Which-Key for Neovim

WhichKey is a lua plugin for Neovim that displays a popup with possible key bindings of the command you started typing. Heavily inspired by the original emacs-which-key and vim-which-key.

This plugin was developed by Folke Lemaitre, who is the owner of Lazy (Package Manager) and many more plugins. He has played a major part in the contribution of extraordinary plugins to our Neovim Community.

Which-Key Installation

• Integrate which-key in plugins.lua file so that the extension gets installed into your configuration.

-- Plugins.lua file

return {
    -- Which-key Extension
    "folke/which-key.nvim",
    lazy = true,
}

• The lazy keyword enables lazy-loading of this plugin. This will only load which-key when you want to search inside the editor.
• Now invoke Lazy(Package Manager) using :Lazycommand in Normal mode to install and load which-key.

• Install which-key using “shift + i” and we can go on to the next steps of configuring which-key.

Which-Key Configuration

• Create a new file whichkey.lua in your lua directory.
• It is recommended to name the file name different from the actual plugin name as it causes conflicts in the compilation of the Neovim configuration.
• Configuring Neovim is an integral part of our configuration. You can deep dive into comments to get a better understanding of the code.

local status_ok, which_key = pcall(require, "which-key")
if not status_ok then
    return
end

local setup = {
    plugins = {
        marks = true, -- shows a list of your marks on ' and `
        registers = true, -- shows your registers on " in NORMAL or <C-r> in INSERT mode
        spelling = {
            enabled = true, -- enabling this will show WhichKey when pressing z= to select spelling suggestions
            suggestions = 20, -- how many suggestions should be shown in the list?
        },
        -- the presets plugin, adds help for a bunch of default keybindings in Neovim
        -- No actual key bindings are created
        presets = {
            operators = false, -- adds help for operators like d, y, ... and registers them for motion / text object completion
            motions = true, -- adds help for motions
            text_objects = true, -- help for text objects triggered after entering an operator
            windows = true, -- default bindings on <c-w>
            nav = true, -- misc bindings to work with windows
            z = true, -- bindings for folds, spelling and others prefixed with z
            g = true, -- bindings for prefixed with g
        },
    },
    -- add operators that will trigger motion and text object completion
    -- to enable all native operators, set the preset / operators plugin above
    -- operators = { gc = "Comments" },
    key_labels = {
        -- override the label used to display some keys. It doesn't effect WK in any other way.
        -- For example:
        -- ["<space>"] = "SPC",
        -- ["<cr>"] = "RET",
        -- ["<tab>"] = "TAB",
    },
    icons = {
        breadcrumb = "»", -- symbol used in the command line area that shows your active key combo
        separator = "➜", -- symbol used between a key and it's label
        group = "+", -- symbol prepended to a group
    },
    popup_mappings = {
        scroll_down = "<c-d>", -- binding to scroll down inside the popup
        scroll_up = "<c-u>", -- binding to scroll up inside the popup
    },
    window = {
        border = "rounded", -- none, single, double, shadow
        position = "bottom", -- bottom, top
        margin = { 1, 0, 1, 0 }, -- extra window margin [top, right, bottom, left]
        padding = { 2, 2, 2, 2 }, -- extra window padding [top, right, bottom, left]
        winblend = 0,
    },
    layout = {
        height = { min = 4, max = 25 }, -- min and max height of the columns
        width = { min = 20, max = 50 }, -- min and max width of the columns
        spacing = 3, -- spacing between columns
        align = "left", -- align columns left, center or right
    },
    ignore_missing = true, -- enable this to hide mappings for which you didn't specify a label
    hidden = { "<silent>", "<cmd>", "<Cmd>", "<CR>", "call", "lua", "^:", "^ " }, -- hide mapping boilerplate
    show_help = true, -- show help message on the command line when the popup is visible
    triggers = "auto", -- automatically setup triggers
    -- triggers = {"<leader>"} -- or specify a list manually
    triggers_blacklist = {
        -- list of mode / prefixes that should never be hooked by WhichKey
        -- this is mostly relevant for key maps that start with a native binding
        -- most people should not need to change this
        i = { "j", "k" },
        v = { "j", "k" },
    },
}

local opts = {
    mode = "n", -- NORMAL mode
    prefix = "<leader>",
    buffer = nil, -- Global mappings. Specify a buffer number for buffer local mappings
    silent = true, -- use `silent` when creating keymaps
    noremap = true, -- use `noremap` when creating keymaps
    nowait = true, -- use `nowait` when creating keymaps
}

local mappings = {

    ["k"] = { "<cmd>bdelete<CR>", "Kill Buffer" },  -- Close current file
    ["p"] = { "<cmd>Lazy<CR>", "Plugin Manager" }, -- Invoking plugin manager
    ["q"] = { "<cmd>wqall!<CR>", "Quit" }, -- Quit Neovim after saving the file
    ["w"] = { "<cmd>w!<CR>", "Save" }, -- Save current file

}

which_key.setup(setup)
which_key.register(mappings, opts)

• The setup and opts variables maintain the look and feel of our which-key plugin. Whereas the mappings represents the actual content of which-key.

Source Which-key to Main Configuration File

• Include whichkey configuration file into our main configuation file

require "keymaps"
require "options"
require "lazy-config"
require "whichkey" -- Added this line to our main configuration

Keyboard Shortcuts

• Space + k :- Close the Current Editor
• Space + p :- Invoke Lazy (Package Manager)
• Space + w :- Save the Current File
• Space + q :- Quit Neovim

Folder Structure

• Added which-key configuration implemented in whichkey.lua file inside lua directory.

Neovim From Scratch

• If you want a complete installation and configuration of Neovim from Scratch, then you can head over to my NEOVIM SERIES.
• This series is updated regularly, with updates and inclusion of newer plugins which improves the wholesome IDE experience of Neovim.