vim-easy-align

Yet another Vim alignment plugin without too much ambition.

This plugin clearly has less features than the other pre-existing ones with the similar goals, but it is simpler, easier to use, and just good enough for the most of the cases.

Usage

Vim-easy-align defines :EasyAlign command in the visual mode. For convenience, it is advised that you define a mapping for triggering it in your .vimrc.

vnoremap <silent> <Enter> :EasyAlign<cr>

With the mapping, you can align selected lines with a few keystrokes.

1. <Enter> key to start EasyAlign command
2. Optional field number (default: 1)
   • 1 Alignment around 1st delimiter
   • 2 Alignment around 2nd delimiter
   • ...
   • * Alignment around all delimiters (recursive)
3. Delimiter (<space>, =, :, ., |, ,)

Alignment rules for the following delimiters have been crafted to meet the most needs.

Delimiter	Description/Use cases
<space>	General alignment around spaces
=	Operators containing equals sign (=, ==, !=, +=, &&=, ...)
:	Suitable for formatting JSON or YAML
.	Multi-line method chaining
,	Multi-line method arguments
`	`

Example command sequences

With visual map	Description	Equivalent command
<Enter>=	Alignment around 1st equals sign (and the likes)	:'<,'>EasyAlign=
<Enter>2=	Alignment around 2nd equals sign (and the likes)	:'<,'>EasyAlign2=
<Enter>3=	Alignment around 3rd equals sign (and the likes)	:'<,'>EasyAlign3=
<Enter>*=	Alignment around all equals signs (and the likes)	:'<,'>EasyAlign*=
<Enter><space>	Alignment around 1st space	:'<,'>EasyAlign\
<Enter>2<space>	Alignment around 2nd space	:'<,'>EasyAlign2\
<Enter>:	Alignment around 1st colon	:'<,'>EasyAlign:
...	...

Partial alignment in blockwise-visual mode

In blockwise-visual mode (CTRL-V), EasyAlign aligns only the selected portions. Consider the following case where you want to align text around => operators.

my_hash = { :a => 1,
            :aa => 2,
            :aaa => 3 }

In non-blockwise visual mode (v / V), <Enter>= won't work since the assignment operator in the first line gets in the way. So we instead enter blockwise-visual mode (CTRL-V), and select the text around => operators, then press <Enter>=.

my_hash = { :a   => 1,
            :aa  => 2,
            :aaa => 3 }

Defining custom alignment rules

let g:easy_align_delimiters = {
\ '>': { 'pattern': '>>\|=>\|>' },
\ '/': { 'pattern': '//*' },
\ 'x': {
\     'pattern':       '[xX]',
\     'margin_left':   ' <<<',
\     'margin_right':  '>>> ',
\     'stick_to_left': 0
\   }
\ }

Demo

Screencast

Author

Junegunn Choi