nvim navic

With the latest release of version of nvim 0.8.0 we get access to a new winbar feature. One thing I have long wanted somewhere in my nvim is navigation for pairing partners or anyone watching can keep track of where I am. As the driver it’s easy to keep track of the file/function you are in. But when you make big jumps in a few keystrokes it can be quite disorienting to anyone watching, and having this feedback to look at is very helpful.

winbar ¶ #

nvim exposes the winbar api in lua, and you can send any text to the winbar as follows.

vim.o.winbar = "here"

You can try it for yourself right from the nvim command line.

:lua vim.o.winbar = "here"

Now you will notice one line above your file with the word here at the very beginning.

Clearing the winbar ¶ #

If you want to clear it out, you can just set it to an empty string or nil.

:lua vim.o.winbar = ""
:lua vim.o.winbar = nil

Setting up nvim-navic ¶ #

You will need to install nvim-navic if you want to use it. I added it to my plugins using Plug as follows.

call plug#begin('~/.local/share/nvim/plugged')
Plug 'SmiteshP/nvim-navic'
call plug#end()

Note! nvim-navic does require the use of the nvim lsp, so if you are not using it then maybe this won’t work for you.

I created an on_attach function long ago, cause that’s what Teej told me to do. Now I am glad I did, because it made this change super easy.

local function on_attach(client, bufnr)
    if client.server_capabilities.documentSymbolProvider then
        navic.attach(client, bufnr)
    end
end

Then you need to use that on_attach function on all of the lsp’s that you want navic to work on.

Then in a lua file you need to setup the winbar, for now I put this in my lsp-config settings file, but eventually I want to move my settings to lua and put it there.

vim.o.winbar = " %{%v:lua.vim.fn.expand('%F')%}  %{%v:lua.require'nvim-navic'.get_location()%}"

What my winbar looks like ¶ #

What I have right now is everything someone who is watching would need to know to navigate to the same place that I am in the project.

 waylonwalker/app.py   Link >  on_click

Diff ¶ #

Here are the changes that I made to to my plugins list and my lsp-config to get it.

 /home/u_walkews/.config/nvim/plugins.vim
call plug#begin('~/.local/share/nvim/plugged')
+Plug 'SmiteshP/nvim-navic'

#  /home/u_walkews/.config/nvim/lua/waylonwalker/lsp-config.lua
-local function on_attach() end
+local navic = require("nvim-navic")
+local function on_attach(client, bufnr)
+    if client.server_capabilities.documentSymbolProvider then
+        navic.attach(client, bufnr)
+    end
+end
+
+vim.o.winbar = " %{%v:lua.vim.fn.expand('%F')%}  %{%v:lua.require'nvim-navic'.get_location()%}"

GH commit ¶ #

If you want to see the change on GitHub, here is the diff