Neovim for Beginners — File Explorer

Configure file explorer for Neovim, with and without plugins.

Exploring files and directories is what we do daily. Let’s check out how Neovim can help us. We are going to

• Explore Netrw (:h netrw) which is the built-in file browser supporting local and remote file browsing.
• Configure sensible defaults for Netrw and check out vinegar.vim that enhances Netrw.
• Install and configure nvim-tree, a Lua-based plugin for Neovim.

This article is part of the Neovim for Beginners series.

The Neovim configuration files can be found in this repository.

Netrw

All Vimmers should have some basic knowledge of Netrw.

Netrw makes reading files, writing files, browsing over a network, and local browsing easy. It supports many protocols like scp, ftp, http, rsync, sftp, fetch, dav, etc (:h netrw-ref).

We can use it to read a remote file.

nvim scp://hostname/path/to/file
nvim ftp://hostname/path/to/file

We can use it to browse a remote directory.

nvim scp://hostname/
nvim ftp://hostname/path/to/dir/

Local browsing is easy.

nvim .
nvim /home/userid/path

Commands

From within Neovim, we can use the :edit or :e commands to browse the directory. E.g. :e $HOME to browse the home directory, or :e . to browse the current directory.

Other available commands are

• :[N]Explore[!] [dir]- Explore the directory of the current file.
• :[N]Hexplore[!] [dir] — Horizontal Split & Explore.
• :[N]Lexplore[!] [dir] — Left Explorer Toggle.
• :[N]Sexplore[!] [dir] — Split & Explore the current file’s directory.
• :[N]Vexplore[!] [dir] — Vertical Split & Explore.
• :Texplore [dir]— Tab & Explore.
• :Rexplore — Return to/from the Explorer.

Within Netrw, we can press to see the supported commands for file and directory manipulation, e.g. % to create a file, d to create a folder, R to rename, D to delete, etc.

Configure Netrw

Let’s check out settings we can configure for Netrw (:h netrw-browser-settings).

• g:netrw:banner — Enable or suppress the banner. 0 to suppress the banner, 1 to enable the banner (default).
• g:netrw_altv — Change from left splitting to right splitting.
• g:netrw_browse_split — When browsing, will open the file by 0: re-using the same window (default), 1: horizontally splitting the window first, 2: vertically splitting the window first, 3: open file in a new tab, 4: act like “P” (i.e. open the previous window).
• g:netrw_liststyle - Set the default listing style- 0: thin listing (one file per line), 1: long listing (one file per line with timestamp information and file size), 2: wide listing (multiple files in columns), 3: tree-style listing.
• g:netrw_list_hide- Comma-separated pattern list for hiding files.

In the after/plugin/defaults.lua file, add the following lines.

vinegar.vim

If configuring Netrw seems too much hassle, we can use vinegar.vim by tpope. This plugin enhances Netrw to have a project drawer style experience.

In the lua/plugins.lua file, add in the line to install this plugin.

-- Better Netrw
use {"tpope/vim-vinegar"}

Run :PackerInstall to install it.

With the plugin installed,

• The banner should be disabled.
• We can press - in any buffer to hop up to the directory listing.
• Press . on a file to pre-populate it at the end of a : command line.
• Press y. to yank an absolute path for the file under the cursor.
• Press ~ to go home.
• Use Vim’s built-in CTRL-^ (CTRL-6) for switching back to the previous buffer from the netrw buffer.
• And more fine-tunings…

Check out the documentation for more details.

nvim-tree

nvim-tree is a Lua-based file explorer plugin for Neovim.

In the lua/plugins.lua file, add the following lines to install it.

use {
 "kyazdani42/nvim-tree.lua",
 requires = {
   "kyazdani42/nvim-web-devicons",
 },
 cmd = { "NvimTreeToggle", "NvimTreeClose" },
   config = function()
     require("config.nvimtree").setup()
   end,
}

In thelua/config/nvimtree.luafile, add the following lines to configure it.

By default, nvim-tree disables and hijacks Netrw. We can turn it off if required. Check out the documentation for the available options.

In the lua/config/whichkey.lua file, add the key mapping to toggle nvim-tree.

Run :PackerInstall to install it.

Now we should have a proper file explorer to browse our project and manipulate the files and directories.

To see all the supported commands, press g? to toggle the help.

Check out Learn Neovim The Practical Way for all the Vim/Neovim articles!

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References

• How to Do 90% of What Plugins Do (With Just Vim)