[HN Gopher] Csv.vim: A Filetype plugin for CSV files
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       Csv.vim: A Filetype plugin for CSV files
        
       Author : s1291
       Score  : 132 points
       Date   : 2022-02-11 13:16 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | epsteinisntdead wrote:
       | I've used sc-im for pretty minimal spreadsheet operators for a
       | while now, but have hated needing a special file format for it,
       | plus it's not available in a lot of package managers. Love that I
       | can do simple calculation in Vim now.
        
         | mendelmaleh wrote:
         | sc-im works with csv too
        
       | 29athrowaway wrote:
       | It would be cool if TUI tools like Quattro Pro and Wordperfect or
       | WordStar could be ported to Linux.
        
         | kazinator wrote:
         | Regarding Wordstar:
         | 
         | - There are editors with key bindings similar to Wordstar, like
         | JOE.
         | 
         | - From what I remember of Wordstar, it used formatting commands
         | which begin with a period on a new line ("dot commands"), such
         | as:                   .op
         | 
         | to "omit page number". That's reminiscent of troff, which also
         | has dot commands. So basically, I suspect you could have a
         | "vaguely Wordstar-like experience" if you learn a few troff dot
         | commands and use JOE to edit the text. Of course external
         | tooling is used to compile the troff to PDF and whatnot.
         | 
         | - There is also something called Wordtsar: http://wordtsar.ca/
         | This looks to be a Wordstar clone that the author mainly
         | develops on Linux.
         | 
         | Hey look, someone in May 1985 was asking in comp.unix.wizards
         | if there is a way to convert Wordstar fiels to Troff.
         | 
         | https://www.tuhs.org/Usenet/comp.unix.wizards/1985-May/01371...
         | 
         | That would be right around the time I would have been typing
         | out grade 8 homework in Wordstar, running under CP/M via a Z80
         | coprocessor card inserted into my Hong-Kong-made Apple II+
         | clone.
        
           | app4soft wrote:
           | > _There is also something called Wordtsar:_
           | 
           | Yeah, Wordtsar is amazing app![0]
           | 
           | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=wordtsar.ca
        
         | JNRowe wrote:
         | If it meant we got more amazing stories like the Lotus 1-2-3
         | one1, then I'm all for dosemu.
         | 
         | 1 https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/lotus123.html
        
       | tambourine_man wrote:
       | I'll give this try. I hate whenever I have to use a spreadsheet
       | and leave the comfort of vim.
       | 
       | Regardless, anyone able to write this much vimscript and remain
       | sane deserves the greatest respect.
        
         | JNRowe wrote:
         | csv.vim's author is _very_ prolific. Beyond the awesome plugins
         | in his personal GitHub1, he seems to end up on the other end of
         | the merge button for a bunch of other vim things too. And then
         | when you go poking around in $VIMRUNTIME he keeps popping up
         | again and again. </fandom>
         | 
         | 1 NrrwRgn and unicode.vim deserve a special mention IMO, but
         | others are great as well!
        
         | leonim wrote:
         | I would suggest using the Jeremy Singer-Vine Tutorial:
         | https://jsvine.github.io/intro-to-visidata/the-big-picture/v...
         | 
         | I had always wanted to use vim to do some CSV viewing and
         | editing, but I never found a good solution. This plugin looks
         | pretty amazing from the demo, but I would still recommend
         | VisiData. It does tables in a more natural way. Plus VisiData
         | can handle many different file types. Menus were recently added
         | to VisiData which helps make it more approachable.
        
           | jrumbut wrote:
           | Now that's a demo! Takes you from a gentle reminder how to
           | run a program in your shell to showing off an impressive
           | feature then tells you how to discover more.
           | 
           | Every project should take notes on this.
        
         | sodapopcan wrote:
         | Ehn, as with anything, it's not that bad once you get used to
         | it but yes, it's still quite bad... but not that bad! But bad.
         | You know, kinda like JavaScript :trollface:
        
       | ianbutler wrote:
       | It's weird seeing this here, I made a small PR to it that was
       | merged to add a few statistical functions back in 2017. Good
       | plugin though!
        
       | ginko wrote:
       | I can really recommend VisiData for exploring CSV files in the
       | commandline
       | 
       | https://www.visidata.org/
        
         | santiagobasulto wrote:
         | `vd` is amazing; I used to fire a Notebook + pandas any time i
         | had to deal with a CSV/excel file. Now, I can do most of it
         | just from `vd`.
        
         | smallmouth wrote:
         | Wow! Where has this been hiding? And looking forward to trying
         | csv.vim.
        
         | adamddev1 wrote:
         | Wow very cool. Probably an allusion to VisiCalc in the name?
        
         | troquerre wrote:
         | Can't believe I didn't know about this before. Just shared this
         | with our entire dev team and they like it!
        
         | adhocmobility wrote:
         | I'm a very passive hackernews reader, and don't engage much
         | with posts. I want to break that passivity to say that Visidata
         | is the tool that has given me the greatest joy out of any other
         | piece of software I've ever used.
        
         | phaer wrote:
         | Visidata is such a gem of software! A real good example of what
         | kind of UIs are possible for "power users"
        
         | Tepix wrote:
         | Does it have vi keybindings?
        
           | enriquto wrote:
           | Yes, and they are active by default.
        
         | camel_Snake wrote:
         | 2nded!
        
         | nivenhuh wrote:
         | I just recently started the move back from GUI to CLI, and
         | tools like this only reinforce my decision :).
         | 
         | Thanks for sharing.
        
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       (page generated 2022-02-11 23:00 UTC)