"Wait" key in :map

Question

In my .vimrc i have :imap .. .<C-x><C-o> and it work as it should (double dot to open menu with fields).

But I also want to be able type text like [1..MAX] as you can see here vim will try use Omnicoplet to find fields in 1 what is nonsense.

is there way to write this map as

:imap ..<wait> .<C-x><C-o>

Where <wait> mean no keys is pressed for some time, after two dots. Other solution I thought is like

:imap .. .<C-x><C-o> :imap ..<any> ..<any>
Where <any> mean any key after two dots will be replace to that key and two dots before.

Answer 1

To implement your stated use case, the :imap ..<any> ..<any> would leverage Vim's built-in 'timeoutlen'; it's implementation wouldn't be so outrageous, there's only a limited set of available keys and you can use metaprogramming with a :for loop to build all these mappings. The biggest challenge here is enumerating all desired keys.

However, I doubt that this would be very useful. The completion popup would only open after that delay, so it will slow you down (unless you only intend to trigger that mapping if you're contemplating about the possible values, anyway) - completion is as much about saving typing than it is about showing alternatives.

As an alternative approach, I'd home in on try use Omnicoplet to find fields in 1 is nonsense. With a :help :map-expression, you can check the text before the cursor, and then either trigger completion (without delay!) or (e.g. in case of a digit) just return a literal . there. That condition can be as complex as you'd like (you could even query the syntax group and leverage syntax parsing of identifiers vs. other stuff), and should "do what I mean" in many cases.

For those special exceptions (that will always exist), I personally find it okay to actively avoid triggering the mapping, either by making a short pause when typing (. <pause> . in your case), or escaping one of the characters via i_CTRL-V: .<C-v>.