How to conditionally prevent mini.files from opening on startup

[Kazppa]

Contributing guidelines

• I have read CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

Module(s)

mini.files

Question

This is a newbie question but i can't wrap my head around a working solution.

Basically I use mini.files as my default file explorer but i'd like on nvim launch that mini.files doesn't open if a (mk)session has been auto loaded (I use persistence.nvim).
I do have an event to detect when a session has been successfully loaded on startup but i can't prevent mini.files from appearing. It seems mini.files opens way after this event and calling close at this moment does nothing (yet).

Any idea how to solve this ?
Thank you for your help.

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd('User', {
  pattern = 'PersistenceLoadPost',
  callback = function()
    require('mini.files').close()
  end,
})

[echasnovski]

Basically I use mini.files as my default file explorer but i'd like on nvim launch that mini.files doesn't open if a (mk)session has been auto loaded (I use persistence.nvim).
I do have an event to detect when a session has been successfully loaded on startup but i can't prevent mini.files from appearing. It seems mini.files opens way after this event and calling close at this moment does nothing (yet).

'mini.files' doesn't open on startup with if Neovim is started as nvim from command line. The "default explorer" functionality means that 'mini.files' will open if Neovim is started like nvim . / nvim path/to/directory or inside running Neovim instance executing :edit . / :edit path/to/directory.

So the answer to "How to conditionally prevent mini.files from opening on startup?" is to not start Neovim in a way that tries to edit a directory. My guess is that either there is some shell alias that opens Neovim like nvim . or a session contains a buffer that is for directory.

The answer to "How to hide 'mini.files' after session is loaded?" is probably to use vim.schedule. So the callback's body is something like vim.schedule(require('mini.files').close). This might work because opening explorer for directory editing is itself delayed (for technical reasons). Note that this might result in a flicker as explorer might be briefly opened and closed.

A more robust yet more complex solution is to create (inside callback for PersistenceLoadPost) a temporary autocommand for MiniFilesExplorerOpen event that immediately closes 'mini.files'. Be sure to delete this autocommand very soon to be able to open 'mini.files' explorer at all.

[Kazppa]

Yes, i forgot to mention but i do tend to use nvim . to open nvim.
Is this an unusual way to do it ? I quite don't get the distinction between nvim and nvim .

I found out in nvim_create_autocmd documentation a magic parameter once that removes the autocmd after the first execution, works like a charm.

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd('User', {
  pattern = 'MiniFilesExplorerOpen',
  once = true,
  callback = function()
    require('mini.files').close()
  end,
})

Thank you for your help !

[echasnovski]

I found out in nvim_create_autocmd documentation a magic parameter once that removes the autocmd after the first execution, works like a charm.

Yes, there is one. But beware that with this solution the first time opening explorer will fail whenever you won't start Neovim as nvim ..