Vim Elm Help

This plugin allows you to view documentation for any Elm dependencies your project has, both directly from within Vim as well as offline.

I wrote this plugin at elm-conf because I was working on some Elm code on the plane on my way to elm-conf, and I didn't like having to view the source of my dependencies to remember how to use certain functions. I also don't like viewing reference documentation in a web browser; I much prefer the offline, in-editor experience that plugins like manpageview and perlhelp provide when I'm working in C and Perl, respectively.

Since I wrote this hurriedly at a conference, it was rather hastily put together. It works for me, but your mileage may vary. That being said, I would love it if people played around with this and helped me out with contributions or comments!

Usage

Generate Docs

IMPORTANT: You need to do this part while online! After it's done, you're freeeeeee

The :ElmBuildDocs command will build a documentation database and put it into elm-docs.json at your project root.

Alternatively, you may do this from the command line, like so...

Run bin/build-docs.pl from the top level of your Elm project, and direct its output to elm-docs.json:

$ build-docs.pl > elm-docs.json

Use :ElmHelp

Install plugin/elm-help.vim however you like.

If you run the ElmHelp command with an argument, the documentation for that argument will be pulled up in a new window. For example, :ElmHelp Keyboard.

If you don't provide an argument, ElmHelp will use whatever word is under the cursor.

Ideas for improvement

There are many!

• You need to be online to build the docs themselves, which is less than ideal
• (related to above) Each module you use has its dependencies fetched, even if you have it in elm-stuff already
• Doesn't generate docs for modules in your current project (this would be easy)
  • Don't cache the current module, though
• Render markdown as text for docs pane (including transclusion of @docs)
• Make links to other docs followable via Ctrl-] in docs pane
• Tab complete symbols on Vim command line
• Parse import statements in current buffer to find out what unqualified or alias-qualified identifiers resolve to, keeping in mind which symbols are imported from core by default
• Hovering over a symbol could automatically show its documentation
• Showing the docs in a preview window would be nice
• Using the same window for show docs (instead of opening up a new one for each query) would be a fine alternative to the preview window
• Offer omnicompletion for imports, exposing, after a dot
• You could potentially provide gd and gD with this information
• Write help file