Turn off mini.pairs when inserting after visual block selection

[raoulmillais]

Contributing guidelines

• I have read CONTRIBUTING.md
• I have read CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

Module(s)

mini.pairs

Description

I frequently use visual mode to simulate a contiguous multi cursor to insert the same thing on many lines. Very often this is to surround a token in multiple similar statements with e.g. " or '. In this scenario I don't want mini.pairs to insert a matching pair. I got this working creating a ModeChanged autocmd in my lazy config and it struck me that this might be useful for others - maybe it could be incorporated into the plugin? Here's my lazy.vim plugin spec with the code:

  return {
    'echasnovski/mini.pairs',
    version = '*',
    event = "VeryLazy",
    opts = {
      modes = { insert = true, command = false, terminal = false },
    },
    config = function(_, opts)
      require('mini.pairs').setup(opts)
      -- Disable mini.pairs when going from visual block or visual line mode into insert mode
      vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("ModeChanged", {
        group = "MiniPairs", -- same as the group in `mini.pairs`
        pattern = { "V:i", "\22:i" },
        callback = function()
            vim.b.minipairs_disable = true
        end
      })
      -- Re-enable mini.pairs if it was disabled when leaving insert mode
      vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("ModeChanged", {
        group = "MiniPairs", -- same as the group in `mini.pairs`
        pattern = "i:*",
        callback = function()
          if vim.b.minipairs_disable == true then
            vim.b.minipairs_disable = false
          end
        end
      })
    end,
  },

[raoulmillais]

It could be made this more performant by not being so general with the patttern and registering multiple ModeChanged autocmd's - but it does work as expected like this.

[echasnovski]

Yes, creating two separate autocommands for '\x16:i' pattern to disable and something like *:n to enable adds significantly less overhead. Having such general ModeChanged feels a bit too much.

[raoulmillais]

UPDATE - the code in the description now has 2 autocmds. I might even be able to get away with pattern = "i:n" in the second autocmd to re-enable mini.pairs. I don't think you can transition from insert mode to any other mode than normal but I'm erring on the side of caution.

[raoulmillais]

Maybe it could be all visual modes but I've never been in this scenario with regular visual mode (v)

[echasnovski]

Thanks for sharing!

The best (suggested) approach in this use case is in Insert mode to first press <C-v> before target pair character to insert it literally. So something like <C-v>( to insert ( and not ().

Also a note to avoid confusion for future readers: everything in opts except modes is not a part of 'mini.pairs' and is monkey-patched in LazyVim.

[raoulmillais]

Oh I didn't know about <C-v> thanks 🙏

[raoulmillais]

UPDATE - I removed the LazyVim bits for clarity