vim-glyphtab

Simple and hackable glyph table a.k.a. character map for Vim written in Python using tkinter.

2023-03-13_video_glyphtab.mp4

 

I often use special characters in my documents so I made this little widget to help me out. Clicking on an button will insert the character and simultaneously copy it to the system clipboard through xsel. Yes, I do use my mouse in Vim.

Installation under Ubuntu

#!/bin/sh

# Install dependencies first
sudo apt install -y python3-tk xsel

mkdir -p -v ~/.vim/bitmaps/tkinter/128px
mkdir -p -v ~/.vim/scripts
git clone https://github.com/schickele/vim-glyphtab
cd vim-glyphtab
cp -v gly16.png ~/.vim/bitmaps/
cp -v glyphtab_icn_128px.png ~/.vim/bitmaps/tkinter/128px/
cp -v glyph_tab_py.vim ~/.vim/scripts/

Usage in Vim

Type this in normal mode:

:so $HOME/.vim/scripts/glyph_tab_py.vim|call GlyphTab()

In your vimrc

You can source the script directly

so $HOME/.vim/scripts/glyph_tab_py.vim

or map GlyphTab to a shortcut:

nmap <leader>gt :so $HOME/.vim/scripts/glyph_tab_py.vim<bar>call GlyphTab()<cr>

Or place an icon in the toolbar (Gvim):

amenu <silent>icon=gly16 ToolBar.35 :so $HOME/.vim/scripts/glyph_tab_py.vim<bar>call GlyphTab()<cr>
tmenu ToolBar.35 GlyphTab

Or add an entry in the context menu (Gvim):

menu 1.05 PopUp.GlypthTab :so $HOME/.vim/scripts/glyph_tab_py.vim<bar>call GlyphTab()<cr>

Other OS

Tested briefly under macOS Ventura with MacVim and python 3.11.2 / tkinter 8.6.13 but the widget can't close properly and causes MacVim to crash. Apparently tkinter is buggy on recent macOS versions. Not tested on Windows.