How to lazy load vim plugins with lze?

[kohane27]

Hello! Hope you are doing well.

flake.nix:

  description = "A Lua-natic's neovim flake, with extra cats! nixCats!";

  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-unstable";
    nixCats.url = "github:BirdeeHub/nixCats-nvim";

    "plugins-vim-log-highlighting" = {
      url = "github:mtdl9/vim-log-highlighting";
      flake = false;
    };
  };

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, ... }@inputs:
    let
      inherit (inputs.nixCats) utils;
      luaPath = "${./.}";
      forEachSystem = utils.eachSystem nixpkgs.lib.platforms.all;
      extra_pkg_config = { allowUnfree = true; };
      dependencyOverlays = [ (utils.standardPluginOverlay inputs) ];

      categoryDefinitions = { pkgs, settings, categories, extra, name
        , mkNvimPlugin, ... }@packageDef: {
          lspsAndRuntimeDeps = with pkgs; {
            tools = [
              stylua
              nixfmt-classic
            ];
          };

          startupPlugins = {
            startup = with pkgs.vimPlugins; {
              always = [ lze ];
              colorscheme = [ kanagawa-nvim ];
              lib = [
                plenary-nvim
                dressing-nvim
                nui-nvim
                nvim-web-devicons
                nvim-nio
                vim-repeat
              ];
            };
          };

          # NOTE: `:NixCats pawsible` to get the name packadd expects
          optionalPlugins = {
            optional = {
              filetypes = with pkgs.vimPlugins; [
                pkgs.neovimPlugins.vim-log-highlighting
              ];
            };
          };
        };

      packageDefinitions = {
        nvim = { pkgs, ... }@misc: {
          categories = {
            tools = true;
            startup = true;
            optional = true;
          };
        };
      };
          ...

lua/custom/plugins/init.lua:

require("lze").load({
  { import = "custom.plugins.filetypes.vim-log-highlighting" },
})

lua/custom/plugins/filetypes/vim-log-highlighting/init.lua:

return {
  {
    "vim-log-highlighting",
    ft = "log",
  },
}

But when I open any log file; the plugin is not activated, i.e., not syntax highlighting is showing. Since it's a vim plugin, there's no sth like below:

    after = function(plugin)
      require("vim-log-highlighting").setup({})
    end,

One particular thing is that, if I move pkgs.neovimPlugins.vim-log-highlighting to the startupPlugins set, it just works. But I don't want it to be loaded on startup; I want it to lazy load and work with ft = "log".

So I take that startupPlugins and optionalPlugins are not just random arbitrary sets? But I check nixCatsUtils and it does not seem to have hardcode the sets to do something special...

Or is it this particular plugin requires special handling? Like it can't be lazy loaded because it needs to detect filetype?

I see that, in the example, if we just include the vim-* plugins and without any other handling, they are already available to be used:

        general = {
          always = with pkgs.vimPlugins; [
            nvim-lspconfig
            lualine-nvim
            gitsigns-nvim
            vim-sleuth
            vim-fugitive
            vim-rhubarb
            nvim-surround
          ];
        };

Any help is much appreciated. Thank you!

[BirdeeHub]

Is the filetype being detected properly? It will only trigger for the log filetype if you open a buffer that gets detected as the log filetype

You are correct in that optionalPlugins and startupPlugins are not arbitrary, the categories you make within each section are, but the sections you can use are listed here https://nixcats.org/nixCats_format.html#nixCats.flake.outputs.categories

startupPlugins goes to nixCats.vimPackDir .. "pack/myNeovimPackages/start" and optionalPlugins goes to nixCats.vimPackDir .. "pack/myNeovimPackages/opt"

The default load hook for lze specs runs vim.cmd.packadd(name) Which doesnt care about if its a vimscript or lua plugin. You can change the load function used, but vim.cmd.packadd is the default.

[BirdeeHub]

As long as the log filetype is being properly detected, this thing you had should be fine. But the plugin itself is what creates the log filetype to begin with so it doesnt work.

  -- will not work because the log filetype doesnt exist without this plugin
  require('lze').load {
    "vim-log-highlighting",
    ft = "log",
  }

[BirdeeHub]

looking into it more, this is the plugin

It detects the filetype, and is just a ftdetect file and a syntax file. Simple ones at that.

You dont need to lazy load this on the log filetype. It already only triggers for that filetype, and it is also the thing that creates the log filetype to begin with.

[BirdeeHub]

In the future you may wish to look into https://github.com/nvim-neorocks/rtp.nvim for plugins that actually need to be lazy loaded but need to have their ftdetect scripts sourced, or just source them yourself works too because you can get the path from nixCats.pawsible({'allPlugins', 'opt', name })

[BirdeeHub]

but yeah this plugin definitely doesnt need to be lazily loaded.

[BirdeeHub]

In your current setup, exactly as you have it trying to load it via lze, if you type :setfiletype log it would load the plugin correctly.

But it doesnt know about the log filetype on its own, as the log filetype is created by that plugin.