Is it possible to only load snippets certain files in a scope directory?

[lpil]

For example, the vim-snippets repo contains a javascript/ directory. It looks like this:

snippets/javascript/
├── javascript-jquery.snippets
├── javascript-requirejs.snippets
├── javascript.d3.snippets
├── javascript.node.snippets
└── javascript.snippets

I want to load javascript.snippets and javascript.node.snippets, but not the other snippet files, as they are library specific.

I was hoping that I could do this:

let g:snipMate.scope_aliases['javascript'] = 'javascript,javascript.node'

but this still matches the javascript/ dir. What is the solution here?

Thanks,
Louis

[ajzafar]

I think currently the solution is to use scope aliases and/or the :SnipMateLoadScope command. That may require a renaming of some files. The way SnipMate handles these files tries to mirror Vim itself in some fashion; i.e., SnipMate doesn't pay much attention to how files are named inside the javascript/ directory when ft=javascript, and I'd rather not change that.

[lpil]

This is a pain, as we'll need to make a major modification to the vim-snippets repo, and then set a default scope alias to get the jQuery and node snippets back as defaults. I'm not sure this is possible with ultisnips at the moment.

I'm not really sure what the best solution is here.

[hjdivad]

@lpil the way I do this for my own snippets is to invent my own file types for libraries and then have a project local vimrc that sets those filetypes.

For example, if I have a ruby project using the rspec library my project-local vimrc might contain something like

augroup ExtraTypes
  autocmd!
  autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead *_spec.rb set ft+=.rspec
augroup end

Then I can keep my rspec.snippets separate from my ruby.snippets.

I realise your problem is a little different... I'm not sure of a good way to deal with this when using communal snippets repositories, but maybe a similar idea could be helpful?

[lpil]

I quite like this idea. We could modify the vim-snippets repo in this fashion, but then people's default javascript snippets will change. I'm not sure how good an idea this is.

Either way, thanks @hjdivad!

[ajzafar]

The :SnipMateLoadScope command was added for such a situation. With it

autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead *_spec.rb set ft+=.rspec

becomes

autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead *_spec.rb SnipMateLoadScope rspec

This avoids creating a fake filetype, in favor of buffer-specific loading of snippets, without needing to create wide reaching scope aliases.

I'm going to close this for now. Feel free to reopen it if you have more thoughts.