goyo.vim VS vim-pencil

I wrote a manuscript in vim a couple Novembers ago, for NaNoWrimo. I used a couple plugins, primarily Goyo [1] to add some margins, but otherwise, yeah, plain vim.

I don't think it was really any more productive than my current workflow in Obsidian. Vim keybindings are more useful for editing than for writing (and for editing code in particular, where the changes you're making are much more structured). Also, while the extra features afforded by Obsidian don't really make a difference during the writing process, I find they're really useful for outlines and other preliminary work, which is something of a point against a vim-only workflow unless you want to use vimwiki [2] or something.

Granted, Obsidian is still a markdown-based tool, so there's still some level of minimalism going on there, but by that point we're really discussing markup vs word processors, which is its own conversation—and to my mind, a much more important one. I much prefer working in markup than in a rich text editor, because plain text is easy to edit and process through the terminal, and because it lets me separate style choices from content.

I find that the markdown live preview that editors like Obsidian and Typora provide (and which vim doesn't) is a really nice compromise between a slick composing experience and the technical affordances of markup. Between that and Obsidian's hypertext features, I think I'll stick with Obsidian for the foreseeable future.

[1]: https://github.com/junegunn/goyo.vim

[2]: https://vimwiki.github.io/

Maybe https://github.com/junegunn/goyo.vim could be useful then.

Goyo is a distraction free plugin for vim/NeoVim. https://github.com/junegunn/goyo.vim. Typically used for people wanting to write inside of NeoVim. There isn’t a real purpose for me to use it other than I like the aesthetic looks. Thanks for replying!

Maybe not of use, but what about just one of your editors + the terminal? Using vim with the goyo extension similarly without the overlay. I write my notes with markdown.

I haven't maintained a Vim config in a few years now (more of an Emacs man now), but I do remember using Goyo in college. Looking back at it, I think it might scratch your itch as far as Vim plugins go, it even allows you to resize the area on the fly.

https://github.com/junegunn/goyo.vim

I went from https://github.com/junegunn/goyo.vim to https://github.com/folke/zen-mode.nvim and now this

Can't see https://github.com/junegunn/goyo.vim mentioned anywhere in this thread.

This feels real similar in concept to limelight and goyo. Nice! 👍🏻

Another option is vim-pencil.

Both of the above are naturally integrated into billions of nvim plugins. I store files in a cloud folder to have access to them on my phone. There are apps that allow you to work with notes written in markdown like Obsidian. You should have a way to quickly go to your writing files. You could use telescope-project.nvim, startify shortcuts, or any other session plugin. I would also recommend setting up LSP for writing. You will be able to have diagnostics, "code actions" on wrong grammar, allowing you to add words to dictionary and suppress rules. I use ltex_extra.nvim for this. There are also a good set of plugins for writing by one author, just check them at the bottom of the pencil page.

Two years ago, I did nanowrimo in Vim with a whole suite of plugins:

- https://github.com/preservim/vim-pencil

- https://github.com/junegunn/goyo.vim.git

- https://github.com/junegunn/limelight.vim.git

- https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki

It was fun, and the setup is almost identical to iA Writer which I appreciate. I even had it all on my phone with Termux!

Last year I just did it in Markdown in VSCode in "zen mode" which also worked pretty well. It was definitely easier to setup than Vim and had better highlighting of bold/italics/etc.

You may like vim-pencil if you use markdown. It adds several small conveniences around word wrap options, among other things. Note also that the author of pencil includes many useful links in the README for conceiving vim as a tool for prose. My workflow is based on pandoc and bibtex. But that part's not vim- specific.

The most efficient way to do this is to install the vim-pencil plugin--when you go to edit the file, say :Pencil to activate the plugin, and it'll reformat the text on the fly while you're editing it. Basically it makes vim act less like vim and more like a word processor.

You may find vim-pencil usefull. The readme has some good links.

preservim/vim-pencil: Rethinking Vim as a tool for writing

vim-pencil sets undo points at the end of every sentence (and other things) although you might not want to install a full plugin just for that.