💻 Lua console

lua-console.nvim - is a handy scratch pad / REPL / debug console for Lua development and Neovim exploration and configuration.
Acts as a user friendly replacement of command mode - messages loop and as a handy scratch pad to store and test your code gists.

💡 Motivation

After installing Neovim, it took me some time to configure it, learn its settings, structure and API, while learning Lua in the process.
I got fed up of constantly hitting :, typing lua= command, then typing :messages to see the output, only to find out that a made a typo or a syntax error and retyping the whole thing again, copying the paths from error stacktraces and so on. I needed something better, so there it is.

✨ Features

• Evaluate single line expressions
• Evaluate visually selected lines of code
• Pretty print Lua objects, including function details and their source paths
• Show normal and error output in the console, including output of print(), errors and stacktraces.
• Syntax highlighting and autocompletion
• Load Neovim’s messages into console for inspection and copy/paste
• Open links from stacktraces and function sources
• Save / Load console session
• Use as scratch pad for code gists

📦 Installation

With lazy.nvim:

return {
  "yarospace/lua-console.nvim",
  lazy = true, keys = "`", opts = {},
}

otherwise, install with your favourite package manager and add require('lua-console').setup({opts}) somewhere in your config.

⚙️ Configuration

Default Settings

opts = {
  buffer = {
    prepend_result_with = '=> ',
    save_path = vim.fn.stdpath('state') .. '/lua-console.lua',
    load_on_start = true -- load saved session on first entry
  },
  window = {
    anchor = 'SW',
    border = 'double',  -- single|double|rounded
    height = 0.6, -- percentage of main window
    zindex = 1,
  },
  mappings = {
    toggle = '`',
    quit = 'q',
    eval = '<CR>',
    clear = 'C',
    messages = 'M',
    save = 'S',
    load = 'L',
    resize_up = '<C-Up>',
    resize_down = '<C-Down>',
    help = '?'
  }
}

🚀 Usage (with default mappings)

• Install, hit the mapped key ` and start exploring.
• Enter code as normal, in insert mode.
• Hit Enter in normal mode to evaluate a variable, statement or an expression in the current line.
• Visually select a range of lines and press Enter to evaluate the code in the range.
• The evaluation of the last line is returned and printed, so no return is needed in most cases.
• Use print() in your code to output the result into the console. Objects and functions are pretty printed.
• Press M to load Neovim messages into the console.
• Press gf to follow the paths in stack traces and to function sources.
• Use S and L to save / load the console session to preserve history of your hacking.
• You can resize the console with <C-Up> and <C-Down>.