What defines the order of sessions in mini.starter?

[dathinaios]

Just a question: I am using mini.starter to simply display my saved sessions (normal sessions not mini.session). The last session that I have saved appears first but I would like to be able to reorder. How can I do it?

[echasnovski]

@dathinaios, could you, please, clarify what setup you are using?

The default items contain "Sessions" section which displays only sessions detected with 'mini.sessions'. It's default order is indeed from most to least recent, but can be changed to alphabetical. Other than that you'd have to write your own section with any order you'd want.

[dathinaios]

Thank you for the answer. I have quite a custom configuration that you helped me with in the past:

local header_art =
[[
 ╭╮╭┬─╮╭─╮┬  ┬┬╭┬╮
 │││├┤ │ │╰┐┌╯││││
 ╯╰╯╰─╯╰─╯ ╰╯ ┴┴ ┴
]]

-- using the mini plugins
require('mini.sessions').setup({
  -- Whether to read latest session if Neovim opened without file arguments
  autoread = false,
  -- Whether to write current session before quitting Neovim
  autowrite = false,
  -- Directory where global sessions are stored (use `''` to disable)
  directory =  '~/.vim/sessions', --<"session" subdir of user data directory from |stdpath()|>,
  -- File for local session (use `''` to disable)
  file = '' -- 'Session.vim',
})

local starter = require('mini.starter')
starter.setup({
  -- to disable letter navigation so I can map j,k
  -- query_updaters = '',
  -- evaluate_single = true,
  items = {
    starter.sections.sessions(77, true),
    starter.sections.builtin_actions(),
  },
  content_hooks = {
    function(content)
      local blank_content_line = { { type = 'empty', string = '' } }
      local section_coords = starter.content_coords(content, 'section')
      -- Insert backwards to not affect coordinates
      for i = #section_coords, 1, -1 do
        table.insert(content, section_coords[i].line + 1, blank_content_line)
      end
      return content
    end,
    starter.gen_hook.adding_bullet("» "),
    starter.gen_hook.aligning('center', 'center'),
  },
  header = header_art,
  footer = '',
})

-- fix from AI
vim.api.nvim_create_augroup('MiniStarterJK', { clear = true })

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd('User', {
  pattern = 'MiniStarterOpened',
  callback = function()
    if vim.bo.filetype == 'ministarter' and vim.api.nvim_buf_get_name(0):match('Starter') then
      vim.api.nvim_buf_set_keymap(0, 'n', 'j', "<Cmd>lua MiniStarter.update_current_item('next')<CR>", { noremap = true, silent = true })
      vim.api.nvim_buf_set_keymap(0, 'n', 'k', "<Cmd>lua MiniStarter.update_current_item('prev')<CR>", { noremap = true, silent = true })
    end
  end
})

(Just noticed that I am actually using mini.sessions.. 😬)

[echasnovski]

(Just noticed that I am actually using mini.sessions.. 😬)

Yeah, that appears to be the case. Then this is indeed relevant:

The default items contain "Sessions" section which displays only sessions detected with 'mini.sessions'. It's default order is indeed from most to least recent, but can be changed to alphabetical. Other than that you'd have to write your own section with any order you'd want.

If you really need custom session order, then you can use a callable MiniStarter.config.items entry which reads MiniSessions.detected and converts it to array of 'mini.starter' items in the order you want. The relevant part of MiniStarter.sections.sessions should be a good starting point: simplify to use hyperparameters and sorting as you'd like.

[dathinaios]

Thank you for the answer! I thought it might be a file with the items somewhere like arrow.nvim uses that I can invoke and edit. Maybe a useful feature? But I will give your suggestion a try. Thanks again! 🙂

[echasnovski]

I think having the Starter screen be configured inside require('mini.starter').setup() makes sense. Not least because items can be functions to be executed right before showing Starter buffer.

If you mean sessions, then they are detected based on the config, so having them as a list in a single file is not really possible. Setting proper directory for global sessions is enough and no extra file is needed.