drichardson/vim-vex

VEX Development Plugin for Vim

VEX Development Plugin for Vim

This Vim plugin provides syntax highlighting and omnifunc completion of built-in function names for SideFX's VEX programming language.

Documentation (including installation instructions) is in vim.vex.txt.

vim-vex's Issues

node path completion like built in editor/shell

Implement object node completion that works like the build in editor/shell. For example, in Python shell, when you enter hou.node("/obj/ a list of objects from that HIP file appear.

In VEX, this would be triggered by functions marked as taking a node path parameter, like ch.

Questions

• What HIP file (if any) is current being edited?
• How to specify a HIP file for auto-completion if Vim was not started from Houdini as an external editor (i.e., you are just editing a VEX file on disk directly)?
• How does the Python, HScript Textport, built-in VEX editor perform node name completion? Are they in the same process as Houdini or are they communicating with it via some IPC mechanism?

Things to Look Into

hou.node.glob

A Python IPC server running in the HIP file could use hou.node.glob to implement node name completion.

Example:

>>> [n.name() for n in hou.root().glob("/*")]
['obj', 'out', 'ch', 'shop', 'img', 'vex', 'mat']
>>> [n.name() for n in hou.root().glob("/o*")]
['obj', 'out']
>>> [n.name() for n in hou.root().glob("/obj/*")]
['terrain', 'Scatter', 'Overlap_Grain_Solve', 'Scatter_Objects']

Houdini Environment Variables

Houdini's Environment Variables contain information that may be useful to give context, for example the HFS and HIP variables.

generate dictionary/omnifunc completion database on demand

Since this plugin can be used with any version of Houdini, it should be able to generate the dictionary/omnifunc completion database on demand in case new VEX functions are added.

Automatically identify VEX context when launched from Houdini as external editor

Identifying the VEX context will allow automatic selection of the proper VEX context completion dictionary. Currently, the user has to manually set which VEX context to use with the g:vex_context variable.

completion for user defined VEX functions and variables

snippets for control statements

Add snippets for control statements. Take ideas from:

https://github.com/fatih/vim-go/tree/master/gosnippets

omnifunc completion for built-in functions

vcc -X surface provides information about each function, including return type and parameter types. Use this to implement omnifunc completion for built-in functions.

This feature does not include support for user define function auto-completion.

Bundle doesn't load with default Houdini HOME environment value

Vim configuration (including bundles in .vim) do not load. This is a generic Vim/Houdini integration problem, but it also prevents vex.vim from loading.

By default, Houdini modifies the HOME variable from c:\Users\USERNAME or c:\Users\USERNAME\Documents.

I've only experienced this issue on Windows 10. I'm not sure if it happens on macOS or Linux.

There are two workarounds, but unfortunately they must be done manually by the Vim user, since this bundle isn't loaded when the problem occurs.

Workaround 1

In houdini.env, change HOME back to c:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME.

On side effect of this is that some files that were written to c:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\houdini17.5 will now be written to c:\Users\USERNAME\houdini17.5.

Workaround 2

Place a .vimrc in c:\Users\USERNAME\Documents that sources c:\Users\USERNAME.

Workaround 3

Add an environment variable HOME to point to $env:USERPROFILE.

Possible Solution 1

1. Document problem in readme and in vim docs.
2. Print message describing problem the first time the bundle is loaded. Write a file (e.g., environment_problem_alert_shown) after this has occurred which is checked to prevent annoying messages each time the bundle is loaded.

crash when launching vim as external editor

Demo of bug here: https://youtu.be/gAuqh-HcpOs

Steps to Reproduce

1. Set EDITOR path to vim, where vim is version 8.1
2. Install Houdini Game Dev Tools
3. In Attribute Wrangle, launch external editor.
4. Enter INSERT mode.

Result

Vim disappears with the following message:

Fatal Python error: initfsencoding: unable to load the file system codec
File "C:/PROGRA~1/SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.229/python27\lib\encodings\__init__.py", line 123
  raise CodecRegistryError

SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Current thread 0x000055f0 (most recent call first):

snippet placeholders for function arguments

If snippet engine (e.g. UltiSnips) is installed, provide function argument placeholders. For UltiSnips, I think you can use UltiSnips#Anon for this.