Simpler show function

[caenrique]

I recently switched from other pickers to Mini.pick and I'm loving it so far. When using it for my neovim config is perfect out of the box, but for work projects the way files are displayed is inconvenient since my files have paths that are too long (java devs should know 🙈), and so I'm missing a feature I had in snacks picker and that I've been able to implement in others:

changing the display of files to be basename path and giving path a grey highlight (like NonText for example).

Looking into the documentation I was able to find a way to do this: provide a custom source.show function, but this quickly grew too much: to do simple things, it is manageable, but to replicate the default behavior (icons, match highlights, current line highlight, case sensitivity, etc) it is too much work for a user defined option imo.

So, I made an experiment modifying the code: use an optional parameter item_to_string which should be a function that takes the item, and returns a table with the line text and highlights

Example:

local files = function()
  MiniPick.builtin.files({}, {
    source = {
      show = function(bufid, items_to_show, query) MiniPick.default_show(bufid, items_to_show, query,
          { use_icons = true, item_to_string =
          function(x)
            local file, dir = vim.fs.basename(x), vim.fs.dirname(x)
            local text = dir ~= '.' and string.format('%s %s', file, dir) or file
            local highlights = {
              { hl = 'MiniPickNormal', from = 0, to = file:len() },
            }

            if text ~= file then
              table.insert(highlights, { hl = 'NonText', from = file:len() + 1, to = text:len() })
            end

            return {
              text = text,
              highlights = highlights,
            }
          end })
      end
    }
  })
end

To make this work, I had to modify mini.pick to handle this parameter in the default_show function by calling the item_to_string function for every line, then applying the highlights at the end.

From ab8d61ffa2e872de3355ebed38d68e3c2efb5c54 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Cesar Enrique Ramirez <caenrique93@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2026 00:44:30 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] allow custom item_to_string

---
 lua/mini/pick.lua | 33 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------
 1 file changed, 26 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lua/mini/pick.lua b/lua/mini/pick.lua
index 55e18359..4af94016 100644
--- a/lua/mini/pick.lua
+++ b/lua/mini/pick.lua
@@ -1072,7 +1072,11 @@ MiniPick.default_show = function(buf_id, items, query, opts)
     or function() return { text = '' } end
   local prefix_data = vim.tbl_map(get_prefix_data, items)
 
-  local lines = vim.tbl_map(H.item_to_string, items)
+  local lines_data = opts.item_to_string and type(opts.item_to_string) == 'function' and
+      vim.tbl_map(opts.item_to_string, items) or
+      vim.tbl_map(function(x) return { text = H.item_to_string(x) } end, items)
+
+  local lines = vim.tbl_map(function(x) return x.text end, lines_data)
   local tab_spaces = string.rep(' ', vim.o.tabstop)
   lines = vim.tbl_map(function(l) return l:gsub('%z', '│'):gsub('[\r\n]', ' '):gsub('\t', tab_spaces) end, lines)
 
@@ -1108,12 +1112,27 @@ MiniPick.default_show = function(buf_id, items, query, opts)
   end
 
   -- Highlight prefixes
-  if not opts.show_icons then return end
-  local icon_extmark_opts = { hl_mode = 'combine', priority = 200 }
-  for i = 1, #prefix_data do
-    icon_extmark_opts.hl_group = prefix_data[i].hl
-    icon_extmark_opts.end_row, icon_extmark_opts.end_col = i - 1, prefix_data[i].text:len()
-    H.set_extmark(buf_id, ns_id, i - 1, 0, icon_extmark_opts)
+  if opts.show_icons then
+    local icon_extmark_opts = { hl_mode = 'combine', priority = 200 }
+    for i = 1, #prefix_data do
+      icon_extmark_opts.hl_group = prefix_data[i].hl
+      icon_extmark_opts.end_row, icon_extmark_opts.end_col = i - 1, prefix_data[i].text:len()
+      H.set_extmark(buf_id, ns_id, i - 1, 0, icon_extmark_opts)
+    end
+  end
+
+  -- Highlight custom line
+  if opts.item_to_string then
+    local line_extmark_opts = { hl_mode = 'combine', priority = 100 }
+    for i = 1, #lines_data do
+      local start_offset = prefix_data[i].text:len()
+      for j = 1, #lines_data[i].highlights do
+        line_extmark_opts.hl_group = lines_data[i].highlights[j].hl
+        line_extmark_opts.end_row, line_extmark_opts.end_col = i - 1, start_offset + lines_data[i].highlights[j].to
+        local col = lines_data[i].highlights[j].from
+        H.set_extmark(buf_id, ns_id, i - 1, start_offset + col, line_extmark_opts)
+      end
+    end
   end
 end
 
-- 
2.51.1

Demo:

Screen.Recording.2026-04-03.at.00.57.48.mov

I think having something along those lines would be helpful to make it easier to customize the pickers.

Is there already an easy way to do this, that would let me write something similar to my example (without having to re-implement MiniPick.default_show)?

This is just me wondering what it would take to implement this for myself, and I have no idea if this has been considered before and discarded, but I would love to have this in mini.pick!

[echasnovski]

Thanks for the suggestion!

I think having something along those lines would be helpful to make it easier to customize the pickers.

It would have been better for that goal indeed. Unfortunately, one of 'mini.pick' goals (as any 'mini.nvim' module) is to balance features and maintainability. Allowing this type of flexibility in the show function is somewhat complex.

Is there already an easy way to do this, that would let me write something similar to my example (without having to re-implement MiniPick.default_show)?

Writing own version of source.show might be a more valid approach in this situation in particular. One of the main things that makes supporting "show file name first followed by the directory" is that it results into a completely different assumptions about how the matching is done. Because default matching is done based on the full path from left to right, so rearranging path parts looks somewhat confusing to me.

This is just me wondering what it would take to implement this for myself, and I have no idea if this has been considered before and discarded, but I would love to have this in mini.pick!

It was considered, yes. And it was discarded, yes. For example, in #1082.