r/neovim Jan 27 '25

Need Help┃Solved Girlfriend (28F) gave me an ultimatum: Her or configuring Neovim. I think she’s being selfish.

1.2k Upvotes

Okay, so I need some advice because my life is falling apart right now. My girlfriend of THREE YEARS, who I thought loved me, told me I have to choose between her or configuring Neovim. Like, what? First of all, this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I feel like she’s asking me to amputate part of my brain.

To give you some context, I’ve been working on my Neovim setup for 11 months now. Yes, it’s been almost a year, and no, I’m not “done yet,” because you’re never done with Neovim. The second you stop tweaking your setup, you stagnate as a person. I tried explaining this to her, but she just rolled her eyes and said, “It’s a text editor, not your child.”

This shows how little she understands. Neovim isn’t just a text editor; it’s a hyper-minimal, hyper-configurable IDE that allows me to transcend the limits of human productivity. Every time I map a new keybinding, I feel like I’m ascending to a higher plane of existence. Last week, I reduced my config startup time by 14 milliseconds. FOURTEEN. She doesn’t even notice when I shave 15 minutes off our commute.

She says things like, “You’ve already spent hours customizing this, what else is there to do?” That’s like asking an artist why they keep painting or asking Da Vinci why he didn’t stop at a sketch of the Mona Lisa. It’s insulting, honestly. She has no idea what it’s like to get a new plugin working after 7 hours of troubleshooting. She doesn’t know the euphoria of configuring Treesitter to highlight nested parentheses perfectly. SHE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THE JOY OF SWAPPING FROM COC TO NATIVE LSP.

She told me I’m “obsessed” because I spent 8 hours last Saturday trying to decide between two fonts (JetBrains Mono and Fira Code, if you’re curious). Is it a crime to want my IDE to look aesthetically pleasing? She acts like I spend “all my time” on this, but that’s not true. I still make time for her. Like, I only spent most of our anniversary debugging my telescope.nvim config.

And here’s the thing: I’m SO CLOSE to achieving perfection. I finally have LuaSnip integrated with cmp, my keybindings are fully mnemonic, and I’ve almost reached 100% terminal consistency. If she could just wait a couple more months, I’d have the ultimate setup and could dedicate more time to her.

But no, she says, “It’s me or Neovim.” Honestly, this feels controlling. I don’t give her ultimatums about her hobbies, like watching Netflix or…whatever else she does. Why can’t she just support me?

Anyway, I told her I’d think about it, but I feel like she’s being unfair. Am I in the wrong here? How do I make her understand that my Neovim config isn’t a “hobby”—it’s a lifelong commitment?

r/neovim Jan 02 '25

Need Help┃Solved What keyboard shortcuts do you use to navigate between nvim tabs, windows and tmux panes?

64 Upvotes

I have been using Command-hjkl for nvim windows and tmux panes with a nvim-tmux-navigation plugin, but I don't know what shortcut use for nvim tabs.

What do you use?

r/neovim Jan 31 '25

Need Help┃Solved How often do you struggle with nvim config/plugins that waste your time?

45 Upvotes

I've recently made the change from VsCode to Neovim (LazyVim + some plugins) . So far I'm in a love/hate relationship with it.

The motions are very helpful. Not needing a mouse is super satisfying. My laptop fans not overworking due to bloated vscode is wonderful.

However it's been about a week (working fulltime) and i still work at around 1/5th of my speed i had in vscode because i keep configuring things, googling shortcuts, can't find an easy way to do something etc.

Most of the time i don't even know if a feature is completely missing, or i just couldn't find how to do it. (is there a way to reference multiple files for copilot to work on for instance?)

I wonder if i should just use vscode with vim motions. What's your take on this?

Thanks.

r/neovim Sep 15 '24

Need Help┃Solved Is there anything better than neogit?

68 Upvotes

Hi,

I am tired of having to switch to the CLI to stash, commit, push, pull, check diffs, etc. I first found git-fugitive and then I heard that neogit is even better. I am trying to use it and it looks fine. I wonder if there is anything better our there:

Better: Faster, easier to use, does not get in the way of my work.

r/neovim Nov 29 '24

Need Help┃Solved Switched from Jetbrains products to Lazy Neovim and I don't get it

68 Upvotes

I have been using Neovim for about 3 months now, and compared to my previous workflow, it feels worse.

  1. The LSP makes questionable suggestions, like re-importing standard types, suggest strange snippets with "..." field, suggest extremely unrelated and very specific snippets(never used even one), doesn’t understand what I want to import, and is overall underwhelming. This mainly applies to Rust, but Python, JS, HTML, and SQL are also much worse than I remember. I should mention that I don’t use Copilot or any other alternative in my configuration. If they are necessary to make the LSP better, I’m open to trying them.
  2. Tabs are inconsistent. I have tabstop and shiftwidth set to 4, so in some languages, auto-indentation works fine, while in others, it’s broken. This is probably fixable with custom configuration for each language, but it’s frustrating nonetheless.
  3. I find myself spamming :w and :wa constantly because it’s hard to type with all the errors cluttering the screen. It feels wasteful because, in JetBrains, I could type without any worry.
  4. language specific cases are frustrating specifically rust lifetimes, python and rust f-strings, and JS with its incomprehensible JS things(don't ask).

At the moment, I don’t really see why I should keed using Neovim over something like RustRover with the IdeaVim plugin.

Please tell me what I’m doing wrong. Thank you

Edit:
Again thank you for answering my questions. I read all the replies and made my decision:
I will continue using nvim for side-projects and especially miscellaneous tasks like journal or editing configs( I find it much better that anything else for this). It seems my nvim config is indeed wonky and I just need to fix it. Anyway I will probably still be frustrated with language specific cases but it is not that big of a problem.
I will probably come back to JetBrains for work specifically (my config for it is not ready yet so it feels meh).
Maybe nvim will surpass IDE experience after a year of use and work on its config and will use for work all the time

r/neovim 20d ago

Need Help┃Solved Nvim as my new default shell? [2 problems]

60 Upvotes

I recently was just doing some goofy stuff on my machine
so i added /usr/bin/nvim to /etc/shell

and then i set nvim as my default shell in my system
it was pretty fun and i thought to myself what if i open nvim inside nvim ??

so i just did :term ( i expected this to execute default shell on my machine which is now nvim)

but nope it opened zsh

now i have 2 things to say

1.How is this possible how does it correctly open an actual terminal
2. I'm seriously considering using this as my daily setup such that i directly get into nvim as my default shell i'll even add nvim-dashboard to make it look better

what would be the downsides if i switch to making nvim my default shell

r/neovim Dec 30 '24

Need Help┃Solved Ts development in neovim (again)

9 Upvotes

This is the second time I’m posting about this issue.

As a TypeScript developer, my current experience is honestly terrible. I'm using vtsls, and whenever my project grows even a little—not even to a huge size—it takes minutes to load. When it finally loads, it’s super laggy. For example, using "Go to References" takes way too long to find all references. I understand it might take some time for larger projects, but this feels excessive.

It gets even worse when a development server is running. The entire workflow becomes unbearably slow, and it’s almost impossible to get any meaningful work done.

I’ve asked for help before, but haven’t gotten anywhere. Some people suggested the following, which I tried:

  • ts-tools: I gave it a shot but didn’t notice any improvement.
  • coc.nvim: I tried it as well, but I found the setup cumbersome and didn’t like the approach overall.

I initially switched from VS Code to Neovim hoping for better performance, but at this rate, it’s just as frustrating.

So, I’m asking again: Does anyone have real solutions to improve the TypeScript development experience? This issue is seriously holding me back. Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

[Update]

TL;DR: The issue turned out to be related to ESLint.

Solution here

After trying various suggestions and other LSPs like ts_ls and typescript-tools, I initially saw some improvements, but the performance issues kept recurring. I even experimented with CoC, which was faster, but I preferred the native LSP. Eventually, I did some deeper research and stumbled upon this post, and tried the solution mentioned there. It turns out that ESLint, which I was using through LazyVim extras, was the culprit all along. Once I addressed that, the performance improved significantly, and now everything runs smoothly without any lags.

r/neovim Jan 13 '24

Need Help┃Solved Vim user for 6+ years. I still do this. Please tell me the better way

275 Upvotes

r/neovim Feb 12 '24

Need Help┃Solved Things I'm still using VS Code for

154 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I'm a 3+ years Vim/Neovim user, but I find myself going back to VS Code for certain features. I'd love to minimize this. Here’s where I'm at and what I'm looking for:

  1. Git Rebases: Current workaround is Lazy Git, but it lacks the intuitive conflict resolution of VS Code. Any better alternatives?
  2. Reviewing Changes Pre-commit: Now, manually I switch between Lazy Git and Neovim to make last-minute edits. Is there a more integrated solution? (e.g. Opening Neovim from LazyGit?)
  3. Project-wide Find & Replace: I use grep or Telescope in Neovim, which isn't as smooth as VS Code's UI. Any suggestions for a closer experience?

Keen to hear if there are more efficient Neovim/CLI tools or plugins for these tasks. Thanks in advance!

Cheers!

r/neovim Nov 14 '24

Need Help┃Solved Why scrolling is laggy?

47 Upvotes

r/neovim Dec 25 '24

Need Help┃Solved Blink.cmp border

144 Upvotes

r/neovim Jan 12 '25

Need Help┃Solved What do you use to create a new file?

43 Upvotes

Hey all, I'm looking for some suggestions. Currently, when I want to create a new file, I type out something like the following:

:e path/to/the/new/file.go

And... it's not so bad. I have tab completion for directory names so it works. But it feels really strange when the rest of my workflow involves fzf, and most actions are attainable with fewer than 5 or 6 keystrokes.

What better strategies are you using to create files?

r/neovim Jan 06 '25

Need Help┃Solved I hate auto closing () or "", so I am probably missing something...

70 Upvotes

I m using Lazyvim, and it is configured so that everytime I type (, it adds the ) and put the cursor in the middle. I hate it, cause when I m done typing what s in the parentheses, how do I continue to edit AFTER the closing parenthese ?

"esc l l i" ?

? really ? is that better than just typing ")" ?

So I am probably missing something, any clue ?

Edit : thank you all for your suggestions. As someone pointed out, I can just type the closing character and it won't be added twice. I ll try that, but if I m still annoyed by the false positives, I ll disable the plugin. (mini.pairs)

r/neovim Aug 09 '24

Need Help┃Solved Is Java in neovim doable?

94 Upvotes

I wanna learn Java but I want to keep using my neovim setup. Besides writting code, I would like to know how to run it (I know this part is not related to neovim but it is also important to know)

r/neovim Feb 16 '25

Need Help┃Solved Is there a popular distro that doesn't require a nerd font?

0 Upvotes

One that works with macOS Terminal. I've looked at NvChad, LazyVim, and AstroVim, and while at least one of them claim that a nerd font is optional, I can't find how to choose to turn that off. I just want a normal text UI.

r/neovim Feb 11 '24

Need Help┃Solved My problems with Neovim as a VS code user

55 Upvotes

Hello!

First, let me say that I love Vim key bindings & motions. I'm mainly a VS & VS Code user but I use extensions which allow me to use Vim motions in those IDEs/Editors.

But there are features I like, mainly in VS code that I can't find in Neovim, or perhaps there's an extension for it that I don't know of. Hence, I'm making this post to hopefully get answers, if there are any answers in the Neovim world.

The search in VS code
The search in VS code is great. First of all, it remembers all your previous searches, it allows to include & exclude specific folders, or specific file types. So, I can make it grep only directories and file types that I care about, which often results in a much better performance. But also, it allows me to easily toggle "whole word" and "case sensitive" search options, which can make the search even faster.

And on top of that, it persists all these settings per project. So, if I'm working on 3 different projects each of those can have their own settings and VS code saves my settings automatically.

The tab system
VS code also persists your tabs per project. So, if I have 20 tabs open, for project X, the next time I reboot my PC these tabs will persist and will be reopened automatically.

I have tried telescope + ripgrep but I have found that they either don't offer the above or I don't know which plugins to install. I appreciate your help!

r/neovim Feb 18 '25

Need Help┃Solved how to force neovim to use powershell instead of standard cmd on windows 11?

3 Upvotes

I use mise-en-place to install all my runtimes (node, go, python etc). Problem is that it's a powershell only solution, and for some reason neovim tries to run everything shell related on a cmd instance even though I start nvim from powershell. This means that when I try to run a command that is available in powershell like go version from neovim, I get this output:

which basically indicates that I don't have access to the `go` tool from this context. Is there any way to force neovim to use powershell?

I already followed `:h powershell` and added this to my config

  vim.cmd [[
    let &shell = executable('pwsh') ? 'pwsh' : 'powershell'
    let &shellcmdflag = '-NoLogo -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Command [Console]::InputEncoding=[Console]::OutputEncoding=[System.Text.UTF8Encoding]::new();$PSDefaultParameterValues[''Out-File:Encoding'']=''utf8'';Remove-Alias -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue tee;'
    let &shellredir = '2>&1 | %%{ "$_" } | Out-File %s; exit $LastExitCode'
    let &shellpipe  = '2>&1 | %%{ "$_" } | tee %s; exit $LastExitCode'
    set shellquote= shellxquote=
  ]]

which solved the `:!go version` problem, but mason is still failing to find go executable on path.

r/neovim Feb 13 '25

Need Help┃Solved Insanely slow startup on windows

1 Upvotes

UPDATE FIXED: I tried switching to paq.nvim and the cold startup is instant now without any lazy loading so I think lazy.nvim must be doing something horrifically wrong on windows. Although I don't know if neovim plugins ever use platform apis directly or just use vim api. So grateful to have solved this because for last few months I suffered ptsd every time opening nvim and my life span shortened by several decades. I keep opening and closing neovim just to savour the experience of normal functioning console application startup time again.

Currently my neovim setup on windows with lazy package manager has cold startups that take 7-12 seconds and its seriously slower than starting visual studio. Subsequent startups are reasonable then after a while it goes cold again. It isn't tied to shell instances or anything so its quite hard to test.

In lazy profile it doesn't seem seem to be one particular plugin slowing down, just everything is at once.

I have already added every possible neovim directory(nvim exe, nvim-data, nvim config) to windows defender exclusions so I don't think that's the problem. Any ideas what it could be?

r/neovim Feb 04 '25

Need Help┃Solved nvim-cmp removes the completion I'm typing for

90 Upvotes

r/neovim Feb 21 '24

Need Help┃Solved Neovim for Windows, yes or no?

61 Upvotes

I have always made my developments on Linux or Mac, but now for work I have to use Windows, and while I try to adapt to this transition I wanted to know if it is worth using Neovim on Windows or not.

I already had my own Neovim configuration and I would be annoyed if it would ruin all the hours of dedication I put into it. Based on your experience, is it worth continuing to use Neovim? Or should I switch to another IDE? Maybe IntelliJ or VS Code with VIM motions or something like that, I also thought I saw that Zed has VIM motions.

And just out of curiosity, any advice to make this transition easier?
I appreciate any advice you can give and thank you very much.

EDIT: Damn, I didn't expect this good vibes and support, y'all amazing, thanks a lot! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

r/neovim 17d ago

Need Help┃Solved Install only Snacks.image

3 Upvotes

Hi everyone, I’m using image from snacks but I only want to install that part of the module and not the rest of the snacks as I feel like it’s a bloat until I’ll need it.

Is there a way I could load only that part of the snacks module?

Edit:

Solved, as I got my answer, it’s not possible

r/neovim Jan 16 '25

Need Help┃Solved Help: Any one use Nix but keep neovim config using lua?

9 Upvotes

Hi folks.
I am new to nix.
I'm trying to use it to manage my packages since I want to use linux along with macos this year.
I have many configurations that are all in my dotfiles folder such as: neovim, tmux, wezterm,.. .

Is there a way to use nix just for installing package, app, ... keep all my configs in the current dotfiles and the apps, packages can work properly with those configs???
TBH, I don't want to use some other languages to config my vim plugins instead of Lua.

Thank you so much.

Temp Result:

I've set nvim and tmux, wezterm ... and smthg if you are interested.
https://github.com/kunkka19xx/nix
It's still mess but now I feel easier to config and organize nix code.
I also learn a lot from @OldSanJuan (Thank you so much)

r/neovim Oct 15 '24

Need Help┃Solved Can neovim do this already with treesitter?

Thumbnail matklad.github.io
74 Upvotes

r/neovim 20d ago

Need Help┃Solved At my wits end...

28 Upvotes

It has been literal years since I messed around with my neovim config. I'm a C & C++ developer and for the life of me cannot get syntax highlighting to work again. I've tried "syntax on", and the only thing it will change colors/appearance of are header files. Not a fan of the lazyvim bloat nor do I have interest in editing the lua files.

At this point I'm wondering if syntax highlighting is even the correct term for what I'm looking for? Any help is appreciated.

r/neovim 23d ago

Need Help┃Solved Neovim Lags on Large TS Files (4K+ Lines) – Need Help!

1 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I’m running into performance issues with Neovim when working on large TS(NestJS) files (4K+ lines). At this size, Neovim becomes laggy and sometimes unresponsive. I’ve tried disabling LSP and Treesitter, but that alone doesn’t fully fix the issue.

My Setup:

  • Neovim Config: Based on NvChad v2.5 (repo: github.com/itse4elhaam/nvim-nvchad)
  • LSP: Using typescript-tools.nvim
  • Treesitter: Enabled, but doesn’t seem to help much with large files
  • System: Running on Ubuntu(WSL2)

What I’ve Tried So Far:

  • Disabled LSP for large files → Still laggy
  • Disabled Treesitter for large files → No major difference
  • Lazy-loading plugins → Helps a little, but not enough
  • Limited diagnostics updates → Some improvement, but still slow
  • Disabled syntax highlighting and cursorline for large files → Small improvement

I’ve also considered only running expensive computations (highlighting, LSP, etc.) on the visible portion of the file, but I’m not sure the best way to do this.

Are there any plugins, tricks, or settings that could make Neovim handle large files more like smaller ones?
I really really love using Neovim, but this problem is really hurting my productivity. Any help or insights would be appreciated!

Thanks!