelDeleteTag

Opens an FZF window listing all the tags across all the tag files. Multiple tags can be selected by typing <Tab> or a single on by typing <Enter> for deletion. Displayed tags can be filtered by tagfiles by adding them after the command.

• format — :ZettelDeleteTag [tagfile_1] [tagfile_2] [...]
• example — :ZettelDeleteTag recipes
  • All tags in the tagfile "recipes" is listed out in an FZF window for deletion.

ZettelListTagLinks

Opens an FZF window listing all the inserted taglinks. Selecting a taglink will open the file containing the taglink in the current window.

• format — :ZettelListTagLinks

ZettelListTagsInThisFile

Opens an FZF window listing all the tags in the file related to the open buffer. On selection by typing <Enter>, the file pointed to by the tag is opened in the current window.

• format — :ZettelListTagsInThisFile

ZettelListTagLinksInThisFile

Opens an FZF window listing all the taglinks in the file related to the open buffer. On selection by typing <Enter>, the file containing the taglink is opened in the current window.

• format — :ZettelListTagLinksInThisFile

ZettelListTagLinksToATag

Opens an FZF window listing all the tags, on selecting a tag a new FZF window opens up showing all the taglinks that link to the selected tag. Displayed tags can be filtered by tagfiles by adding them after the command.

• format — :ZettelListTagLinksToATag [tagfile_1] [tagfile_2] [...]
• example — :ZettelListTagLinksToATag recipes
  • All tags in the tagfile "recipes" is listed out in an FZF window on selecting one of them all taglinks to that tag are displayed.

ZettelDeleteTagFile

Opens an FZF window with all the tag files, also showing the number of tags and taglinks linked to these tags in each file. Multiple tagfiles can be selected by typing <Tab>. Typing <Enter> will delete the selected tagfiles. Taglinks to these tags will have to be manually removed, this is by design to prevent editing user files.

• format — :ZettelDeleteTagFile

Menu

You can use the menu to access plugin commands. The menu can be invoked by using <leader>zm and supports <Tab> completion.

Global Variables

List of global variables used by zettel.vim that can be changed in the .vimrc to override default behaviour.

Variable	Default	What it does
g:zettel_root	$HOME/.zettel	Location where all the tagfiles are stored.
g:zettel_prevent_default_bindings	0	Setting this will prevent default keybindings from being set.
g:zettel_unscoped_tagfile_name	tags	Location of tags where a tag file isn't provided on insertion.
g:zettel_default_field_togit	1	Used to set tag file level togit field value.
g:zettel_taglink_prefix	"z://"	Used to identify a taglink by prefixing it.
g:zettel_confirm_before_overwrite	0	If a duplicate tag is found in a tagfile, setting this to 1 will cause zettel to confirm before overwriting it.

Field Values

These are key value pairs set for each tag file or tag.

togit

To mark files that have to be added to a bare git repository. All tags in a file where togit is set to 1 will be added unless overridden by a tag level togit.

This hasn't been implemented yet. No plans to do so as of now, but seems useful so may add it in later.

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For more info type :h zettel in vim.