Never type outside vim again
vimclip is a tiny script to spawn your favorite $EDITOR and leave what you typed in your clipboard.
I like to think of it as a lightweight vim-anywhere.
By default, vimclip relies on xsel (X11) / wl-copy (Wayland) on Linux and pbcopy on macOS to copy what you typed into the clipboard.
Make sure they are available, or make vimclip use a different command by setting $VIMCLIP_CLIPBOARD_COMMAND.
You should also set $EDITOR to your favorite editor (probably vim).
Copy the script to a folder in your $PATH and mark it executable.
Arch users can install vimclip-git from the AUR.
After that, you’ll want to set a shortcut to automatically spawn a terminal and run vimclip.
This will depend on your desktop environment and terminal.
Some examples:
Ubuntu with gnome-terminal
Open Settings > Devices > Keyboard, scroll all the way to the bottom, and hit + to add a new shortcut.
Call it vimclip, set the command to gnome-terminal -- vimclip, and assign the shortcut you like.
Other terminal emulators
For KDE’s konsole set the command to konsole -e vimclip.
For kitty simply set it to kitty vimclip.
macOS iTerm
Make an AppleScript to open an iTerm window with the command zsh -c $HOME/bin/vimclip (or wherever you placed vimclip).
Then make a keyboard shortcut to invoke the script.
See also https://github.com/hrantzsch/vimclip/issues/3.
Others
If you run another desktop environment with another terminal emulator I’m sure you’ll be able to figure it out as well.
Don’t hesitate to open an issue if not.
Don’t worry, you won’t have to type it all again.
vimclip stores your input in a temporary file at /tmp/vimclip.XXXXXXXX (where XXX… is replaced by a random string).
So if you accidentally copied something else into your clipboard before pasting your vimclip input, just go and grab the content from there.
I called it vimclip, but if your $EDITOR is emacs, nano, or any other, it should work as well.