Use a MRU section from Startify theme in the Dashboard theme

[tyrelh]

Curious if anyone knows of a way to get a customizable section of most recent files, with their automatic numeric keybinds, working in the Dashboard theme.

I currently have this setup using the Dashboard theme, with some code borrowed from GustafB here.

My ideal setup would be to get rid of the buttons and just have a list of the 5-10 most recent files there, with their numeric keybinds like in the Startify theme.

Any suggestions how this could be done?

[tyrelh]

Managed to build out something close to my ideal setup myself. It ended up pretty similar to the standard theme. There are chunks in here from various folks configs taken as inspiration.

Ended up removing the git history from my initial setup.

It has a list of the most recent files within the current working directory, with keybinds. And a list of the most recent files that aren't in the current working directory. Along with a small list of actions that I can add to over time.

It also shows the current repo and branch, if the cwd is a git repository. It pulls the name of the remote repo, not just the name of the directory the repo is in. It displays the cwd path separately.

Tl;dr

In lua I get the list of old files from vim.v.oldfiles. I sort them into two buckets, those in the cwd, and those that aren't. Then I map these lists of paths to buttons.

Code

This is the biggest piece of Lua I've written yet, so sorry if parts of it are cringey. Seems to work.

A lot of the code is just making it look the way I wanted. Like trimming the paths in different ways to ensure they look good in the buttons.

local colors = {
  green = 'String',
  blue = 'Function',
  peach = 'Identifier',
  purple = 'Keyword',
  cyan = 'Operator',
  pink = 'Special',
}
local icons = {
  ui = {
    file = '',
    files = '',
    open_folder = '',
    config = '',
    close = '󰈆',
    git = '',
    elipsis = '󰇘',
    lightning = '⚡',
    branch = '',
    tree = '󰙅',
    lazy = '󰒲',
  },
}

return {
  'goolord/alpha-nvim',
  dependencies = {
    'nvim-tree/nvim-web-devicons',
    'nvim-lua/plenary.nvim',
    { 'juansalvatore/git-dashboard-nvim', dependencies = { 'nvim-lua/plenary.nvim' } },
  },
  config = function()
    local alpha = require 'alpha'
    local dashboard = require 'alpha.themes.dashboard'

    -- v RECENT FILES v --

    -- this line gets vim.v.oldfiles to be populated sooner during initial load so that it can be accessed below
    vim.cmd 'rshada'
    local base_directory = vim.fn.getcwd()

    -- functions used to style paths for buttons
    local function remove_cwd(path)
      return path:gsub(base_directory .. '/', '')
    end
    local function shorten_home(path)
      return path:gsub(vim.env.HOME, '~')
    end
    local filtered_paths = {}

    -- filter out buffers belonging to NvimTree
    for _, path in ipairs(vim.v.oldfiles) do
      if not path:match 'NvimTree_%d+$' then
        table.insert(filtered_paths, path)
      end
    end

    -- sort paths into those in the current working directory and those not
    local desired_cwd_paths_amount = 5
    local desired_global_paths_amount = 5
    local cwd_paths = {}
    local current_cwd_paths_amount = 0
    local global_paths = {}
    local current_global_paths_amount = 0
    for _, path in ipairs(filtered_paths) do
      if string.find(path, base_directory, 1, true) then
        if current_cwd_paths_amount < desired_cwd_paths_amount then
          table.insert(cwd_paths, path)
          current_cwd_paths_amount = current_cwd_paths_amount + 1
        end
      else
        if current_global_paths_amount < desired_global_paths_amount then
          table.insert(global_paths, path)
          current_global_paths_amount = current_global_paths_amount + 1
        end
      end
    end

    -- truncate a path, rounding down to the nearest /
    local function truncate_path(path, max_length)
      if not max_length then
        max_length = 50
      end
      if #path <= max_length then
        return path
      end
      local truncated_path = path:sub(-max_length)
      local first_slash_pos = truncated_path:find '/'
      if first_slash_pos then
        truncated_path = truncated_path:sub(first_slash_pos)
      end
      return icons.ui.elipsis .. truncated_path
    end

    -- map a list of paths to alpha buttons
    local function map_path_to_button(paths, keybind_offset, style_func)
      local buttons = {}
      for i, path in ipairs(paths) do
        local path_desc = path
        if style_func then
          path_desc = style_func(path)
        end
        table.insert(
          buttons,
          dashboard.button(tostring(i + keybind_offset - 1), icons.ui.file .. '  ' .. truncate_path(path_desc, 44), function()
            vim.cmd('e ' .. path)
          end)
        )
      end
      return buttons
    end

    -- ^ RECENT FILES ^ --
    -- v     GIT      v --

    local function get_git_repo()
      local result = vim.fn.system 'git remote get-url origin'
      if vim.v.shell_error ~= 0 then
        return ''
      end
      -- Extract the repo name from the URL
      local repo_name = result:match '.*/(.*).git'
      return icons.ui.git .. '  ' .. repo_name
    end

    local function get_git_branch()
      local result = vim.fn.system 'git branch --show-current'
      if vim.v.shell_error ~= 0 then
        return ''
      end
      return icons.ui.branch .. '  ' .. result:gsub('%s+', '')
    end

    -- ^      GIT     ^ --
    -- v    LAYOUT    v --

    local function pad(n)
      return { type = 'padding', val = n }
    end

    local function center_header(header)
      local lines = {}
      for line in string.gmatch(header, '[^\n]+') do
        table.insert(lines, line)
      end

      local width = vim.api.nvim_win_get_width(0) -- Get the width of the current window
      local padding = math.floor((width - #lines[1]) / 2) -- Calculate padding based on the first line length
      for i, line in ipairs(lines) do
        lines[i] = string.rep(' ', padding) .. line
      end
      return lines
    end

    local ascii_header = [[
                                                                    
       ████ ██████           █████      ██                    
      ███████████             █████                            
      █████████ ███████████████████ ███   ███████████  
     █████████  ███    █████████████ █████ ██████████████  
    █████████ ██████████ █████████ █████ █████ ████ █████  
  ███████████ ███    ███ █████████ █████ █████ ████ █████ 
 ██████  █████████████████████ ████ █████ █████ ████ ██████
    ]]

    -- ^    LAYOUT    ^ --
    -- v   SECTIONS   v --

    local header = {
      type = 'text',
      val = center_header(ascii_header),
      opts = { hl = colors.blue },
    }

    local git_section = {
      type = 'text',
      val = get_git_repo() .. '  ' .. get_git_branch(),
      opts = { position = 'center', hl = colors.purple },
    }

    local cwd_section = {
      type = 'text',
      val = icons.ui.open_folder .. '  ' .. shorten_home(base_directory),
      opts = { position = 'center', hl = colors.pink },
    }

    local recent_cwd_files_section_header = {
      type = 'text',
      val = icons.ui.files .. '  Recent CWD Files                               ', -- these spaces are to aligh the text with section below
      opts = { position = 'center', hl = colors.green },
    }
    local recent_cwd_files_section = {
      type = 'group',
      val = map_path_to_button(cwd_paths, 0, remove_cwd),
      opts = {},
    }

    local recent_global_files_section_header = {
      type = 'text',
      val = icons.ui.files .. '  Recent Files                                   ', -- these spaces are to aligh the text with section below
      opts = { position = 'center', hl = colors.blue },
    }
    local recent_global_files_section = {
      type = 'group',
      val = map_path_to_button(global_paths, 5, shorten_home),
      opts = {},
    }

    local actions_section_header = {
      type = 'text',
      val = icons.ui.lightning .. ' Actions                                        ', -- these spaces are to aligh the text with section below
      opts = { position = 'center', hl = colors.purple },
    }
    local actions_section = {
      type = 'group',
      val = {
        dashboard.button('f', icons.ui.tree .. '  File Tree', '<cmd>NvimTreeToggle<CR>'),
        dashboard.button('l', icons.ui.lazy .. '  Lazy', '<cmd>Lazy<cr>'),
        dashboard.button('q', icons.ui.close .. '  Quit NVIM', ':qa<CR>'),
      },
      opts = { position = 'center' },
    }

    -- ^   SECTIONS   ^ --

    alpha.setup {
      layout = {
        pad(2),
        header,
        pad(1),
        git_section,
        cwd_section,
        pad(2),
        recent_cwd_files_section_header,
        recent_cwd_files_section,
        pad(1),
        recent_global_files_section_header,
        recent_global_files_section,
        pad(1),
        actions_section_header,
        actions_section,
      },
    }
  end,
}