Question: What is the difference of vim-CtrlXA vs. other in-/decrement plugins?

[kiryph]

There are already plenty of <C-X/A> plugins such as

• https://github.com/bootleq/vim-cycle
• https://github.com/mjbrownie/swapit
• https://github.com/AndrewRadev/switch.vim#more-complicated-mappings
• https://github.com/nishigori/increment-activator
• https://github.com/zef/vim-cycle
• ...

What is the difference of this plugin compared to the others?

[Konfekt]

I did not check every single one of them. But those that I tried had some bugs, did not respect . and were confusingly written. The aim of this plug-in was to have something stable, respecting . (with vim-repeat) and cleanly written (taking a look at the function underlying the mappings to Ctrl-X/A in autoload\CtrlXA.vim, it has only a couple of lines).

[kiryph]

Thanks for sharing your motivation. I can see that your plugin is really minimalistic (cloc says 23+15 lines of code) which is certainly a good thing.

I tried myself vim-cycle by bootleq and swapit by mjbrownie and sticked to vim-cycle even though I had some troubles to configure it the way I wanted (bootleq/vim-cycle#6, bootleq/vim-cycle#5, bootleq/vim-cycle#4).

Comparison

1. vim-cycle by bootleq

• dot-repeat
• ft-specific toggles
• support for pairs in LaTeX, e.g. \big( a + b \big) to \Big( a +b \Big)
• options such as match_case, hard_case, match_word
• Fallback mappings to vim-speeddating are possible even though I have uninstalled speeddating because I don't use it enough.

Stats:

❯ cloc --by-file vim-cycle
       8 text files.
       8 unique files.
       5 files ignored.

github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.72  T=0.07 s (73.1 files/s, 12668.2 lines/s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File                                              blank        comment           code
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
vim-cycle/autoload/cycle.vim                        124             20            559
vim-cycle/plugin/cycle.vim                           20              8             45
vim-cycle/README.md                                  11              0             31
vim-cycle/test/group_operation.vim                    4              0             23
vim-cycle/CHANGES.md                                 10              0             12
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUM:                                                169             28            670
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. swapit

• dot-repeat (Add support for repeat.vim with counts for swapit mjbrownie/swapit#23)
• ft-specific toggles
• Fallback to vim-speeddating possible.
• no support for pairs and customizations such as match_case, hard_case, match_word

Stats:

❯ cloc --by-file swapit
      13 text files.
      12 unique files.
       4 files ignored.

github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.72  T=0.08 s (123.7 files/s, 7210.2 lines/s)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File                                                       blank        comment           code
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
swapit/plugin/swapit.vim                                      47            201            239
swapit/autoload/cssswapit.vim                                 10              2             28
swapit/after/ftplugin/htmldjango_swapit.vim                    2              1             10
swapit/after/ftplugin/tex_swapit.vim                           1              0              9
swapit/after/ftplugin/html_swapit.vim                          2              1              8
swapit/after/ftplugin/css_swapit.vim                           2              0              6
swapit/after/ftplugin/python_swapit.vim                        0              0              3
swapit/after/ftplugin/php_swapit.vim                           0              0              3
swapit/after/ftplugin/vim_swapit.vim                           3              1              2
swapit/after/ftplugin/gitrebase_swapit.vim                     0              0              2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUM:                                                          67            206            310
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. vim-CtrlXA

• dot-repeat
• super minimalistic

stats:

❯ cloc --by-file vim-CtrlXA
       4 text files.
       4 unique files.
       2 files ignored.

github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.72  T=0.04 s (72.0 files/s, 1584.5 lines/s)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File                                          blank        comment           code
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
vim-CtrlXA/plugin/CtrlXA.vim                      5              0             23
vim-CtrlXA/README.md                              3              0             17
vim-CtrlXA/autoload/CtrlXA.vim                    2              1             15
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUM:                                             10              1             55
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Konfekt]

Thanks for the comparison!

Ok, I recall trying swapit.vim and its quirks made me create vim-CtrlXA.

Perhaps vim-cycle is a rock solid alternative that offers a lot more customization that I might try out in the future. There hasn't any need yet though, for example the TeX delimiter cycling the plugin vimtex already takes care of.

[Konfekt]

The lack of file-type specific cycles is made up by the latest commit at the cost of an extra line of code (and some in the docs).

[Konfekt]

Regarding

Fallback to vim-speeddating

this has also been documented recently.