lorem.nvim

Easily generate dummy text in Neovim

Installation

Packer:

use {
  'derektata/lorem.nvim',
  config = function()
    require("lorem").opts {
      sentence_length = "mixed", -- using a default configuration
      comma_chance = 0.3, -- 30% chance to insert a comma
      max_commas = 2, -- maximum 2 commas per sentence
      debounce_ms = 200, -- default debounce time in milliseconds
    }
  end
}

Lazy:

return {
  'derektata/lorem.nvim',
  config = function()
    require("lorem").opts {
        sentence_length = "mixed", -- using a default configuration
        comma_chance = 0.3, -- 30% chance to insert a comma
        max_commas = 2, -- maximum 2 commas per sentence
        debounce_ms = 200, -- default debounce time in milliseconds
    }
  end
}

Configuration

The plugin is designed to be as plug-and-play as possible, and therefore no setup is needed as it is shipped with sensible defaults. It is hovewer possible to customize the behavior of the plugin in setup like this:

require('lorem').opts {
    sentence_length = "mixed",  -- using a default configuration
    comma_chance = 0.3,  -- 30% chance to insert a comma
    max_commas = 2  -- maximum 2 commas per sentence
    debounce_ms = 200, -- default debounce time in milliseconds
}

-- or

require('lorem').opts {
    sentence_length = { -- custom configuration
      w_per_sentence = 8,
      s_per_paragraph = 6
    },
    comma_chance = 0.3,  -- 30% chance to insert a comma
    max_commas = 2  -- maximum 2 commas per sentence
    debounce_ms = 200, -- default debounce time in milliseconds
}

The sentence_length property

This property determines the intervals for how long the sentences of latin words should be before ending them with a period. The following values are available:

Value	Words Per Sentence	Sentences Per Paragraph
short	5	3
medium	10	5
long	14	7
mixedShort	8	4
mixed	12	6
mixedLong	16	8

The comma_chance property

This property controls the likelihood of inserting a comma after a word within a sentence. This property allows for the generation of more natural-looking text by adding occasional commas, mimicking the natural pauses in human writing.

The max_commas property

This property sets the maximum number of commas that can be inserted in a single sentence. This property ensures that sentences do not become overly complex or cluttered with too many commas, maintaining readability and natural flow.

The debounce_ms property

This property controls how long (in milliseconds) the plugin waits after you stop typing before it expands an inline trigger like lorem5 or lorem2p. By default it’s set to 200, which strikes a balance between responsiveness and preventing unwanted expansions mid-typing:

• Lower values (e.g. 100)

  • Pros: more immediate expansions once you pause
  • Cons: may fire prematurely if you type quickly or make corrections

• Higher values (e.g. 500)

  • Pros: reduces accidental expansions during fast typing
  • Cons: introduces a longer wait before you see the generated text

Default: 200

Example configuration

require('lorem').opts {
  debounce_ms = 300, -- wait 300 ms of inactivity before expanding inline triggers
}

Usage

loremX

This feature allows you to generate a specified number of words of placeholder text directly in the current buffer. Simply type loremX, where X is the number of words you want, and the plugin will replace the pattern with the generated text.

loremXp

This feature enables the generation of placeholder text in paragraph format. Type loremXp, where X is the number of paragraphs you want, and the plugin will replace the pattern with the specified number of paragraphs.

Using the command:

Interactive Tab-Completion

The command features tab-completion to help streamline text generation. Start typing :LoremIpsum and press <TAB> to reveal available options for mode (words or paragraphs). After selecting a mode, pressing <TAB> again suggests the appropriate next argument (<amount>).

# defaults: 100 words, 1 paragraph
:LoremIpsum <mode> <amount>
                              ┌────────────┐  
                              │            │  
                              │    Menu    │  
                              │depending on│  
                ┌────────────┐│  previous  │  
                │   words    ││ selection  │  
                │ paragraphs ││            │  
                └────────────┘└────────────┘  
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
:LoremIpsum         <TAB>         <TAB>       
                 ┗━━━mode━━━┛ ┗━━━amount━━━┛  
# i.e.
:LoremIpsum words 1000
:LoremIpsum paragraphs 2

Custom Ipsum

The Custom Ipsum feature offers users granular control over the generated text without needing to modify their configuration. By using the :LoremIpsum command with specific arguments, users can dynamically specify the format, amount, and structure of the generated text.

Custom usage for paragraphs:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
     :LoremIpsum  paragraphs  1  10  5        
                       ┃      ┃   ┃  ┃        
         format━━━━━━━━┛      ┃   ┃  ┃        
                              ┃   ┃  ┃        
         amount━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛   ┃  ┃        
                                  ┃  ┃        
 w_per_sentence━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛  ┃        
                                     ┃        
s_per_paragraph━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛       

headless mode:

# print lorem ipsum words to the terminal
# (default: 100)
nvim --headless -c 'lua print(require("lorem").words())' +qall | tail -n +1

# print 500 words to the terminal
nvim --headless -c 'lua print(require("lorem").words(500))' +qall | tail -n +1

# using the shell script
chmod +x lorem.sh
./lorem.sh -w 10