This plugin adds image support to Neovim using Kitty's Graphics Protocol or ueberzugpp.
It works great with Kitty and Tmux, and it handles all the rendering complexity for you.
Join on Discord: https://discord.gg/GTwbCxBNgz
readme_720p.mp4
We provide:
- A library for working with images
- A set of built-in integrations like Markdown and Neorg
Try it out quickly by downloading minimal-setup.lua from the root of this repository and running nvim --clean -c ":luafile minimal-setup.lua"
We support two rendering backends, so first you need to set up one of these:
- Kitty (recommended) >= 28.0 for the
kitty
backend- Has the best performance, native clipping, caching, etc.
- You need to use Kitty or a terminal emulator that implements Kitty's Graphics Protocol.
- WezTerm implements it, but the performance is bad and it's not fully compliant. Most things work, but due to these issues it's not officially supported.
- Überzug++ for the
ueberzug
backend- Works with any terminal emulator.
- Has much lower performance.
We need to convert, scale, and crop images, and for that we use ImageMagick.
There are two ways we can do this, and you need to pick and follow the setup for the one you prefer.
- Via FFI bindings (default) - using the
magick_rock
processor and the magick Lua rock- Has slightly better performance.
- Requires a working LuaRocks setup and building the magick rock.
- Via CLI wrapping - using the
magick_cli
processor- Shells out to ImageMagick's CLI utilities like
identify
andconvert
. - Slightly scary in some scenarios as we could potentially pass untrusted input to a shell. We try to keep things secure, but this would be the main selling point of using the bindings instead.
- Shells out to ImageMagick's CLI utilities like
For the magick_cli
processor you need a regular installation of ImageMagick.
For the magick_rock
processor you need to install the development version of ImageMagick.
NixOS
NixOS users need to install the imagemagick
package.
For magick_rock
you need to install luajitPackages.magick
as well (thanks to @donovanglover).
-
Vanilla NixOS
# https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/applications/editors/neovim/utils.nix#L27 { pkgs, neovimUtils, wrapNeovimUnstable, ... }: let config = pkgs.neovimUtils.makeNeovimConfig { extraLuaPackages = p: [ p.magick ]; extraPackages = p: [ p.imagemagick ]; # ... other config }; in { nixpkgs.overlays = [ (_: super: { neovim-custom = pkgs.wrapNeovimUnstable (super.neovim-unwrapped.overrideAttrs (oldAttrs: { buildInputs = oldAttrs.buildInputs ++ [ super.tree-sitter ]; })) config; }) ]; environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ neovim-custom ]; }
Arch
sudo pacman -Syu imagemagick
Ubuntu
# for magick_cli
sudo apt install imagemagick
# for magick_rock
sudo apt install libmagickwand-dev
macOS
The setup is the same for both magick_rock
and magick_cli
:
- Homebrew:
brew install imagemagick
- For some users homebrew might install it into a weird location, so you have to add
$(brew --prefix)/lib
toDYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH
by adding something likeexport DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH="$(brew --prefix)/lib:$DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH"
to your shell profile (probably.zshrc
or.bashrc
)
- For some users homebrew might install it into a weird location, so you have to add
- MacPorts:
sudo port install imagemagick
- You must add
/opt/local/lib
toDYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH
, similar to homebrew.
- You must add
Fedora
# for magick_cli
sudo dnf install ImageMagick
# for magick_rock
sudo dnf install ImageMagick-devel
This plugin will always have first class support for Tmux, to make it work make sure you:
- Use Tmux >= 3.3
set -gq allow-passthrough on
set -g visual-activity off
- cURL for remote image support
After you've set up the dependencies, install the image.nvim
plugin.
For magick_rock using Lazy >= v11.*
require("lazy").setup({
{
"3rd/image.nvim",
opts = {}
},
}, {
rocks = {
hererocks = true, -- recommended if you do not have global installation of Lua 5.1.
},
})
For magick_rock using Lazy < v11.x
It's recommended that you use vhyrro/luarocks.nvim to install Lua rocks for Neovim while using lazy, but you can install them manually as well.
With luarocks.nvim
Please read the luarocks.nvim README, it currently has an external dependency.
{
"vhyrro/luarocks.nvim",
priority = 1001, -- this plugin needs to run before anything else
opts = {
rocks = { "magick" },
},
},
{
"3rd/image.nvim",
dependencies = { "luarocks.nvim" },
opts = {}
}
Without luarocks.nvim
You have to install the Lua rock manually.
- Install LuaRocks on your system via your system package manager
- Run
luarocks --local --lua-version=5.1 install magick
-- Example for configuring Neovim to load user-installed installed Lua rocks:
package.path = package.path .. ";" .. vim.fn.expand("$HOME") .. "/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/?/init.lua"
package.path = package.path .. ";" .. vim.fn.expand("$HOME") .. "/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/?.lua"
{
"3rd/image.nvim",
opts = {}
}
For magick_rock using Rocks.nvim
:Rocks install image.nvim
For magick_cli using Lazy
{
"3rd/image.nvim",
build = false, -- so that it doesn't build the rock https://github.com/3rd/image.nvim/issues/91#issuecomment-2453430239
opts = {}
}
require("image").setup({
backend = "kitty",
processor = "magick_rock", -- or "magick_cli"
integrations = {
markdown = {
enabled = true,
clear_in_insert_mode = false,
download_remote_images = true,
only_render_image_at_cursor = false,
filetypes = { "markdown", "vimwiki" }, -- markdown extensions (ie. quarto) can go here
},
neorg = {
enabled = true,
filetypes = { "norg" },
},
typst = {
enabled = true,
filetypes = { "typst" },
},
html = {
enabled = false,
},
css = {
enabled = false,
},
},
max_width = nil,
max_height = nil,
max_width_window_percentage = nil,
max_height_window_percentage = 50,
window_overlap_clear_enabled = false, -- toggles images when windows are overlapped
window_overlap_clear_ft_ignore = { "cmp_menu", "cmp_docs", "" },
editor_only_render_when_focused = false, -- auto show/hide images when the editor gains/looses focus
tmux_show_only_in_active_window = false, -- auto show/hide images in the correct Tmux window (needs visual-activity off)
hijack_file_patterns = { "*.png", "*.jpg", "*.jpeg", "*.gif", "*.webp", "*.avif" }, -- render image files as images when opened
})
All the backends support rendering inside Tmux.
kitty
- best in class, works great and is very snappyueberzug
- backed by ueberzugpp, supports any terminal, but has lower performance- Supports multiple images thanks to @jstkdng.
markdown
- uses tree-sitter-markdown and supports any Markdown-based grammars (Quarto, VimWiki Markdown)neorg
- uses tree-sitter-norg (also check nvim-neorg/neorg#971)typst
- thanks to @etiennecollin (#223)html
andcss
- thanks to @zuloo (#163)
You can configure where images are searched for on a per-integration basis by passing a function to
resolve_image_path
as shown below:
require('image').setup({
integrations = {
markdown = {
resolve_image_path = function(document_path, image_path, fallback)
-- document_path is the path to the file that contains the image
-- image_path is the potentially relative path to the image. for
-- markdown it's `![](this text)`
-- you can call the fallback function to get the default behavior
return fallback(document_path, image_path)
end,
}
}
})
Check #190 (comment) for how to configure this for Obsidian.
Check types.lua for a better overview of how everything is modeled.
local api = require("image")
-- from a file (absolute path)
local image = api.from_file("/path/to/image.png", {
id = "my_image_id", -- optional, defaults to a random string
window = 1000, -- optional, binds image to a window and its bounds
buffer = 1000, -- optional, binds image to a buffer (paired with window binding)
with_virtual_padding = true, -- optional, pads vertically with extmarks, defaults to false
-- optional, binds image to an extmark which it follows. Forced to be true when
-- `with_virtual_padding` is true. defaults to false.
inline = true,
-- geometry (optional)
x = 1,
y = 1,
width = 10,
height = 10
})
-- from a URL
api.from_url("https://gist.ro/s/remote.png", {
-- all the same options from above
}, function(img)
-- do stuff with the image
end
)
image:render() -- render image
image:render(geometry) -- update image geometry and render it
image:clear()
image:move(x, y) -- move image
image:brightness(value) -- change brightness
image:saturation(value) -- change saturation
image:hue(value) -- change hue
-- create a report, also available as :ImageReport
require("image").create_report()
Deep thanks to the awesome people who have gifted their time and energy to this project, and to those who work on Neovim and the dependencies without which this would not be possible.
- @benlubas for their countless amazing contributions
- @edluffy for hologram.nvim - of which I borrowed a lot of code
- @vhyrro for their great ideas and hologram.nvim fork changes
- @kovidgoyal for Kitty - the program I spend most of my time in
- @jstkdng for ueberzugpp - the revived version of ueberzug
Some years ago, I took a trip to Emacs land for a few months to learn Elisp and also research what Org-mode is, how it works, and look for features of interest for my workflow.
I already had my own document syntax, albeit a very simple one, hacked together with Vimscript and a lot of Regex, and I was looking for ideas to improve it and build features on top of it.
I kept working on my syntax over the years, rewrote it many times, and today it's a proper Tree-sitter grammar, that I use for all my needs, from second braining to managing my tasks and time. It's helped me control my ADHD and be productive long before I was diagnosed, and it's still helping me be so much better than I'd be without it today.
One thing Emacs and Org-mode had that I liked was the ability to embed images in the document. Of course, we don't "need" it, but... I really wanted to have images in my documents.
About 3 years ago, I made my first attempt at solving this problem but didn't get far. If you have similar interests, you might have seen the vimage.nvim demo video on YouTube.
It was using ueberzug, which is now dead. It was buggy and didn't handle things like window-relative positioning, attaching images to windows and buffers, folds, etc.
Kitty's graphics protocol was a thing, but it didn't work with Tmux, which I'll probably use forever or replace it with something of my own.
Now, things have changed, and I'm happy to announce that rendering images using Kitty's graphics protocol from Neovim inside Tmux is working, and it's working pretty well!