How To Easily Align Your Code in Vim

Aligning code, in general, does not provide any value. It's just to make code look more beautiful and easier to read. Meet . Vim Easy Align It's similar to if you've used vscode. better align Installation & Configuration You can install using your favorite plugin manager. Using vim-plug And add the following mappings to your file Plug 'junegunn/vim-easy-align' .vimrc xmap ga (EasyAlign) nmap ga (EasyAlign) Feel free to change the default mapping to something you're more comfortable with. Note: If you're not familiar with and , they're used to add mappings for normal and visual mode respectively. ga nmap xmap Usage There are multiple ways to use the plugin. I found the following to be the easiest. 1. Align code in the current block While in normal mode type gaip= Explanation: Start the EasyAlign command ( ) for nner aragraph and align around the sign. ga i p = Note: don't forget to press enter to execute the command. 2. Align currently selected code Assuming that you have something selected while in visual mode. Type ga= Explanation: Start the EasyAlign command ( ) and align around the sign. ga = Options 1. Regular expressions You can use regular expressions to align anything you want. The only limit is your imagination. Let's say for example you want to align javascript module imports around the keyword. from You would use the command ga from And once again is used to enter the EasyAlign mode. ga After that, press (Control + x) to enter the mode. Ctrl-x regular expression Lastly you can enter whatever you want to align your code around (in this case it's ) from 2. Align modes Normally each character has it's own align mode (left or right). So, for example, (equal) signs are normally aligned to the right while (colons) are aligned to the left. = : But we can change that by using the arrow keys on the keyboard. Note: I'll be referring to the right & left arrow keys in commands as and respectively. -> : Align left (we don't have to use since it's the default for colons) ga: to whatever you like nmap iga (LiveEasyAlign) xmap iga (LiveEasyAlign) Conclusion Obviously the plugin contains more options than I could explain in 20 pages. This article is supposed to be beginner friendly and introduce the basic options. References Vim Easy Align https://github.com/junegunn/vim-easy-align Vim Plug https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug