Context-Aware Terminal Manager for Neovim

Figure: Opening and switching between terminals as well as switching terminal-context. (Matrix effect by cmatrix.)

Lightweight terminal manager for Neovim.

Create floating terminals and switch between them.

Group them by context.

Important

This is early stage of development. It is a plugin being part of a bigger project but should work as standalone.

Note

Ctxterm provides merely a set of functions. You need to bind them yourself.

Purpose

Enable something like "scratch-terminals".

Decrease the need of switching out of Neovim, ... by allowing quick access to terminals and simle organization of them.

Context-aware

Ctxterm stores all terminals in a given context. You control the context by the callback function current_context_cb. Let the function return a string that represents the current context. When you create a new terminal, it will be added to the context. All exposed functions relate to the context-identifyer returned by this function.

Avoid specifying current_context_cb if you want to use a single context for all terminals.

Configuration

Default configuration

Using Lazy plugin manager.

local default_opts = {
	shell = "bash",
	current_context_cb = function()
		return "Single Generic Context"
	end,
}

Suggested configuration

Example of integratoin with your arbitrary project manager.

return {
  'mtkld/ctxterm.nvim',
  dependencies = {
    'mtkld/your-project-manager.nvim',
  },
  config = function()
    require('ctxterm').setup {
      shell = 'fish',
      start_shell_with_cwd_cb = function()
        local project_path = require('your-project-manager.properties').current_project.project_path
        return project_path
      end,
      current_context_cb = function()
        local project_name = require('your-project-manager.properties').current_project.name
        return project_name
      end,
    }
  end,
}

Example keybindings

Alt + k - Toggle terminal mode (creates new terminal, switch to last terminal in use, or close terminal mode)

Alt + j - Create new terminal

Alt + h - Bring up previous terminal

Alt + l - Bring up next terminal

vim.keymap.set('n', '<A-k>', '<CMD>lua require("ctxterm").toggle_context_terminal()<CR>', { noremap = true, silent = true })
vim.keymap.set('t', '<A-k>', '<CMD>lua require("ctxterm").toggle_context_terminal()<CR>', { noremap = true, silent = true })
vim.keymap.set('i', '<A-k>', '<CMD>lua require("ctxterm").toggle_context_terminal()<CR>', { noremap = true, silent = true })

vim.keymap.set('n', '<A-j>', '<CMD>lua require("ctxterm").create_new_terminal()<CR>', { noremap = true, silent = true })
vim.keymap.set('t', '<A-j>', '<CMD>lua require("ctxterm").create_new_terminal()<CR>', { noremap = true, silent = true })
vim.keymap.set('i', '<A-j>', '<CMD>lua require("ctxterm").create_new_terminal()<CR>', { noremap = true, silent = true })

vim.keymap.set('n', '<A-l>', '<CMD>lua require("ctxterm").next_terminal()<CR>', { noremap = true, silent = true })
vim.keymap.set('t', '<A-l>', '<CMD>lua require("ctxterm").next_terminal()<CR>', { noremap = true, silent = true })
vim.keymap.set('i', '<A-l>', '<CMD>lua require("ctxterm").next_terminal()<CR>', { noremap = true, silent = true })

vim.keymap.set('n', '<A-h>', '<CMD>lua require("ctxterm").previous_terminal()<CR>', { noremap = true, silent = true })
vim.keymap.set('t', '<A-h>', '<CMD>lua require("ctxterm").previous_terminal()<CR>', { noremap = true, silent = true })
vim.keymap.set('i', '<A-h>', '<CMD>lua require("ctxterm").previous_terminal()<CR>', { noremap = true, silent = true })