tomkhoailang/buffer-switch-release

This repository contains a plugin for Neovim, a keyboard-driven text editor used mainly by programmers. The plugin solves a specific frustration: if you have used Visual Studio Code or JetBrains editors, you may be used to holding Ctrl and pressing Tab repeatedly to cycle through open files, then releasing Ctrl to jump to whichever file you landed on. Neovim does not support this out of the box because it has no built-in way to detect when a key is released, only when one is pressed. The plugin works around this limitation by spawning a small background Python script when you open the switcher menu. That script operates at the operating system level, watching for the release of the modifier key (Ctrl by default). On Linux, it reads directly from keyboard input device files to detect the key state. On Windows, it polls the keyboard state using a standard Windows API call. As soon as the key is released, the script sends a message back to Neovim to close the menu and confirm the selected file. The actual switcher displays a popup menu of your open files, sorted by how recently you used them. While holding Ctrl, you press the trigger key repeatedly to move through the list. Each entry in the menu also gets a short quick-jump key, so you can jump directly to any file by pressing its assigned letter without cycling through the whole list. The plugin is configured by passing options to a setup function, typically through a plugin manager like lazy.nvim. You can change which key acts as the hold key, which key triggers navigation, control the popup window appearance, and adjust the sorting order of files. Python must be installed and accessible for the key-release detection to work. The README is well-written and honest about the workaround involved, framing the project as both a useful tool and a reference for anyone else trying to solve the same problem in Neovim.