Neovim

References

• https://neovim.io/

Install

See the guide Installing Neovim.

On Ubuntu, we install from repository:

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

Ruby support

Must install neovim rubygem:

sudo apt install ruby-dev
sudo gem install neovim

Python support

sudo pip install neovim

Plugin manager

We install vim-plug:

curl -fLo ~/.config/nvim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs \
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim

Plugins

• https://github.com/junegunn/vim-easy-align
• https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible (on vim.org)
• https://github.com/tpope/vim-sleuth (on vim.org)
• https://github.com/easymotion/vim-easymotion
• https://github.com/scrooloose/nerdtree.git

Content of ~/.config/nvim/init.vim:

Reload the init script and install plugins:

:so $MYVIMRC
"... or ':so %' if it is current file
:PlugInstall

To update plugins:

:PlugUpdate

To test

• vim-airline, vs powerline, vs vim-bufferline
• Color theme solarized.

NeoVim GUI

There is no equivalent to gvim for neovim so far. 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 $*"

Troubleshooting

True color and italic support

There are lot of discussion about true color and italic support in the terminal. Below the list of relevant posts.

• morhetz/gruvbox wiki -- Terminal specific
• neovim/neovim -- FAQ
• XVilka/TrueColour.md -- Colours in terminal
• How to enable true-color for neovim, tmux, and gnome-terminal
• neovim/neovim -- Italics aren't displaying properly #3461
• neovim/neovim -- Get funny chars on terminal #3462

All in all the solution for me involved to at least:

• Upgrade to Ubuntu Xenial 16.04, to get newest Gnome Terminal and Terminator/gtk3 on recent VTE.
• Upgrade to tmux 2.2 (only if using tmux).
• Do a total reset of the account configuration.
• Fiddle a bit with the terminfo (still not sure what was the exact recipe though).
• Use gruvbox as theme (not solarized, which does not work in terminal).

To test, first verify that the color theme works correctly in gvim.

To Do

True color

• Colours in terminal
• morhetz/gruvbox - Terminal-specific

Gui

• neovim-qt

Color scheme

• Solarized
• gruvbox

Linters

• neomake
• syntactics