noethervim-tableaux

A collection of mathematical tableaux (dashboard scenes) for snacks.nvim's dashboard. 31 presets ranging from animated number-theoretic processes (the Sieve of Eratosthenes, Collatz trajectories, π's continued-fraction convergents) to live dynamical systems (Conway's Game of Life, the Lorenz attractor) to topological objects (Königsberg bridges, fundamental polygons of closed surfaces) to contemplative scenes (a time-of-day sky with twinkling stars and weather overlay, daily-rotating mathematician quotes, an Obsidian-vault gem).

Standalone by design, but slots cleanly into NoetherVim as an optional bundle.

---

Requirements

• Neovim ≥ 0.10 (uses vim.system, vim.uv)
• snacks.nvim with dashboard enabled
• curl on $PATH (only for the optional weather feature in the constellation preset)

---

Installation

With lazy.nvim:

{
  "Chiarandini/noethervim-tableaux",
  lazy = false,           -- needs to register the SnacksDashboardOpened autocmd at startup
  opts = {
    -- override the bundled mathematician quotes with your own list
    -- quotes = require("user.data.math_quotes"),

    -- wire the `vault` preset to a real Obsidian vault
    -- vault  = { path = "~/Documents/MyVault/", today_cmd = ":ObsidianToday" },

    -- bind <space>ud to pick, <space>uD to cycle (default true)
    -- keymaps = true,
  },
}

In dev mode (e.g. while editing the plugin in ~/programming/custom_plugins/):

{ "Chiarandini/noethervim-tableaux", dev = true, lazy = false, opts = {} }

---

Usage

Once snacks renders the dashboard, the chosen tableau is layered on top. Pick or cycle with:

command	what it does
:Tableau	open a picker over all tableaux
:Tableau <name>	switch to a specific tableau (tab-completes)
:Tableau random	activate random mode — rerolls a different one each open
:Tableau default	revert to the distro's plain dashboard (effective restart)
:TableauNext	cycle forward
:TableauPrev	cycle backward
:TableauWeather	force-refresh the wttr.in weather cache

Aliases preserved for muscle memory: :Dash, :DashNext, :DashPrev.

Default keymaps (disable with keymaps = false):

• <space>ud → :Tableau (picker)
• <space>uD → :TableauNext (cycle)

Your selection persists across restarts in stdpath("state")/user_dashboard_variant.

---

The tableaux

name	type	what to expect
noether	static	distro-namesake "NOETHER" block letters
math	static	∫ ∂ ∇ ∑ ∏ ⊕ ⊗ ∞ glyph bar
vault	animated · subtle	Obsidian-crystal silhouette with shimmering interior, Obsidian-focused keys
quotes	static · daily	word-wrapped mathematician quote in a frame
chalkboard	static · daily	grad-math equation + theorem name (Riemann, Yoneda, Stokes, BSD, Hodge, …)
constellation	animated · time + weather	dawn / morning / midday / afternoon / dusk / evening / night scene; stars twinkle, sun pulses, weather overlay
commutative	static	category-theory commutative square A → B, ↓↓, C → D with h ∘ f = k ∘ g
typewriter	animated	math glyph bar reveals one glyph at a time with a blinking cursor
sieve	animated	Sieve of Eratosthenes on 1–36; each tick crosses out the next prime's multiples
sierpinski	animated	Pascal's triangle mod 2 builds row by row
lambda	animated	β-reduction of (λx. λy. x + y) 3 4 → 7 revealed step by step
collatz	animated · daily seed	3n+1 trajectory revealed term by term
conway	animated	Conway's Game of Life — glider drifting across a 9×20 board
cayley	static · daily	Cayley table for V / Z/4 / Z/5 / S₃
matrix	animated	2×2 matrix multiplication with the dot-product formula
ulam	static	Ulam spiral 1–49, primes marked with *
fibonacci	animated	Fibonacci terms reveal; running ratio F(n)/F(n-1) converges to φ
partitions	static · daily	integer partitions of n (n ∈ {4, 5, 6}) drawn as Young diagrams
mandelbrot	animated	50×18 ASCII Mandelbrot; max-iter grows so detail emerges
knight	animated	Beverly's 1848 semi-magic knight's tour, one square per tick
pi	animated	π's continued-fraction convergents reveal one at a time
random-walk	animated	41-bar histogram of random-walk endpoints converging to a normal
lorenz	animated	Lorenz attractor X-Z projection, butterfly traced point by point
turing	animated	tiny Turing machine increments 0111 → 1000, then auto-restarts
truth-table	static · daily	tautology truth table (Material Implication, Contraposition, De Morgan, …)
catalan	static · daily	C₃ = 5 Dyck paths in matched parens / U-D / arrow notation
galton-board	animated	Galton board with 5 balls per tick → binomial(8, ½) histogram
lissajous	animated · daily	parametric curve x = sin(at + π/2), y = sin(bt); ratio rotates daily
konigsberg	static	the 4-vertex / 7-bridge graph that Euler proved had no Eulerian walk
cantor	animated	Cantor set built up by iterated middle-thirds removal
fundamental-polygon	static · daily	edge-identification square for Torus / Klein bottle / RP² / Cylinder

Plus two meta entries:

• default — clears the override; the distro's plain dashboard renders next startup.
• random — rerolls a different concrete preset on every open.

---

Configuration

require("noethervim-tableaux").setup({
  state_file = vim.fn.stdpath("state") .. "/user_dashboard_variant",
  keymaps    = true,
  pick_key   = "<space>ud",
  cycle_key  = "<space>uD",
  vault      = nil,    -- { path = "...", today_cmd = ":ObsidianToday" }
  quotes     = nil,    -- list of { text = "...", author = "..." }
  weather    = true,   -- enable wttr.in fetch for the constellation preset
})

If quotes is nil, the bundled math_quotes.lua (~30 insight-rich mathematician quotes) is used.

If vault is nil, the vault tableau falls back to generic launch keys (it's still a perfectly fine scene; the keys just don't go anywhere Obsidian-specific).

---

Adding your own tableau

Drop a file at lua/noethervim-tableaux/presets/<name>.lua returning a table:

return {
  name = "<display-name>",
  header = "..." or function() return "..." end,
  keys = require("noethervim-tableaux.presets._common").common_keys,
  on_open = function() ... end,  -- optional, for animations
}

Or a module with a M.build(config) function if your preset depends on plugin config. Then add the name to M.order in presets/init.lua.

Future ideas live in IDEAS.md.

---

Credits

The chalkboard theorems and cayley groups draw from standard graduate algebraic and topological texts. Beverly's 1848 knight's tour is reproduced from his published solution. The quotes selection is curated for insight density rather than completeness.