Neovim

This page only deals with major differences between Neovim and Vim. See Vim page for general Vim-related information.

References

• https://neovim.io/

Install

See the guide Installing Neovim.

On Ubuntu, we install from Neovim repository, tracking HEAD:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:neovim-ppa/unstable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install neovim

Default ini files are located at ~/.config/nvim/init.vim. To import Vim settings (FAQ :help nvim-from-vim)

mkdir ~/.config
ln -s ~/.vim ~/.config/nvim
ln -s ~/.vimrc ~/.config/nvim/init.vim

Configure nvim as default vim alternative:

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/vi vi /usr/bin/nvim 60
sudo update-alternatives --config vi
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/vim vim /usr/bin/nvim 60
sudo update-alternatives --config vim
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/editor editor /usr/bin/nvim 60
sudo update-alternatives --config editor

Install Ruby gems for Ruby support:

sudo apt install ruby-dev
sudo gem install neovim

Install Python package for Python support:

sudo pip install neovim

NeoVim GUI

For now, there are no official GUI for Neovim (like gvim). Potential candidates are (see also Neovim related projects):

• neovim-qt
• NyaoVim (an advanced Electron UI based client)
• ONI (another Electron UI based client)
• Use a customized terminal (like Gnome-Terminal)

Criteria for a good GUI:

• Be fast (fast refresh, no jitter in scrolling).
• Drop-in compatible with gvim / vim.
• True color and italic support.
• Blinking cursor (mandatory) and block/caret mode (optional).

Blinking cursor is necessary when using incsearch plugin (or we miss some hightlights).

Terminator + neovim

The best and simplest solution. We use terminator as a gui.

Create the script ngvim:

#! /bin/bash
# Redirect stderr to silent error on keyboard binding failure
2> /dev/null exec /usr/bin/terminator -m --p nvim -i /usr/local/icons/neovim.png -u -x nvim "$@"

This script:

• Sets terminal icon to neovim's.
• Tell terminator to wait until application exits (equivalent to gvim -f)
• Tell terminator not to use Dbus (such that to always appear above current windows).

The advantage of this script is that we use the same back-end as the terminal, and hence we will have the same experience (same features, same bugs).

NyaoVim / ONI

For now I discard these clients. These clients introduce additional features that I don't necessarily want.

neovim-qt

Build from source. Bindings seem old, so we rebuild them:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make bindings
cmake --build .

Issues

• Cursor not blinking! Using QT API app.setCursorFlashTime(1000); does not help.
• Message Unknown Neovim function "Array vim_get_api_info()". Due to missing/additional bindings. If necessary, we can mute this message in src/function.cpp.

Custom terminal - Gnome-Terminal

The best I could do so far is to create a script gnvim that uses gnome-terminal as window, sets title to NeoVim, and sets icon using xseticon.

To install gnvim:

• Build and install xseticon.

• Copy neovim icon to /usr/local/icons/neovim.png. For instance, there is an icon in neovim-qt.git:

git clone https://github.com/equalsraf/neovim-qt.git
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/icons
sudo cp neovim-qt/third-party/neovim.png /usr/local/icons

• Create file gnvim, and make it executable:

#! /bin/bash
# We add a sleep 1 because of race condition between xseticon and echo
gnome-terminal --geometry 132x50 --hide-menubar -x bash -c "echo -ne '\033]0;NeoVim\007'; ((sleep 1; xseticon -name NeoVim /usr/local/icons/neovim.png)&); exec nvim $*"

• To add NeoVim GUI as a desktop application, create the file ~/.local/share/applications/neovim.desktop:

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Exec=/home/peetersm/bin/ngvim
Name=NeoVim
Comment=The future of Vim
Icon=/usr/local/icons/neovim.png

Then

chmod a+x ~/.local/share/applications/neovim.desktop

Neovim Gnome-Terminal wrapper

Small wrapper in Python, but it only sets the icon in unity bar, not task switcher.

Tips

Use :term for Read–eval–print loop (REPL)

This can be easily done using a new buffer (C-w v) and a terminal (:term), and then

• Use watch:

watch 'make this && less that'

• Use entr:

echo myfile myotherfile | entr make this

Neovim features

Just a couple of things I should not forget exist.

• Powerful terminal emulation.

• Quick :term git status.
• Use terminal for easy REPL.
• More workflow examples on reddit and SO.

• Incremental substitution (set inccommand=split) (see here).

Troubleshooting

True color and italic support

See xterm.

Meta/Alt-key mappings choke (when typed too fast)

See bug #2454.

The solution is too actually install the plugin vim-sensible, contrary to what says :CheckHealth.

This plugins set ttimeoutlen to 100, which is sufficient to have alt-key mappings to act correctly in TUI.

nvim-qt issues

No blinking cursor in nvim-qt

Adding call to QApplication::setCursorFlashTime() in main.cpp does not help. See issue #208.

No support for option 'S' and '-c'

See #224.

Cursor (sometimes) stops blinking

Neovim hard-codes cursor shape and mode. This is tracked in tickets #5740, #5556. See also [Cursor stops blinking #3257].

Undefined variable: self

See issue #5763.

Last known good version without this bug for me: neovim_0.1.5ubuntu1+git201612110104+2963+22~ubuntu16.04.1_amd64.deb.

Bug fixed, but must update all plugins (:PlugUpdate) and vim-plug itself (with :PlugUpgrade).

incsearch plugin broken

See issue #125.

To Do

• Find a good TUI or GUI

• Try again Alacritty to see if speed issue on Intel MESA is solved.
• Follow up neovim-qt

• Test advanced linters plugins like neomake and syntactics.