pi-better-paste-markers

Richer collapsed paste markers for pi.

Large pastes collapse into a bare [paste #1 1623 chars] marker with no feedback about what was actually pasted — easy to mix up clipboards (Linux primary/secondary). This replaces the marker with a three-line preview block. Pure extension: no core changes. Follow-up to earendil-works/pi#10216.

What it does

Pastes over 10 lines or 1000 chars render as a three-line block:

[first line of the pasted text, truncated...
 paste #1 1623 chars / 42 lines
 ...last line of the pasted text, truncated from the left]

• Small pastes keep the built-in behavior (inserted as-is, no marker).
• The first/last previews show up to 80 characters; ... is added only when the line was actually cut.
• The block is ordinary editable buffer lines; the middle line carries the marker.
• On submit the block is replaced with the original pasted content — nothing is lost.
• Everywhere else (drafts, autocomplete, undo) the block collapses back to the standard single-line [paste #N ...] marker.
• The block deletes as one unit: a single Backspace/Delete (or Ctrl+W/U/K) that touches it removes the whole block, like the built-in [paste #N ...] marker. Text before and after the block on the same line is kept.
• Undo restores the whole block and it keeps expanding/submitting correctly.
• Survives /new, /resume and fork: pi rebuilds the editor component during a session switch, so blocks are rebuilt from the shared registry (and from paste content captured out of the base editor) instead of degrading to a literal [paste #N ...] marker.
• The input is prefixed with a gray ❯ prompt (the one pi-powerline-footer draws on the default editor is lost when a custom editor component replaces it).
• The block is painted with the theme's userMessageBg background (follows light/dark and theme switches); only the block text is filled, the padding after it stays normal.

Install

pi install git:github.com/acidnik/pi-better-paste-markers

How it works

The extension replaces the main editor on session_start via ctx.ui.setEditorComponent() with a CustomEditor subclass:

• handlePaste() — small pastes delegate to the base; large pastes insert the 3-line block and keep the content in an extension-side map.
• handleInput() — intercepts delete keys (deleteCharBackward/Forward, deleteWordBackward/Forward, deleteToLineStart/End) and removes the whole block when the cursor touches one; every other key goes to the base editor untouched.
• getText() — collapses blocks back to canonical [paste #N ...] markers (drafts, autocomplete snapshots, undo).
• expandPasteMarkers() — plain Enter submits through the base editor's private submitValue(), which expands paste markers with this method; shadowing it makes Enter submit the original pasted content instead of the three-line preview.
• getExpandedText() — used by the follow-up (Alt+Enter), external-editor and extension-API (getEditorText) paths.
• render() — prefixes the input with a gray ❯, keeps the other content lines indented, and paints the paste-block text with ctx.ui.theme.bg("userMessageBg", …) (re-applied after the cursor's reset so the highlight survives the cursor).

Paste records are kept after a block is deleted so that undoing the deletion restores a block that still collapses and expands correctly.

The registry is shared across editor instances: during /new, /resume or a fork, pi tears the custom editor down (resetExtensionUI()), rebuilds it, and carries the draft over with setText(editor.getText()) — i.e. collapsed markers. Blocks are therefore rebuilt on setText, from the shared registry or from content captured out of the base editor (whose pastes map pi clears on the same path).