Customizing tabline in mini.tabline plugin

[krovuxdev]

Contributing guidelines

• I have read CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

Module(s)

mini.tabline

Question

Is it possible to customize the tabline as shown in the screenshot, where I have the tab number (e.g., "01", "02", "03") on the left and the file name (e.g., "Blink.lua") on the right?

The screenshot shows how the tabby plugin does it, but I was wondering if something similar can be achieved with mini.tabline.

Thank you!

[krovuxdev]

I’ve managed to achieve this with tabs,

but I haven’t been able to hide the file names when switching tabs. Also, I still need to add a Nixos icon to the left of the tabs, but I'm not sure how to do that

code:

vim.o.tabline = "%!v:lua.MyTabLine() .. v:lua.MiniTabline.make_tabline_string()"

function _G.MyTabLine()
    local tabline = ""
    for i = 1, vim.fn.tabpagenr("$") do
        local is_tab = vim.fn.tabpagenr() == i
        tabline = tabline
            .. (is_tab and "%#MiniTablineTabpagesection#" or "%#Normal#")
            .. " "
            .. "%"
            .. (is_tab and "  " or "  ")
            .. i
            .. " "
    end
    return tabline
end

[krovuxdev]

I've managed to achieve this with icons.

Here's the result:

Code snippets:

    local os_icon, hl = MiniIcons.get("os", "nixos")
    return "%#" .. hl .. "# " .. os_icon .. " " .. tabline

(However, I'm still struggling to hide buffer filenames when switching between tabs. Any suggestions on how to achieve this? 🥺)

[echasnovski]

'mini.tabline' is not designed for this kind of customization, I am afraid. The closest you can do to showing only single "tab" (if I understand correctly what you mean here) is try finding the config.format that works best for you. For example, returning empty string for non-current buffers.

[krovuxdev]

@echasnovski I managed to hide non-current buffers by customizing the config.format, but I encountered an issue: when I switch to another tab and open a buffer, it doesn't display the file name properly. Any suggestions on how to handle this scenario?

tablines.mp4

here code:

MiniTabline.setup({
    set_vim_settings = true,
    format = function(buf_id, label)
        local suffix = vim.bo[buf_id].modified and "  " or "  "
        for i = 1, vim.fn.tabpagenr("$") do
            local is_tab = vim.fn.tabpagenr() == i
            local v, _ = MiniTabline.default_format(buf_id, label)
            if is_tab then
                return suffix .. v
            else
                return ""
            end
        end
        -- stylua: ignore
        -- return suffix .. v
    end,
    show_icons = true,
    tabpage_section = "right",
})
vim.o.tabline = "%!v:lua.MyTabLine() .. v:lua.MiniTabline.make_tabline_string()"

function _G.MyTabLine()
    local tabline = ""
    local os_icon, hl = MiniIcons.get("os", "nixos")
    for i = 1, vim.fn.tabpagenr("$") do
        local is_tab = vim.fn.tabpagenr() == i
        tabline = tabline
            .. (is_tab and "%#MiniTablineTabpagesection#" or "%#Normal#")
            .. " "
            .. "%"
            .. (is_tab and "  " or "  ")
            .. i
            .. " "
    end
    return "%#" .. hl .. "# " .. os_icon .. " " .. tabline --  .. .. "%=%"
end

[echasnovski]

Tabpage is not the same as buffer (see :h windows-intro). In config.format you cycle through tabpages, not buffers. To return empty string for non-current buffers it should start with something like if buf_id ~= vim.api.nvim_get_current_buf() then return '' end.

[krovuxdev]

@echasnovski thanks so much, this worked for me with if buf_id ~= vim.api.nvim_get_current_buf() then return '' end :)
Also, another way that worked for me is this code:

format = function(buf_id, label)
        local current_tab = vim.fn.tabpagenr()
        local tab_buffers = vim.fn.tabpagebuflist(current_tab)
        if vim.tbl_contains(tab_buffers, buf_id) then
            local v, _ = MiniTabline.default_format(buf_id, label)
            local suffix = vim.bo[buf_id].modified and "  " or "  "
            return suffix .. v
        end
        return ""
    end,

Sorry, one more question: is it possible to color the icon of the file? If not, that’s fine. Thanks again! :)

[echasnovski]

Also, another way that worked for me is this code:

Beware that this will call tabpagenr(), tabpagebuflist(), and vim.tbl_contains() (which is somewhat expensive as it does linear search) on every currently listed buffer. This is basically O(n*m) complexity with n - number of all listed buffers and m - number of buffers visible in current tabpage, compared to essentially O(n) with vim.api.nvim_get_current_buf() approach which is essentially O(1) because nvim_get_current_buf() is really fast.

Sorry, one more question: is it possible to color the icon of the file? If not, that’s fine. Thanks again! :)

See #1279.