jdhao-nvim-config/docs/README.md

# Pre-requisite

There are a few dependencies if we want to use Neovim for efficient editing
and development work.

## Python

A lot of Neovim plugins are mainly written in Python. To use auto-completion
and other features, we must install Python 3. The easiest way to install is via
[Anaconda](https://www.anaconda.com/distribution/#download-section) or
[Miniconda](https://docs.conda.io/en/latest/miniconda.html). Make sure that the
output of `python --version` on the command line shows that Python 3.x is
installed.

## Pynvim

Neovim relies on [pynvim](https://github.com/neovim/pynvim) to communicate with
plugins that utilize its Python binding. Pynvim is required by plugins such as
[Deoplete](https://github.com/Shougo/deoplete.nvim) and [Semshi](https://github.com/numirias/semshi).

## Jedi

For Python code auto-completion to work, we need to install
[Jedi](https://github.com/davidhalter/jedi):

```
pip install jedi
```

## Git

Git is used by the plugin manager vim-plug to download plugins from GitHub or
other Git repositories.

Since Git is usually pre-installed on Linux and Mac, we do not need to worry
if we are on these two platforms. For Windows, install [Git for
Windows](https://git-scm.com/download/win) and make sure you can call `git`
from the command line.

## ctags

In order to use tags related plugins such as
[tagbar](/github.com/majutsushi/tagbar) and
[gutentags](https://github.com/ludovicchabant/vim-gutentags), we need to
install a ctags distribution. Universal ctags is preferred.

To install ctags on Mac, use [Homebrew](https://github.com/universal-ctags/homebrew-universal-ctags).
To install it Windows, [use chocolatey](https://chocolatey.org/packages/universal-ctags):

```
choco install universal-ctags
```

To install it on Linux, we need to build it from source. See
[here](https://askubuntu.com/questions/796408/installing-and-using-universal-ctags-instead-of-exuberant-ctags/836521#836521)
for the details.

Set its PATH properly and make sure you can call `ctags` from command line.

## Ripgrep

[Ripgrep](https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep), aka, `rg`, is a fast grep
tool available for both Linux, Windows and Mac. It is used by several searching
plugins.

For Windows and Mac, we can install it via chocolatey and homebrew
respectively. For Linux, we can download the executable file from its [release
page](https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/releases) and install it.

## Linters

A linter is a tool to check the source code for possible style and syntax
issues. Based on the programming languages we use, we may need to install
various linters.

+ Python: [pylint](https://github.com/PyCQA/pylint) and [flake8](https://github.com/PyCQA/flake8).
+ Vim script: [vint](https://github.com/Kuniwak/vint) (You may need to install
  the pre-release versions because of [this issue](https://github.com/Kuniwak/vint/issues/290)).

For other linters, please consult the plugin documentation. For
ALE(https://github.com/dense-analysis/ale) (which is the linting plugin I
currently use), a list of linters for different languages is
listed [here](https://github.com/dense-analysis/ale/blob/master/supported-tools.md).

## Terminal emulators

Which [terminal emulator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_emulator) we
choose to use greatly affects the appearance and functionalities of Neovim.
Since Neovim supports true colors, terminals that support true colors are
preferred. For a list of terminals that support true colors, see
[here](https://github.com/termstandard/colors).

For Mac, we can use [iterm2](https://www.iterm2.com/),
[kitty](https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/) or
[Alacritty](https://github.com/jwilm/alacritty). If you connect to Linux server
on Windows, I recommend [wsltty](https://github.com/mintty/wsltty) and
[Cygwin](https://www.cygwin.com/), both of them use
[mintty](https://github.com/mintty/mintty) as the terminal emulator.

## Font

Since [Vim-airline](https://github.com/vim-airline/vim-airline) uses several
symbols not available in normal font, we need to install [fonts
here](https://github.com/powerline/fonts) to make vim-airline look pretty. I am
using [Hack](https://github.com/powerline/fonts/tree/master/Hack), and it looks
great. Another great resource for programming font is the
[nerd-font](https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts) project.

# Install Neovim

There are various ways to install Neovim based on your system.

## Linux

Follow the official guide and download the appimage from the [release
page](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/releases/nightly).

For some Linux systems, we may not be able to run the appimage. We can
directly download the binary release from
[here](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/releases/download/nightly/nvim-linux64.tar.gz) and extract it to run Neovim.

## Windows

The easiest way to install Neovim on Windows is via
[chocolatey](https://chocolatey.org/install). First, install chocolatey. Then
we can install neovim easily with

```
# install the latest version of neovim
# choco install neovim --pre

choco install neovim
```

The Neovim that chocolatey installs may not be up to date. To use the
cutting-edge features of Neovim, you may download [the nightly
release](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/releases/download/nightly/nvim-win64.zip)
from GitHub and manually extract it.

## Mac

It is recommended to install neovim via [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/) on macOS.
Simply run the following command:

```
brew install neovim
# If you want to install the latest version of neovim, use the following
# command instead.
# brew install --HEAD neovim
```

After installing Neovim, we need to add the directory where the Neovim
executable (`nvim` on Linux and Mac, `nvim.exe` on Windows) resides to the
system `PATH`.

Make sure that you can call `nvim` from the command line after all these setups.

# Setting up Nvim

## How to install this configuration

On Windows, the config directory is `$HOME/AppData/Local/nvim`[^1]. On Linux
and Mac, the directory is `~/.config/nvim`. First, we need to remove all the
files under the config directory (including dot files), then use the following
command to install this configuration:

```
git clone https://github.com/jdhao/nvim-config.git .
```

After that, when we first open nvim, all the plugins included in this
configuration will be installed automatically for you (for Windows and Mac).
Since I use quite a lot of plugins (around 60 plugins), it may take some time
to install all of them, depending on your network condition.

# Automatic Installation #

To set up a workable Neovim environment in Linux, I use the script
[`Nvim_setup.sh`](Nvim_setup.sh) to automatically install necessary
dependencies, Neovim itself and Nvim configs in this repo.

Note that the variable `PYTHON_INSTALLED`, `SYSTEM_PYTHON` and
`ADD_TO_SYSTEM_PATH` in the script should be set properly based on your
environment.

[^1]: Use `echo %userprofile%` to see where your `$HOME` is.