Neovim

Neovim is a fork of Vim aiming to improve the codebase, allowing for easier implementation of APIs, improved user experience and plugin implementation.

Installation

Install the neovim package, or neovim-git^AUR for the latest development version, which strongly encourages the use of Lua as its main configuration language. To make the system clipboard work with Neovim, you may need to install xclip (X11) or wl-clipboard (Wayland).

Note: With neovim, some of its features are delegated to external "providers". For Python providers, use python-pynvim. For clipboard providers, see provider-clipboard or the :help provider-clipboard neovim command.

It is also possible to install one of many GUIs and other related projects, most of them are in official repositories or in AUR:

Configuration

Nvim's user-specific configuration file is located at , by default ~/.config/nvim/init.vim. The system-wide configuration file is located at $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/nvim/sysinit.vim, by default . When the system-wide configuration file does not exist, Nvim checks for , which is not intended to be edited by users. By default, the former global configuration file does not exist. If you create the former file, you may wish to have it source the latter if you still want the functionality it provides, which is allowing pacman-installed vim packages to work with Nvim.

Nvim is compatible with most of Vim's options; however, there are options specific to Nvim. For a complete list of Nvim options, see Neovim's help file.

Nvim's data directory is located in and contains swap for open files, the ShaDa (Shared Data) file, and the site directory for plugins.

Starting from Nvim's version 0.5, it is possible to setup Nvim via Lua, by default , the API is still young, but common configurations work out-of-the-box without much more steps. See for suggestions on how to convert your current configuration. At the moment, there is is not much of an advantage when using vs the common , but when correctly done, Lua provides a small improvement in startup times, and it becomes specially useful when using several plugins written in Lua, due to ease of configuration.

Migrating from Vim

If you wish to migrate your existing Vim configuration to Nvim, simply copy your to ~/.config/nvim/init.vim. If applicable, copy the contents of to ~/.local/share/nvim/site/autoload/.

Shared Configuration between Vim and Nvim

Neovim uses $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nvim instead of as its main configuration directory and instead of as its main configuration file.

If you wish to continue using Vim and wish to source your existing Vim configuration in Nvim, see nvim-from-vim or the neovim command.

Loading plugins

Vim/Nvim plugins installed from official repositories or AUR get automatically sourced by , so there is no need to take any extra steps. A vast amount of plugins can be found on both places, but the most recommended way to add plugins is by using a plugin manager, most commonly used are vim-plug which works for both Vim and Nvim, and packer which only works on Nvim 0.5 or newer and is written in Lua. Both of them allow for expressive configurations, ranging from github branch to runtime commands.

Most plugins written for vim work without much effort on Nvim, but not every plugin written for Nvim works for Vim, so if your intention is to ensure a compatible configuration, stick to a traditional or

Tips and tricks

Replacing vi and vim with neovim

Setting and environment variables should be sufficient in most cases.

Some applications may hardcode vi or vim as default editor; to use neovim in their place, install or .

Symlinking init.vim to .vimrc

As neovim is mostly compatible with standard vim, you can symlink to your old to keep old configuration options:

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

If you want some lines to be specific to each version, you can use an if block in your file:

if has('nvim')
    " Neovim specific commands
else
    " Standard vim specific commands
endif

Adding true color support to neovim

The of this project explain how to add 24-bits "True Color" support to your syntax highlighting and how to use a color picker to see how it looks in real-time. Comes with the syntax highlighting of the author (if installed) for C++.

Language Server Protocol

Neovim contains a built-in Language Server Protocol client and the nvim-lspconfig plugin provides common configurations for it.

Language servers can be installed natively using the following packages:

LSP config	Language	LSP server package
als	Ada/SPARK
angularls	Angular
bashls	BASH	bash-language-server
ccls	C, C++, Objective-C
clangd	C++
clojure_lsp	Clojure
cmake	CMake
codeqlls	CodeQL
cssls	CSS, LESS, SASS	vscode-css-languageserver
dartls	Dart
denols	JavaScript, TypeScript
dhall_lsp_server	Dhall
diagnosticls	General purpose
dockerls	Dockerfile
efm	General purpose	efm-langserver^AUR
elixirls	Elixir
elmls	Elm
erlangls	Erlang
flow	Flow
fortls	Fortran	fortran-language-server^AUR
fsautocomplete	F#
gdscript	GDScript
ghcide	Haskell
gopls	GOlang
graphql	GraphQL
groovyls	Groovy
haxe_language_server	Haxe
hie	Haskell
hls	Haskell
html	HTML	vscode-html-languageserver
intelephense	PHP
java_language_server	Java	java-language-server^AUR
jdtls	Java
jedi_language_server	Python
jsonls	JSON
julials	Julia
kotlin_language_server	Kotlin
leanls	Lean
metals	Scala
nimls	Nim
ocamlls	OCaml, Reason
ocamllsp	OCaml, Reason
omnisharp	OmniSharp
perlls	Perl	perl-perl-languageserver^AUR
phpactor	PHP
powershell_es	PowerShell
purescriptls	PureScript
pylsp	Python
pyright	Python	pyright
r_language_server	R
racket_langserver	Racket
rescriptls	ReScript
rls	Rust
rnix	nix
rome	Rome
rust_analyzer	Rust
scry	Crystal
solargraph	Ruby
sorbet	Ruby
sourcekit	C, C++, Objective-C
sqlls	SQL	sql-language-server^AUR
sqls	SQL
stylelint_lsp	stylelint
sumneko_lua	Lua
svelte	Svelte
svls	SystemVerilog
terraformls	Terraform
texlab	(La)TeX
tflint	Terraform
tsserver	TypeScript
vala_ls	Vala	vala-language-server^AUR
vimls	Vim
vls	V
volar	Vue 3
vuels	Vue 2
yamlls	YAML
zeta_note	Markdown
zls	Zig	zls-bin^AUR

Using Neovim as a pager

You can use Neovim as a pager. Install either the or the package and export the environment variable to .

Troubleshooting

Cursor is not restored to previous state after exit

If the cursor keeps blinking after exiting neovim, see the solution in the neovim FAQ.

gollark: C is wild unsafety and irritating to use.

gollark: C is a horrible language and C++ is a horribler language.

gollark: Just the C bit.

gollark: But not with JS being excellent.

gollark: I agree completely.