NeoVim plugin for visualising sentence length

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I used an LLM to generate the code for this plugin.

I am trying to get better at writing. One of the recommendations I’ve read is that varying the sentence length makes reading more enjoyable. Naturally, I wanted to visualise this while writing. Coloring each sentence according to its length, would make it possible to detect long blocks of same-length sentences; they would be large uniformly colored blobs. Optionally also show the lengths in a sidebar column.

Since I use NeoVim for all of my writing, a Lua plugin would do just fine. So I made one.

Here is how it looks like, when ran on the source code for this very post:

Find it on GitHub jlegeny/vim-prose-flow¹

Although I use Source Hut for all of my code, for Lazy plugins it is much easier to default to GitHub. You can also find the plugin at sr.ht. ↩︎

Vim setup

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:14:01 +0000

Again, this is mostly a social bookmark to have a trace of what different parts of my configuration files in my Vim folder do. Feel free to steal whatever part you like. Note that not all of these settings will work without additional plugins. The ones I use on daily basis are: Powerline, bclose, voom and latex-suite.

A hint: Since I am using several computers I use Dropbox to synchronize all of my vim configurations thus my .vim folder on every machine is just a symlink to the Dropbox folder. I have moved my vimrc file there as well and source it from the original .vimrc file in the home folder.

" In case we are in a 256 color capable terminal
set t_Co=256

" Set a right colorscheme
colorscheme zenburn

" Let Powerline use nice symbols
let g:Powerline_symbols = 'fancy'

" Look for modelines embedded in source files, this is especially useful when
" getting python code from other developers
set modeline

" The only GUI element we want is the icon, remove menubar, toolbars etc.
set go=i

" Always show the statusline
set laststatus=2

" Display the beginning of the last line at the end of the buffer
set display=lastline

" Turn on the syntax highlighting
syntax on

" Set default window size to something sensible
set lines=60
set columns=170
"
" Set the editor to wrap long lines on words
set wrap
set linebreak

" Do not insert break lines to long lines
set textwidth=0
set wrapmargin=0

" Turn on folding
set foldenable

" Make folding indent sensitive
set foldmethod=indent

" Don't autofold anything (but I can still fold manually)
set foldlevel=100

" don't open folds when you search into them
set foldopen-=search

" don't open folds when you undo stuff
set foldopen-=undo

" Start the filetype plugin, this is really necessary
filetype plugin on

"set fuopt=maxvert

" I use simple php templates
au BufNewFile,BufRead *.tmpl setf php

" Load doxygen syntax highlighting when necessary
let g:load_doxygen_syntax=1

" Add doxygen syntax highlighting to all cpp files
au BufNewFile,BufRead *.cpp setf cpp.doxygen

" Add jQuery syntax highlighting
au BufRead,BufNewFile jquery.*.js set ft=javascript syntax=jquery

" Activate line numbers
set number

" Tab size to 4 spaces, and no expanding of tabs to spaces!
set tabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4
set noexpandtab

" Display only 5 first suggestions when correcting orthograph
set spellsuggest=best,5

" I use the <,> shortcut to align a paragraph to the wrap width
nmap , gqap
"
" Use Ctrl-W+` to close current file without closing the split (needs bclose
" plugin)
nmap <C-W>` <Plug>Kwbd

" Enable the use of Ctrl-Space and Ctrl-Enter for completion
imap <C-S-space> <C-n>
imap <C-space> <C-p>
imap <C-CR> <C-x><C-o>

" Map the up/down arrow keys to follow visual lines, not the real ones
map <Up> gk
map <Down> gj
imap <Down> <C-o>gj
imap <Up> <C-o>gk

" Map Meta-j and Meta-k to follow visual lines
map <M-j> gj
map <M-k> gk

" Map Home and End to go to beginning and end of the visual line
map <End> g<End>
map <Home> g<Home>
imap <End> <C-o>g<End>
imap <Home> <C-o>g<Home>

" Make Meta-Shift-MouseScroll create a visual block selection
noremap <M-S-LeftMouse> <4-LeftMouse>
inoremap <M-S-LeftMouse> <4-LeftMouse>
noremap <M-S-LeftDrag> <LeftDrag>
inoremap <M-S-LeftDrag> <LeftDrag>

"set statusline=%<[%02n]\ %F%(\ %m%h%w%y%r%)\ %a%=\ %8l,%c%V/%L\ (%P)
" Map gw to switch the word under the cursors with the next one
nnoremap <silent> gw "_yiw:s/\(\%#\w\+\)\(\W\+\)\(\w\+\)/\3\2\1/<CR><c-o><c-l>

" Map gl to switch the word under the cursor with the previous one
nnoremap <silent> gl "_yiw?\w\+\_W\+\%#<CR>:s/\(\%#\w\+\)\(\_W\+\)\(\w\+\)/\3\2\1/<CR><c-o><c-l>

" Map F3 to show the list of buffers
map <F3> :buffers<CR>:b<space>

" Map F4 to switch between .h and .cpp file
map <F4> :e %:p:s,.h$,.X123X,:s,.cpp$,.h,:s,.X123X$,.cpp,<CR>g`"

" Map F5 and F6 to go to next/previous error marker
map <F5> :cp<CR>
map <F6> :cn<CR>

" Map F8 to save all files and run Make
map <F8> :wall<CR>:make<CR>

" Start indenting scheme automatically
filetype plugin indent on

" Use the right grep command on mac
set grepprg=grep\ -nH\ $*

" Of course we are using latex
let g:tex_flavor='latex'

" Autogenerate ctags on C/C++ source file save
"au BufWritePost .c,.cpp,*.h silent! !ctags -R &amp;

" If we are on a Mac
if has("unix") &amp;&amp; match(system("uname"),'Darwin') != -1
let g:platform_MAC=1
" Setup a nice font for powerline
set guifont=Meslo\ LG\ M\ DZ\ for\ Powerline:h12

" Receive option keys as meta
set macmeta

" Map :TB for mode for writing text on a big screen
command TB colorscheme mayansmoke|set spell|set linespace=8|set guifont=Meslo\ LG\ M\ DZ\ for\ Powerline:h20|set fu
" Map :TB for mode for writing text on a small screen
command T colorscheme mayansmoke|set spell|set linespace=8|set guifont=Meslo\ LG\ M\ DZ\ for\ Powerline:h14
" Map :TB for mode for writing code
command C colorscheme zenburn|set nospell|set linespace=0|set guifont=Meslo\ LG\ M\ DZ\ for\ Powerline:h12

" If we are on Linux
else
set guifont=Droid\ Sans\ Mono\ for\ Powerline\ 12
let g:Powerline_symbols = 'fancy'

" Map Meta+V as paste from system clipboard
imap <M-v> <Esc>"+pa
imap <M-S-v> <Esc>"+Pa
nmap <M-v> "+p
nmap <M-S-v> "+P

" Map Meta+C as copy to system clipboard
vmap <M-c> "+y

" Map Ctrl+S as save
nmap <C-s> :w<CR>
imap <C-s> <Esc>:w<CR>a

" Map :TB for mode for writing text
command T colorscheme mayansmoke|set spell|set linespace=8|set guifont=Droid\ Sans\ Mono\ for\ Powerline\ 14
" Map :TB for mode for writing code
command C colorscheme zenburn|set nospell|set linespace=0|set guifont=Droid\ Sans\ Mono\ for\ Powerline\ 10
endif

" Deletes double lines and such from a SVN log
function! CleanSVNLog()
%s/^-*$//g
%s/^r\d\d*.*$//g
%s/\n\n\n*/\r\r/
endfunction

Vim on yozy//NET

NeoVim plugin for visualising sentence length

Vim setup