Making ALE Commands Easier to Use

[mbeko]

I use Vim for its efficiency, so I'm a bit puzzled by how ALE's commands are tedious to type for me because they start with "ALE". That sequence consists of three upper case letters on both sides of the keyboard, and it's followed by another upper case letter. So I have to change the shift keys at least from right to left to right, or hold one of them the whole time and type at least one letter with the same hand, or hit caps lock, type "ale", another letter, and hit caps lock again. None of these options seems efficient or pleasant to type.

I have defined some mappings with the leader key, but at some point it becomes difficult to remember them, especially when I want to avoid mappings starting with the same sequence as this leads to a delay before execution. And if I want to map commands that I call with different arguments like ALEFix, that increases the number of required mappings even more.

I didn't find other people mentioning the issue, so I wonder if I'm missing something. Is it just my personal impression that this is tedious? Are other people simply not bothered by it? Is there an efficient way of calling the commands that I'm oblivious to?

And just out of curiosity, maybe someone knows why that prefix format has been chosen instead of e.g. "Ale"?

[RyanSquared]

I have defined some mappings with the leader key, but at some point it becomes difficult to remember them, especially when I want to avoid mappings starting with the same sequence as this leads to a delay before execution.

I override Vim's usual keybinds for things that are applicable. K for ALEHover to get documentation, gd for go to definition, gD for go to type definition. I have a few other keybinds that use the leader, which I mention on the status bar at the same area I have other linter information, so I know those keybinds are relevant to ALE.

[mbeko]

These are nice ideas, thanks for sharing! I have never modified the status bar. Could you show how that configuration looks like?

[RyanSquared]

Sure thing.

function! StatusLine()
  let left = ['%.20F', '%m', '%r']
  let right = []
  " if using LSP, show LSPisms
  let l:has_lsp = v:false
  for linter in ale#linter#Get(&ft)
    if linter.lsp != ''
      let l:has_lsp = v:true
    endif
  endfor
  if l:has_lsp == v:true
    for item in ['[gd]', '[gD]', '[K]', '<C-K>', '[,/]', '[,ca]']
      call add(right, item)
    endfor
  endif
  if &ft != ''
    call add(right, '[%Y]')
    call add(right, '|')
  endif
  for item in ['%p%%', '|', '%c:%l']
    call add(right, item)
  endfor
  return ' ' . join(left, ' ') . '%=' . join(right, ' ') . ' '
endfunction

set statusline=%!StatusLine()

nmap gd <Plug>(ale_go_to_definition_in_vsplit)
nmap gD <Plug>(ale_go_to_type_definition_in_vsplit)
nmap K <Plug>(ale_hover)
imap <C-K> <C-O><Plug>(ale_hover)
nmap <Leader>/ <Plug>(ale_detail)
nmap <Leader>ca <Plug>(ale_code_action)

[w0rp]

This is a good answer!

The reason ALE commands must be prefixed with ALE is so they don't conflict with other plugins. You can define your own commands with whatever names you like to make things easier for yourself, and you can define your own keybinds. If you ever want to see how I configure ALE, you can start with my vimrc and go deeper into my config. My Vim config stays public so others can learn from it, and it's all Public Domain code, so do what you like with it. It's the best config for me.

[mbeko]

Thanks, it always helps to get inspiration from other people's configurations 🙂

[mbeko]

Awesome, thank you!