vim shell command integration

Question

Ok, I have rather simple question: How can one bind vim command/hotkey to execute some complicated shell-script?

E.g. I want to optimize base64-inlined images inside css files. I know, that in shell it would be something like:

echo `selection` > /tmp/img.png.b64
base64 -d /tmp/img.png.b64 > /tmp/img.png
optipng -o7 /tmp/img.png
base64 -w 0 /tmp/img.png > `selection`

I want to put selection into the script and then get result of script execution and replace selected content with that result. I see the workflow as selecting base64 part in visual block mode and type e.g. :'<,'>optipng or press some hotkey. The question is how to setup vim to do that.

Ingo Karkat · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-04 13:34:04Z

1

Vim allows to filter line(s) through an external command with :[range]!{cmd}. If your optipng command can take input from stdin and print to stdout, you can use it directly; else, with the help of a small shell script wrapper. See :help :range! for details.

One limitation is that this only works for whole lines, not parts, even when visually selected. You can get around this with the vis plugin; it would then be something like:

:'<,'>B !optipng -o7

answered Mar 4, 2013 at 13:34

Ingo Karkat

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kirilloid Over a year ago

I suppose, I'd prefer parsing base64 part inside css rule (to vis plugin). Thank you for solution.

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