lightline.vim

A light and configurable statusline for Vim

https://github.com/itchyny/lightline.vim

powerline theme (default)

wombat (with the patched font)

jellybeans (with the patched font)

solarized theme (dark)

solarized theme (light)

landscape theme (with the patched font)

With branch name, read-only mark and modified mark.

landscape is my colorscheme, which is a high-contrast cui-supported colorscheme, available at https://github.com/itchyny/landscape.vim

Why yet another clone of powerline?

• vim-powerline is a nice plugin, but deprecated.
• powerline is a nice plugin, but difficult to configure.
• vim-airline is a nice plugin, but not configurable. Also, it does too much for other plugins, which should be done by users in .vimrc.

Spirit of this plugin

• Minimalism. The core script is very small.
• Configurability. You can create your own component and easily add to the statusline.
• Orthogonality. Any plugin should not change the settings of another plugin. Such a plugin-crossing setting should be written by users in .vimrc.

Author

itchyny (https://github.com/itchyny)

License

MIT License

Installation

Manually

1. Put all files under $VIM.

Vundle (https://github.com/gmarik/vundle)

1. Add the following configuration to your .vimrc.

    Bundle 'itchyny/lightline.vim'
   

2. Install with :BundleInstall.

NeoBundle (https://github.com/Shougo/neobundle.vim)

1. Add the following configuration to your .vimrc.

    NeoBundle 'itchyny/lightline.vim'
   

2. Install with :NeoBundleInstall.

Configuration tutorial

In default, the statusline looks like: If you use the wombat colorscheme, add the following setting to your .vimrc (or _vimrc on Windows):

let g:lightline = {
      \ 'colorscheme': 'wombat',
      \ }

to get:

You may think that the default read-only mark is not so cool: Then edit the readonly component. The lightline components are stored in g:lightline.component. So you add the setting of g:lightline.component.readonly in your .vimrc. (the following setting is effective with the patched font for vim-powerline):

let g:lightline = {
      \ 'colorscheme': 'wombat',
      \ 'component': {
      \   'readonly': '%{&readonly?"⭤":""}',
      \ }
      \ }

How nice!

But the boundaries are quadrilateral. You may miss the powerline. You have installed a cool font for powerlines, so you can use it.

let g:lightline = {
      \ 'colorscheme': 'wombat',
      \ 'component': {
      \   'readonly': '%{&readonly?"⭤":""}',
      \ },
      \ 'separator': { 'left': '⮀', 'right': '⮂' },
      \ 'subseparator': { 'left': '⮁', 'right': '⮃' }
      \ }

Hurrah! Cool!

If your statusline looks like: the patched font is not installed.

There are two kinds of patched fonts:

• The patched fonts for vim-powerline: see https://github.com/Lokaltog/vim-powerline/tree/develop/fontpatcher
• The patched fonts for powerline: see https://github.com/Lokaltog/powerline-fonts

Create or download a font and install it. And add the guifont setting to your .vimrc (see :help 'guifont' for more detail). If you are using the vim in a terminal, the font cannot be controlled in .vimrc. Open the setting of the terminal and select the patched font.

This tutorial is based on the former, the font for vim-powerline (Inconsolata for Powerline). If you have installed the patched font for powerline, use the following settings instead.

let g:lightline = {
      \ 'colorscheme': 'wombat',
      \ 'component': {
      \   'readonly': '%{&readonly?"":""}',
      \ },
      \ 'separator': { 'left': '', 'right': '' },
      \ 'subseparator': { 'left': '', 'right': '' }
      \ }

If you will not install a patched font, use ascii characters like:

let g:lightline = {
      \ 'colorscheme': 'wombat',
      \ 'component': {
      \   'readonly': '%{&readonly?"x":""}',
      \ },
      \ 'separator': { 'left': '', 'right': '' },
      \ 'subseparator': { 'left': '|', 'right': '|' }
      \ }

Now, let us get back to the tutorial (with the patched font for vim-powerline). You look into a help file to find the marks annoying. Help files are read-only and no-modifiable? We know that! OK, so you again edit the components.

let g:lightline = {
      \ 'colorscheme': 'wombat',
      \ 'component': {
      \   'readonly': '%{&filetype=="help"?"":&readonly?"⭤":""}',
      \   'modified': '%{&filetype=="help"?"":&modified?"+":&modifiable?"":"-"}'
      \ },
      \ 'separator': { 'left': '⮀', 'right': '⮂' },
      \ 'subseparator': { 'left': '⮁', 'right': '⮃' }
      \ }

Huh? Weird! The component does not collapse even if it has no information! In order to avoid this situation, you set expressions to g:lightline.component_visible_condition, which should become 1 only when the corresponding components have information.

let g:lightline = {
      \ 'colorscheme': 'wombat',
      \ 'component': {
      \   'readonly': '%{&filetype=="help"?"":&readonly?"⭤":""}',
      \   'modified': '%{&filetype=="help"?"":&modified?"+":&modifiable?"":"-"}'
      \ },
      \ 'component_visible_condition': {
      \   'readonly': '(&filetype!="help"&& &readonly)',
      \   'modified': '(&filetype!="help"&&(&modified||!&modifiable))'
      \ },
      \ 'separator': { 'left': '⮀', 'right': '⮂' },
      \ 'subseparator': { 'left': '⮁', 'right': '⮃' }
      \ }

Okay. It works nice.

How does lightline decide the components to show in the statusline? It's very simple. The variable to select components is g:lightline.active.left and g:lightline.active.left. For example, you add the g:lightline.active.left in .vimrc.

let g:lightline = {
      \ 'colorscheme': 'wombat',
      \ 'active': {
      \   'left': [ [ 'mode', 'paste' ],
      \             [ 'readonly', 'filename', 'modified' ] ]
      \ },
      \ 'component': {
      \   'readonly': '%{&filetype=="help"?"":&readonly?"⭤":""}',
      \   'modified': '%{&filetype=="help"?"":&modified?"+":&modifiable?"":"-"}'
      \ },
      \ 'component_visible_condition': {
      \   'readonly': '(&filetype!="help"&& &readonly)',
      \   'modified': '(&filetype!="help"&&(&modified||!&modifiable))'
      \ },
      \ 'separator': { 'left': '⮀', 'right': '⮂' },
      \ 'subseparator': { 'left': '⮁', 'right': '⮃' }
      \ }

If the plugin arranges all the component (in a situation you set paste and the file .vimrc is read-only, try to modify): The mode component, the paste component, read-only component, filename component and modified component in a row. Normally, the paste component does not show up. If the file is not read-only (more common cases), the read-only component does not show up.

Again look into g:lightline.active.left.

let g:lightline = {
      \ 'active': {
      \   'left': [ [ 'mode', 'paste' ],
      \             [ 'readonly', 'filename', 'modified' ] ] ...

And the screen shot of all the components. The mode and paste component are displayed in the same group. The read-only, filename and modified component are in the second group. It corresponds to the structure of g:lightline.active.left. You can configure the components in the statusline by the following four variables:

• g:lightline.active.left
• g:lightline.active.right
• g:lightline.inactive.left
• g:lightline.inactive.right

Of course, your settings in .vimrc have priority over the default setting in lightline.

GitHub branch is important for us. And it is a default component in powerline and vim-powerline. However, lightline does not provide the branch feature in default.

In order to show the branch in the statusline, you firstly install the vim-fugitive plugin. Then edit the g:lightline in your .vimrc.

• Add your fugitive component to g:lightline.component.
• Add the condition when the fugitive component has information to g:lightline.component_visible_condition.
• Add the component by inserting 'fugitive' to g:lightline.active.left.

let g:lightline = {
      \ 'colorscheme': 'wombat',
      \ 'active': {
      \   'left': [ [ 'mode', 'paste' ],
      \             [ 'fugitive', 'readonly', 'filename', 'modified' ] ]
      \ },
      \ 'component': {
      \   'readonly': '%{&filetype=="help"?"":&readonly?"⭤":""}',
      \   'modified': '%{&filetype=="help"?"":&modified?"+":&modifiable?"":"-"}',
      \   'fugitive': '%{exists("*fugitive#head")?fugitive#head():""}'
      \ },
      \ 'component_visible_condition': {
      \   'readonly': '(&filetype!="help"&& &readonly)',
      \   'modified': '(&filetype!="help"&&(&modified||!&modifiable))',
      \   'fugitive': '(exists("*fugitive#head") && ""!=fugitive#head())'
      \ },
      \ 'separator': { 'left': '⮀', 'right': '⮂' },
      \ 'subseparator': { 'left': '⮁', 'right': '⮃' }
      \ }

Okay, the branch component is added!

Now, you might get tired of setting both 'component' and 'component_visible_condition'. Or if you want to do something more complicated?

In fact, the components can be created using functions. Add your function names for components to g:lightline.component_function.

let g:lightline = {
      \ 'colorscheme': 'wombat',
      \ 'active': {
      \   'left': [ [ 'mode', 'paste' ],
      \             [ 'fugitive', 'readonly', 'filename', 'modified' ] ]
      \ },
      \ 'component_function': {
      \   'fugitive': 'MyFugitive',
      \   'readonly': 'MyReadonly',
      \   'modified': 'MyModified'
      \ },
      \ 'separator': { 'left': '⮀', 'right': '⮂' },
      \ 'subseparator': { 'left': '⮁', 'right': '⮃' }
      \ }

function! MyModified()
  if &filetype == "help"
    return ""
  elseif &modified
    return "+"
  elseif &modifiable
    return ""
  else
    return ""
  endif
endfunction

function! MyReadonly()
  if &filetype == "help"
    return ""
  elseif &readonly
    return "⭤"
  else
    return ""
  endif
endfunction

function! MyFugitive()
  return exists('*fugitive#head') ? fugitive#head() : ''
endfunction

Fine and readable!

Finally, you come up with concatenating the three components: the read-only mark, the filename and the modified mark. Now you may know what to do.

let g:lightline = {
      \ 'colorscheme': 'wombat',
      \ 'active': {
      \   'left': [ [ 'mode', 'paste' ],
      \             [ 'fugitive', 'filename' ] ]
      \ },
      \ 'component_function': {
      \   'fugitive': 'MyFugitive',
      \   'readonly': 'MyReadonly',
      \   'modified': 'MyModified',
      \   'filename': 'MyFilename'
      \ },
      \ 'separator': { 'left': '⮀', 'right': '⮂' },
      \ 'subseparator': { 'left': '⮁', 'right': '⮃' }
      \ }

function! MyModified()
  if &filetype == "help"
    return ""
  elseif &modified
    return "+"
  elseif &modifiable
    return ""
  else
    return ""
  endif
endfunction

function! MyReadonly()
  if &filetype == "help"
    return ""
  elseif &readonly
    return "⭤"
  else
    return ""
  endif
endfunction

function! MyFugitive()
  return exists('*fugitive#head') ? fugitive#head() : ''
endfunction

function! MyFilename()
  return ('' != MyReadonly() ? MyReadonly() . ' ' : '') .
       \ ('' != expand('%t') ? expand('%t') : '[No Name]') .
       \ ('' != MyModified() ? ' ' . MyModified() : '')
endfunction

Oops! We forgot the cool mark for the branch component! (work with the patched font for vim-powerline)

function! MyFugitive()
  return exists('*fugitive#head') && len(fugitive#head()) ? '⭠ '.fugitive#head() : ''
endfunction

How cool!!!

Of course, you can name your component as you wish.

  let g:lightline = {
        \ 'active': {
        \   'left': [ [ 'mode', 'paste' ],
        \             [ 'my_component' ] ] },
        \ 'component_function': {
        \   'my_component': 'MyComponent', ...

This is the end of the tutorial. For more information, see :help lightline. Good luck with your nice statuslines.

My setting

Here's my setting. I use the patched font for vim-powerline.

  let g:lightline = {
        \ 'colorscheme': 'landscape',
        \ 'mode_map': { 'c': 'NORMAL' },
        \ 'active': {
        \   'left': [ [ 'mode', 'paste' ], [ 'fugitive', 'filename' ] ]
        \ },
        \ 'component_function': {
        \   'modified': 'MyModified',
        \   'readonly': 'MyReadonly',
        \   'fugitive': 'MyFugitive',
        \   'filename': 'MyFilename',
        \   'fileformat': 'MyFileformat',
        \   'filetype': 'MyFiletype',
        \   'fileencoding': 'MyFileencoding',
        \   'mode': 'MyMode',
        \ },
        \ 'separator': { 'left': '⮀', 'right': '⮂' },
        \ 'subseparator': { 'left': '⮁', 'right': '⮃' }
        \ }
  function! MyModified()
    return &ft =~ 'help\|vimfiler\|gundo' ? '' : &modified ? '+' : &modifiable ? '' : '-'
  endfunction
  function! MyReadonly()
    return &ft !~? 'help\|vimfiler\|gundo' && &ro ? '⭤' : ''
  endfunction
  function! MyFilename()
    return ('' != MyReadonly() ? MyReadonly() . ' ' : '') .
          \ (&ft == 'vimfiler' ? vimfiler#get_status_string() : 
          \  &ft == 'unite' ? unite#get_status_string() : 
          \  &ft == 'vimshell' ? substitute(b:vimshell.current_dir,expand('~'),'~','') : 
          \ '' != expand('%t') ? expand('%t') : '[No Name]') .
          \ ('' != MyModified() ? ' ' . MyModified() : '')
  endfunction
  function! MyFugitive()
    return &ft !~? 'vimfiler\|gundo' && exists('*fugitive#head') && len(fugitive#head()) ? '⭠ '.fugitive#head() : ''
  endfunction
  function! MyFileformat()
    return winwidth('.') > 70 ? &fileformat : ''
  endfunction
  function! MyFiletype()
    return winwidth('.') > 70 ? (strlen(&filetype) ? &filetype : 'no ft') : ''
  endfunction
  function! MyFileencoding()
    return winwidth('.') > 70 ? (strlen(&fenc) ? &fenc : &enc) : ''
  endfunction
  function! MyMode()
    return winwidth('.') > 60 ? lightline#mode() : ''
  endfunction

When the window width is too narrow, the mode component and the file information component collapse. For example, the gundo buffer is narrow.

Before:

After:

Nice looking, isn't it?