Month: March 2023

General plugins I use in Neovim

I define a “general plugin” as a plugin that I use regardless of the filetype I’m editing.

These will add extra functionality for enhancing my Neovim experience.

I use Which-key for displaying keybindings as I type them. For example if I press my <leader> key and wait a few milliseconds, it will display all keybindings I have set that begin with my <leader> key.

It will also display any marks and registers I have set, when only pressing ' or @ respectively.

use "folke/which-key.nvim"

Vim-commentary makes it super easy to comment out lines in files using vim motions. So in normal mode you can enter gcc to comment out the current line; or 5gcc to comment out the next 5 lines.

You can also make a visual selection and enter gc to comment out that selected block.

use "tpope/vim-commentary"

Vim-surround provides me with an extra set of abilities on text objects. It lets me add, remove and change surrounding elements.

For example I can place my cursor over a word and enter ysiw" to surround that word with double quotes.

Or I can make a visual selection and press S" to surround that selection with double quotes.

use "tpope/vim-surround"

Vim-unimpaired adds a bunch of extra mappings that tpope had in his own vimrc, which he extracted to a plugin.

They include mappings for the [ and ] keys for previous and next items. For example using [b and ]b moves backwards and forwards through your open buffers. Whilst [q and ]q will move you backwards and forwards respectively through your quickfist list items.

use "tpope/vim-unimpaired"

Passive plugins I use in Neovim

These plugins I use in Neovim are ones I consider “passive”. That is, they just sit there doing their thing in the background to enhance my development experience.

Generally they wont offer extra keybindings or commands I will use day to day.

You can view all the plugins I use in my plugins.lua file in my dotfiles.

Vim-lastplace will remember the last edit position of each file you’re working with and place your cursor there when re-entering.

use "farmergreg/vim-lastplace"

Nvim-autopairs will automatically add closing characters when opening a “pair”, such as {, [ and (. It will then place your cursor between the two.

use "windwp/nvim-autopairs"

Neoscroll makes scrolling smooth in neovim.

use "karb94/neoscroll.nvim"

Vim-pasta will super-charge your pasting in neovim to preserve indents when pasting contents in with “p” and “P“.

use({
  "sickill/vim-pasta",
  config = function()
    vim.g.pasta_disabled_filetypes = { 'fugitive' }
  end,
})

Here I am passing a config function to disable vim-pasta for “fugitive” filetypes. “Fugitive” is in reference to the vim-fugitive plugin that I will explain in another post.

Nvim-colorizer will highlight any colour codes your write out.

use "norcalli/nvim-colorizer.lua"

How I use Neovim

I try to use Neovim for as much development-related work as possible.

This page serves as a point of reference for me, and other people interested, for what I use and how I use it.

Feedback is welcome and would love to know how you use Neovim too!

My complete Neovim configuration files can be found on Github.

  1. How I organise my Neovim configuration

  2. Passive plugins I use in Neovim

  3. General plugins I use in Neovim

  4. Development plugins I use in Neovim – coming soon

  5. Database client in Neovim (vim-dadbod and vim-dadbod-ui) – coming soon

  6. REST client in Neovim (vim-rest-client) – coming soon

  7. Personal Wiki in Neovim (vim-wiki) – coming soon