kickstart.nvim

Introduction

A significant portion of this README file is ripped or styled directly following the README for kickstart.nvim.

nightowl-parliament.nvim is an experimental configuration for neovim, which is designed with the express goal of giving neovim the capabilities to do anything that I might ask of it as a text editor. This means it is

• large
• documented to a moderate degree
• modular to a fault

This repo is not meant to be used by YOU to begin your Neovim journey; instead it is a personal exploration of determining what exactly neovim could and could not be configured to achieve (within reason, of course). If you choose to use this configuration, please be aware of the following:

• Minimalism is an Anti-Goal
• Many plugins overlap in functionality, effectively stepping on each others toes.
• It is unlikely that this configuration will ever be exceedingly performant. The configuration is somewhat performant, but I also have 64 gb of RAM installed. Perhaps in the future when I find it necessary to set up a laptop system, I will seek to improve the performance bottlenecks
• Symbol fonts and mathematically oriented iconography support is required...I will not be identifying "nerdfont-alternatives" for this configuration
• This configuration only targets Linux (Arch, in my case---sorry), and generally should only be expected to work on the most recent forms of neovim available, i.e. nightly builds.
• This configuration is an advanced look at using lazy.nvim for managing the setup, and if any of this is new to you, then you should consider at least reading the relevant documentation for the following, in this order:
  • Kickstart.nvim
  • LazyVim
  • Neovim
  • Vim
• This configuration has somewhat stabilized with the inclusion of ~400 plugins.

Distribution Alternatives:

• LazyVim: A delightful distribution maintained by @folke (the author of lazy.nvim, the package manager used here)
• Kickstart.nvim, a minimal base configuration for lazy.nvim

Installation

NOTE > Backup your previous configuration (if any exists)

Suggestions and Tips:

• Make sure to review the readmes of the plugins if you are experiencing errors.
• That's the only tip I have for you...

git clone https://github.com/bbjornstad/nightowl.nvim.git
"${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}"/nvim

Post Installation

Start Neovim

nvim

The Lazy plugin manager will start automatically on the first run and install the configured plugins. Initial installation of several plugins will fail on account of the requisite build step not being properly initialized on the first clone of plugin repositories. Once the first Lazy installation is finished, you can restart neovim in the same fashion, and the required plugins should now succeed installation. If it continues to fail, try restarting neovim repeatedly. If there are still problems you can try crying instead.

If you would prefer to hide this step and run the plugin sync from the command line, you can use:

nvim --headless "+Lazy! sync" +qa

Recommended Steps

Fork this repo (so that you have your own copy that you can modify) and then installing you can install to your machine using the methods above.

NOTE Your fork's url will be something like this: https://github.com/<your_github_username>/nightowl.nvim.git

Configuration And Extension

• Inside your copy, feel free to modify any file you like! It's your copy!
• Feel free to change any of the default options in init.lua to better suit your needs.
• For adding plugins, there are 3 primary options:
  • Add new configuration in lua/custom/plugins/* files, which will be auto sourced using lazy.nvim (uncomment the line importing the custom/plugins directory in the init.lua file to enable this)
  • Modify init.lua with additional plugins.
  • Include the lua/kickstart/plugins/* files in your configuration.

You can also merge updates/changes from the repo back into your fork, to keep up-to-date with any changes for the default configuration.

I cannot make any promises that I won't create a merge conflict with my own configuration though./

Example: Adding an autopairs plugin

In the file: lua/custom/plugins/autopairs.lua, add:

-- File: lua/custom/plugins/autopairs.lua

return {
  "windwp/nvim-autopairs",
  -- Optional dependency
  dependencies = { "hrsh7th/nvim-cmp" },
  config = function()
    require("nvim-autopairs").setup({})
    -- If you want to automatically add `(` after selecting a function or method
    local cmp_autopairs = require("nvim-autopairs.completion.cmp")
    local cmp = require("cmp")
    cmp.event:on("confirm_done", cmp_autopairs.on_confirm_done())
  end,
}

This will automatically install windwp/nvim-autopairs and enable it on startup. For more information, see documentation for lazy.nvim.

You shouldn't need to do much, chances are I've already found the plugin you are thinking about installing, out of 400 the odds are at least better than average.

Example: Adding a file tree plugin

In the file: lua/custom/plugins/filetree.lua, add:

-- Unless you are still migrating, remove the deprecated commands from v1.x
vim.cmd([[ let g:neo_tree_remove_legacy_commands = 1 ]])

return {
  "nvim-neo-tree/neo-tree.nvim",
  version = "*",
  dependencies = {
    "nvim-lua/plenary.nvim",
    "nvim-tree/nvim-web-devicons", -- not strictly required, but recommended
    "MunifTanjim/nui.nvim",
  },
  config = function()
    require("neo-tree").setup({})
  end,
}

This will install the tree plugin and add the command :Neotree for you. You can explore the documentation at neo-tree.nvim for more information.

FAQ

• What should I do if I already have a pre-existing neovim configuration?

  • You should back it up, then delete all files associated with it.
  • This includes your existing init.lua, and the neovim files in ~/.local which can be deleted with rm -rf ~/.local/share/nvim/
  • You may also want to look at the migration guide for lazy.nvim

• Can I keep my existing configuration in parallel to nightowl-parliament?

  • Yes! You can use NVIM_APPNAME=nvim-NAME to maintain multiple configurations. For example, you can install the nightowl configuration in ~/.config/nvim-nightowl and create an alias:

    alias nvim-nightowl='NVIM_APPNAME="nvim-nightowl" nvim'

    When you run Neovim using nvim-nightowl alias it will use the alternative config directory and the matching local directory ~/.local/share/nvim-nightowl. You can apply this approach to any Neovim distribution that you would like to try out.

• What if I want to "uninstall" this configuration:

  • See lazy.nvim uninstall information
  • but now, why would you want to do such a thing.

Windows Installation

Installation may require installing build tools, and updating the run command for telescope-fzf-native

See telescope-fzf-native documentation for more details

This requires:

• Install CMake, and the Microsoft C++ Build Tools on Windows

{
  'nvim-telescope/telescope-fzf-native.nvim',
  <!--markdownlint-disable-next-line-->
  build = 'cmake -S. -Bbuild -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release && cmake --build build --config Release && cmake --install build --prefix build',
}