Neovim Plugin Development

What you'll learn

Understand runtimepath

Learn how to install plugins without plugin manager

Create a very minimal plugin called "confy"

Publish your shiny new plugin!

Requirements

Basics knowledge of Vim

Description

An introductory course on Neovim plugin development would cover the basics of creating plugins for the popular text editor, Neovim. Neovim is a fork of the Vim text editor and offers several new features and enhancements. The course would begin with an overview of some internal understanding of Vim, runtime path in particular."runtime path" is the list of directories where Vim looks for its runtime files, such as syntax highlighting files, plugin scripts, and documentation. These directories are typically stored in the 'runtimepath' option, which is a comma-separated list of directory paths.The runtime path is important because it determines where Vim looks for its runtime files when it starts up. If a user installs a new plugin, for example, they may need to add the plugin's directory to the runtime path so that Vim can find the plugin's script files.After doing some experimentation with runtime path, we look at how vim handles installation of plugins before and after the introduction of package feature in Vim8. We also try installing the plugins without plugin managers.Then we see how Lua module fit into the picture and how they are loaded using the "require" function. Finally we create a very minimal plugin called confy!First by following the Lua Plugin convention using the setup function.Second by following the Vimscript convention using plugin directory and vim global variables.By the end of the course, students should be able to create their own Neovim plugins and understand the fundamentals of Neovim plugin development.

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Setup

Section 2: All About Runtimepath

Lecture 2 What is a runtimepath?

Lecture 3 runtime command

Lecture 4 runtime command and plugin dir

Section 3: Vim Plugins

Lecture 5 How to install Vim Plugins without Plugin Manager?

Lecture 6 pack start directory

Lecture 7 pack opt directory

Section 4: Lua and require

Lecture 8 What does "require" do?

Lecture 9 What does "require" return?

Lecture 10 Which module does it return?

Section 5: Coding Your First Plugin Confy

Lecture 11 confy

Lecture 12 user customization

Lecture 13 reloading Lua modules

Lecture 14 Ideas for further exploration

Lecture 15 Publish!

Section 6: Traditional Vim Plugin Approach

Lecture 16 defaults in plugin directory

Lecture 17 user customization using global variable

Lecture 18 plugin directory in the popular Lua Plugins

Beginner Neovim user curious about Neovim Plugin Development