Posts tagged: nvim

nvim delete current file

2025-09-02T13:23:21Z

This one is one that I’ve been using quite often, I did’t have a hotkey for it, I just used the rm shell command.

!!rm %<TAB><CR>

When you type !! from normal mode it will automatically put you in command mode with .! pre-filled, then you just type rm and <TAB> to auto-complete the current file name, and <CR> to execute the command.

:.!rm %<TAB><CR>

Making it better #

The one quirk that I don’t like about this is that the buffer remains open after deleting, and sometimes I forget to close it and end up re-creating it by mistake when running :wall or :xall.

Create a DeleteFile command with vim command.

:command! DeleteFile execute "!rm %" | bdelete!

Create a DeleteFile command with lua.

vim.api.nvim_create_user_command(
  'DeleteFile',
  function()
    -- Delete the current file from disk
    vim.cmd('!rm %')
    -- Close the buffer without saving
    vim.cmd('bdelete!')
  end,
  {}
)

💭 The decline of "i use vim btw" - YouTube

2025-06-29T17:46:52Z

vim usage is becoming normie level. Just like archinstall made it too easy to install arch and brought normies into the ecosystem. It killed ArchBTW^TM^, distros like lazyvim have killed vimBTW^TM^. It used to be that to run arch, vim, nvim you had to read the docs, and go deep on understanding. running archinstallor lazyvim make it so easy to get started that you miss all of the details, you no longer have to understand ctags, quickfix, what an lsp is, or even how to set your own keybindings. You just use the damn thing, like you would with VSC****. No shame to anyone who does this, but you are probably missing out on a bunch of really useful features of a very core tool in your workflow.

Just discovered Sylvan Franklin in this post and he is cracked, sub now.

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

my nvim spellcheck setup

2025-05-31T20:11:59Z

I’ve gone too long without a proper spellcheck setup in nvim. I know it’s there, I just don’t use it, I don’t have the right keybinds, like I do with vim date, to make it work, and its clunky.

Default keybinds #

z= show spell suggestions
zg add word to dictionary
zw remove word from dictionary
]s jump to next misspelled word
[s jump to previous misspelled word

I really struggle with bracketed keybinds, they don’t flow for me. I have to shift into it and hit two keys, you cant just pop through them with intent, it always feels clunky to me.

Custom keybinds #

I barely use F-keys in my keymap so that was free game. On my keyboard I have F1-F9 in a numpad layout on my right hand, so F4-F6 are home row, these are super easy to pop through and update. I really refrain from using such high real estate keys like this unless it’s for something good, and I do a lot of writing in nvim, so fingers crossed I use the heck out of it.

jump to next misspelled word
jump to previous misspelled word
show spell suggestions

I still use zg and zw, they seem fine to me.

The Setup #

In my keymap.lua file I added these to the end, they are working so far and hopefully I use spellcheck more on my posts now that I’ve made it easy.

set("n", "<f4>", "]s")
set("n", "<f5>", "[s")
set("n", "<f6>", "<cmd>Telescope spell_suggest<cr>")

One Failure #

I went down a long rabbit hole before this trying to populate the quickfix with spelling errors, I tried looking for existing plugins, tried to get ai to give me a good prototype to start with, and everything was over complicated. So far I’m really liking this setup.

fixed long standing nvim startup error

2025-02-13T08:41:39Z

Here’s the diff, this is it.

  local M = {}


  M.setup = require("waylonwalker.setup")
  M.settings = require("waylonwalker.settings")
+ M.lazy = require("waylonwalker.lazy")
  M.options = require("waylonwalker.options")
  M.globals = require("waylonwalker.globals")
  M.keymap = require("waylonwalker.keymap")
- M.lazy = require("waylonwalker.lazy")
  M.autocmds = require("waylonwalker.autocmds")
  M.util = require("waylonwalker.util")
  M.plugins = require("waylonwalker.plugins")
  M.snippets = require("waylonwalker.snippets")

  return M

The error #

On first install of my dotfiles I’m presenting with this flashbang of an error filling the screen with red background. Its kinda hard to read, I’m not deep into lua and reading their tracebacks. It pops up in this pager that if I scroll too far it quits and the error is gone before I know what it is or how it got there.

For the longest time it just felt like it randomly showed up without much warning.

I sent ai at the issue #

I tried some chatgpt and windsurf, both gave me overconfident answers that all did nothing. They just sent me in loops for way too long.

I fixed it #

What did it take??

Just sitting down and thinking about what the problem was and setting up a good test workflow. Yesterday I worked out testing nvim installs and I was immediately able to replicate the error over and over. Unlike before where it felt random, I now have a good problem statement that I can replicate.

clean install
start nvim
Lazy pops up
FLASHBANG!! Error that treesitter is not installed

What was confusing for so long was that treesitter was the first thing in lazy, and it appeared that lazy was running before the error.

The fix #

Once I really thought about not installed, it clicked. It must be the order of operations. I popped open my init.lua and there it was, lazy running after things that use treesitter. A little d+d+k+k+k+k+k+p and it was fixed. running just testnvim the next time there was no flashbang!

  local M = {}


  M.setup = require("waylonwalker.setup")
  M.settings = require("waylonwalker.settings")
+ M.lazy = require("waylonwalker.lazy")
  M.options = require("waylonwalker.options")
  M.globals = require("waylonwalker.globals")
  M.keymap = require("waylonwalker.keymap")
- M.lazy = require("waylonwalker.lazy")
  M.autocmds = require("waylonwalker.autocmds")
  M.util = require("waylonwalker.util")
  M.plugins = require("waylonwalker.plugins")
  M.snippets = require("waylonwalker.snippets")

  return M

testing nvim installs

2025-02-12T21:02:03Z

Testing fresh nvim installs can be a pain, and hard to di without borking your known good install. I’ve been using NVIM_APPNAME to run a test nvim in a sandbox that wont bork my main install. This usually runs for me in under a minute, can be down under 15s if I remove some of the TreeSitter installs at the end. This beats a full docker build of my full devtainer to test out nvim packaging woes.

rm ~/.cache/wwtest -rf
rm ~/.local/share/wwtest -rf
rm ~/.config/wwtest -rf
cp -r nvim/.config/nvim/ ~/.config/wwtest
NVIM_APPNAME=wwtest nvim --headless "+Lazy sync" +qa
NVIM_APPNAME=wwtest nvim --headless "+TSUpdateSync" "+sleep 5000m" +qa
NVIM_APPNAME=wwtest nvim --headless "+MasonUpdate" +qa
NVIM_APPNAME=wwtest nvim --headless "+TSInstallSync! c cpp go lua python rust tsx javascript typescript vimdoc vim bash yaml toml vue just" +qa
NVIM_APPNAME=wwtest nvim --headless "+MasonInstall lua-language-server rustywind ruff ruff-lsp html-lsp typescript-language-server beautysh fixjson isort markdownlint stylua yamlfmt python-lsp-server" +qa
NVIM_APPNAME=wwtest nvim

I’ve started to use this as a just recipe to run before deploying a new version of my dotfiles. So far its pairing nicely with nvim-manager

vim date

2025-02-12T12:51:00Z

When I want to put a date in a document like a blog post from vim I use !!date from insert mode. Note that entering !! from normal mode puts you in command mode with :.! filled out. This runs a shell command, i.e. date for this example.

It outputs the following

Fri Jan 31 08:46:11 PM CST 2025

You can also pass in a date such as tommorrow by pasdding in the -d date -d tomorrow.

It outputs the following

Sat Feb 1 08:53:20 PM CST 2025

codeium just taught me this one with autocomplete

:put =strftime('%Y-%m-%d')

This outputs the following

2025-01-31

What I like about the :put =strftime( method is that you can add a format, but that is a lot more for me to remember than !!date

A few weeks later #

I’m going through a bunch of blog posts and dont want my date formats to change to the Wed Feb format so I broke down and made these keybindings. I think I’m still going to be using .!date a lot, but these keybindings will be nice for editing blog post frontmatter.

set("n", "<leader>dd", "<cmd>put =strftime('%Y-%m-%d')<cr>", { noremap = true, silent = true })
set("n", "<leader>dt", "<cmd>put =strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')<cr>", { noremap = true, silent = true })

dd 2025-02-12
dt 2025-02-12 12:53:47
:.!date Wed Feb 12 12:53:47 PM CST 2025

setting up nvim-manager starship prompt

2025-01-21T16:03:46Z

I built out a tool for myself to manage my nvim configuration, and I wanted to quickly see which one I am running in my starship prompt. Here’s the config I ended up with. It warns if the NVIM_APPNAME environment variable is not set, and it shows which nvim I am using if it is set.

[custom.nvim-manager-system]
when = '[[ ! -n "${NVIM_APPNAME}" ]]'
style = "bold yellow"
symbol = '[ ](fg:#15AABF)'
format = '$symbol[USING SYSTEM NVIM]($style)'

[env_var.NVIM_APPNAME]
style = "green"
symbol = '[ ](fg:#15AABF)'
format = '[$symbol${env_value}]($style)'
variable = "NVIM_APPNAME"

nvim-manager

2025-01-12T21:14:19Z

I recently built a cli application as a nearly-one-shot-app called nvim-manager. It manages your nvim dotfiles install.

Why #

How is nvim manager any better #

nvim-manager allows you to install pinned versions of your dotfiles, your friends dotfiles, and distros in ~/.config. This allows you to have stable versions that will not break installed while you change things.

I’m sure most of us have experienced the pain of installing one plugin, only to update all of your plugins and break something.

Or, you have small changes on every machine you use, because they are all just a bit different and now you have big merge conflicts to deal with.

All of this aside you can install a distro to get you by, or a known working version of your own dotfiles.

So all these versions in ~/.config #

ya, thats the magic of NVIM_APPNAME, I can boot up any of these intalled working versions in an instant with NVIM_APPNAME=nvim-waylonwalker-v0.0.1 nvim. I can still cowboy up and break my main install, but as long as I am diligent to keep these installs untouched I will always have a version to fall back to in that moment of need.

So what do I need to do? #

start tagging your dotfiles as you hit stable versions
Install curl https://i.jpillora.com/waylonwalker/nvim-manager | bash
Add some env variables to your shell startup (~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc for example)
Install that pinned version of your dotfiles nvim-manager install v0.0.1
Install a distro nvim-manager install --distro astronvim

Here are those environment variables I was talking about, set them to use your dotfiles repo, name it what you like, and set your NVIM_APPNAME if you want to default to a stable nvim and force yourself to unset NVIM_APPNAME to live on the edge.

Install nvim-manager #

apt install curl git unzip
curl https://i.jpillora.com/MordechaiHadad/bob | bash
bob install nightly
bob use nightly
ln -s ~/.local/share/bob/nvim-bin/nvim ~/.local/bin
curl https://i.jpillora.com/waylonwalker/nvim-manager | bash

Install your own dotfiles #

Setup with the following environment variables.

# nvim-manager
export NVIM_MANAGER_REPO=https://github.com/WaylonWalker/devtainer
export NVIM_CONFIG_PATH=nvim/.config/nvim
export NVIM_MANAGER_INSTALL_DIR=$HOME/.config
export NVIM_MANAGER_PREFIX="nvim-waylonwalker"
export NVIM_APPNAME=${NVIM_MANAGER_PREFIX}-v0.0.1

nvim-manager install v0.0.1
nvim

Note I like installer by jpillora, I self host it for my own security, but feel free to download from GH if it makes you feel safer.

Ubuntu Container Speedrun #

Here is a speedrun to getting nvim up and running in an ubuntu container.

set -euxo
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
export PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin
apt update
apt install curl git unzip -y
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
curl https://i.jpillora.com/MordechaiHadad/bob | bash
mv bob ~/.local/bin
bob install nightly
bob use nightly
ln -s ~/.local/share/bob/nvim-bin/nvim ~/.local/bin
curl https://i.jpillora.com/waylonwalker/nvim-manager | bash
mv nvim-manager ~/.local/bin
export NVIM_MANAGER_REPO=https://github.com/WaylonWalker/devtainer
export NVIM_CONFIG_PATH=nvim/.config/nvim
export NVIM_MANAGER_INSTALL_DIR=$HOME/.config
export NVIM_MANAGER_PREFIX="nvim-waylonwalker"
export NVIM_APPNAME=${NVIM_MANAGER_PREFIX}-v0.0.1
nvim-manager install v0.0.1
nvim-manager install --distro lazyvim
nvim-manager install --distro astronvim
nvim-manager install --distro nvchad
nvim-manager install --distro kickstart
nvim-manager install --distro lunarvim

# plugins like treesiter need gcc and make
apt install gcc make -y
export TZ="America/Chicago"
export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
apt update
apt install tzdata -y
ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TZ /etc/localtime
dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata
# Some of the mason installs need npm
apt install nodejs npm -y
# plugins like telescope require ripgrep
apt install fzf ripgrep -y

Give it a Star #

I’d appreciate a star if you find this app useful.

https://github.com/waylonwalker/nvim-manager

💭 olimorris/codecompanion.nvim: ✨ AI-powered coding, seamlessly ...

2025-01-09T02:18:50Z

Definitely need to give codecompanion.nvim a try, it looks like a competitor to windsurf but in nvim. It looks so feature complete that its hard to grasp all of what it does.

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 WaylonWalker/nvim-manager: manage dotfiles with nvim_appname

2025-01-08T17:11:34Z

New release out for nvim-manager that supports installing pre-configured distros. It’s such a breeze to install these now, its been fun to go through each of them. The currently included distros are.

LazyVim
AstroVim
kickstart
NvChad
LunarVim

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 Releases · WaylonWalker/nvim-manager

2025-01-08T03:09:30Z

Releases · WaylonWalker/nvim-manager

manage dotfiles with nvim_appname. Contribute to WaylonWalker/nvim-manager development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub · github.com

First release of nvim-manager is out. Your dotfiles change a lot, sometimes it’s hard to manage all of the places you have installed them and potentially made hand edits to. nvim-manager allows you to easily make static releases of your dotfiles, and keep your nvim install from breaking by leveraging NVIM_APPNAME and pinned releases of your dotfiles stored in ~/.config. In this directory you might have many nvim configurations installed, nvim-manager automates the process of installing and updating from your dotfiles, while keeping previous pinned versions untouched.

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 GitHub - ngalaiko/tree-sitter-go-template: Golang template gra...

2025-01-06T18:49:13Z

GitHub - ngalaiko/tree-sitter-go-template: Golang template grammar for tree-sitter

Golang template grammar for tree-sitter. Contribute to ngalaiko/tree-sitter-go-template development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub · github.com

This setup fixed my nvim syntax highlighting in helm templates.

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 Wrapping your favorite CLI in neovim - YouTube

2024-12-31T21:02:44Z

cool video on expanding vim with cli.

piping commands into vim #

write a healthcheck #

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 Saghen/blink.cmp: Performant, batteries-included completion pl...

2024-11-19T14:45:06Z

A new completion plugin that I might give a try. Readme makes it sound like its built on some fast teck that allows them to handle a lot of items and run more frequently. The videos look like they don’t have some of the same issues cmp does for me. Maybe its my configuration, but I’m pretty sure it does not update when you backspace and things like that.

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 E576: Error while reading ShaDa file: there is an item at posi...

2024-11-16T16:04:27Z

E576: Error while reading ShaDa file: there is an item at position 270498 that must not be there: Missing itemsare for internal uses only · Issue #6875 · neovim/neovim

v0.2.0 Vim 8.0 works well. macOS Sierra 10.12.5 (16F73) iTerm2 v3.0.15 $TERM: screen-256color Actual behaviour When I start neovim by nvim, it prints an error message which is E576: Error while rea...

GitHub · github.com

I hit an interesting error after updating my nvim plugins today. I’m sti not even quite sure what a ShaDa file is, but I found min in my nvim state directory, unlike this issue that mentions it being in share.

The Error.

Error while reading ShaDa file:

The Fix

mv ~/.local/state/nvim/shada/main.shada ~/.local/state/nvim/shada/main.shada.bak

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 These are SICK, gonna be using this a lot. (Thanks @evantraver...

2024-10-11T01:09:17Z

These are SICK, gonna be using this a lot. (Thanks @evantravers 🥰.) · jesseleite/dotfiles@4979400

My dotfiles 💾. Contribute to jesseleite/dotfiles development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub · github.com

helix inspired treesitter select outwards and select inwards.

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 Switching Configs in Neovim • Michael Uloth

2024-08-21T12:57:56Z

Switching configs in Neovim

How to maintain multiple Neovim configurations and switch between them

Michael Uloth · michaeluloth.com

Switching between nvim configs can be really easy to do since they implemented the NVIM_APPNAME Environment Variable.

NVIM_APPNAME=nvim-lazyvim nvim

Now config will be loaded from ~/.config/nvim-lazyvim

Michael lays out some aliases in the full article.

alias v='nvim' # default Neovim config
alias vz='NVIM_APPNAME=nvim-lazyvim nvim' # LazyVim
alias vc='NVIM_APPNAME=nvim-nvchad nvim' # NvChad
alias vk='NVIM_APPNAME=nvim-kickstart nvim' # Kickstart
alias va='NVIM_APPNAME=nvim-astrovim nvim' # AstroVim
alias vl='NVIM_APPNAME=nvim-lunarvim nvim' # LunarVim

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 From Vim To Zed - YouTube

2024-04-13T13:42:56Z

I found this statement quite intriguing.

multi-cursors are just macros.

This is quite a philisophical video and mostly prime talking about the things that make vim vim, and what prime needs in and editor vs what he can live without.

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 My New Python Lsp Setup

2024-03-09T02:58:03Z

![[None]]

I figured out the killer combination for python lsp servers, ruff and jedi! ruff does all of the diagnostics and formatting, then jedi handles all the code objects like go to definition and go to reference.

	local servers = {
		ruff_lsp = {},
		jedi_language_server = {},
}

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts

💭 nvim: `vim.o.cmdheight=0`

2023-12-14T14:20:17Z

External Link

vi.stackexchange.com

I fixed my missing macro recording indicator that I lost and was never quite sure why. (because I forgot that I set cmdheight=0).

vim.cmd [[ autocmd RecordingEnter * set cmdheight=1 ]]
vim.cmd [[ autocmd RecordingLeave * set cmdheight=0 ]]

Note

This post is a thought. It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online #thoughts