surround plugin and TeX quotes `'

Question

Is it possible to make the surround plugin work on `TeX-style quotes' and ``TeX-style double quotes''? (Normally, if `this is quoted'| and `this', va' will select from the first closing mark to the second (if the cursor is at |).)

Answer 1

You can create a customize surround by defining a variable g:surround_{key code}

So for example you could do

let g:surround_96 = "`\r'"

Where 96 is the key code for `. You can make this more readable by putting by letting vim determine the key code by using

let g:surround_{char2nr("`")} = "`\r'"

\r will be replaced by the relevant text. If you only want this to work in tex files you can put it in an autocmd

autocmd FileType tex let b:surround_{char2nr("`")} = "`\r'"

Usage would be ysiw`. Read :help surround-customizing

Answer 2

1. An alternative choice of characters are q and Q which do not overwrite a builtin surrounding (`):

   autocmd FileType tex let b:surround_{char2nr("q")} = "`\r'"
   autocmd FileType tex let b:surround_{char2nr('Q')} = "``\r''"
   

2. (IMPORTANT) However, you cannot delete or change custom surroundings of vim-surround. Intuitively one would try dsq or csQq which do not work. Also dot-repeat is not as convenient since you have to enter again q.

   If you want to have this, consider switching to the plugin vim-sandwich. The default mappings are little bit different: saiwl' would add `text', srbl" would change it to ``text'', and sdb would remove them again. sa, sr, sd for add, replace and delete surrounding. l' for latex single quotation marks, l" for latex double quotation marks. It also defines a text-object (default ib), to allow for convenient selection with vib what the OP has asked. It can be repeated to extend the selection with vibib....

3. A convenience feature of vim-surround which is not well known is following shortcut: use the change command to actually add a surrounding to a word, WORD, sentence or paragraph with one of the special target specifiers [wWsp]. To surround the current paragraph with a quotation the command is cspQ.

   :h surround-targets

   The letters w, W, and s correspond to a |word|, a |WORD|, and a |sentence|, respectively. These are special in that they have nothing to delete, and used with |ds| they are a no-op. With |cs|, one could consider them a slight shortcut for ysi (cswb == ysiwb, more or less).

   A p represents a |paragraph|. This behaves similarly to w, W, and s above; however, newlines are sometimes added and/or removed.