Neovim from Scratch - Part 2: Supercharged Code Navigation via Treesitter, Textobjects & which-key

We continue our Neovim journey building upon the solid foundation from part one. In this second episode, let's take our configuration to the next level by installing and configuring powerful code awareness and navigation plugins that transform how we interact with code.

We'll begin by installing and thoroughly explaining Treesitter - Neovim's game-changing syntax parser that provides true semantic understanding of your code. Watch as we enable incremental selection, allowing you to progressively expand your selections from individual tokens to entire functions with just a few keystrokes. You'll learn how to fine-tune colors and styling using Treesitter in conjunction with our kanagawa theme, creating a visually stunning yet functionally superior coding environment.

The power of Treesitter extends even further as we integrate treesitter-textobjects, enabling you to select, modify, and navigate specific code elements with surgical precision. Need to swap function parameters or reorder table elements? Together we'll discover how to accomplish this effortlessly, saving countless keystrokes and mental overhead.

To further enhance our Neovim workflow, we'll install and configure the which-key plugin, providing an intuitive discoverable interface for all your custom keybindings. Never again will you forget that brilliant shortcut you created last month! As a special bonus requested by a viewer, I'll also install and set up showkeys - a plugin that displays keystrokes in real-time, perfect for presentations or learning new commands.

All configuration files shown in this episode are available on GitHub:

Join as we continue building a Neovim configuration that doesn't just edit text, but understands and anticipates your coding needs. Stay tuned for upcoming episodes where we'll explore LSP integration, lightning-fast autocompletion, and efficient fuzzy finding techniques.

#neovim #treesitter #programming #nvim #coding #whichkey #textobjects

[gregoryshields]

Thank you for sharing your time and knowledge, and doing so with great humility rather than hubris. And despite English not being your primary language, you did a great job of expressing yourself. I will definitely be watching other videos you've made, as you clearly possess a deep knowledge of the topics you are presenting.

[the_flushjackson]

This series is quite simply a must watch for anyone adopting Neovim, whether they are a beginner to vi/vim or a seasoned user just looking to bridge the gap between those tools and neovim, as well as understanding the environment as opposed to just kickstart.nvim or LazyVim. Beautiful work, thank you!

[PalashBackup]

This series is really a deep-dive. Thanks for taking the time to explain things in so much detail. I really can not thank video creators like you enough, it is because of people like you that we can learn things that would have otherwise taken hours of digging through documentation.

I will be referring and directing people to this video for people who are looking to build their own configurations.

[gugolinyo]

While I was reviewing the video I decided the following might come in handy:


0:00 Retrospect
2:30 Showkeys
7:01 - Tree-sitter - overview
11:17 - Tree-sitter - installation
17:15 - Tree-sitter - brief usage overview
26:58 - Fix Kanagawa MD color scheme
29:33 - Example - modifying Kanagawa color scheme
32:20 - Tree-sitter-textobjects - overview
34:04 - Tree-sitter-textobjects - installation
38:22 - Tree-sitter-textobjects - configuration
40:38 - Tree-sitter - queries
44:54 - Tree-stter-textobjects - example
52:12 - Whichkey

[hemantsingh]

There are no words in which i can thank you i gave been struggling to connect dots how everything works i tried many things from lazyvim to nvchad but i did'nt knew how things work in back ground
again thank you so much

[sidds]

<Enter> <Enter> <Backspace> is such a great idea - absolutely using that.

[Redyf]

Your channel is gold! I'm glad youtube recommended it to me

[tommatime]

This is great! A lot of NeoVim configs are too complicated and focus on a specific development language. It's really nice that the config you are building is minimal and useful for a lot of languages. I've been using NeoVim for a while, but I'm learning a lot of new tricks

[CJosshua]

I finally understand how to config neovim! Looked like rocket science for me but thanks to you I already catched up, thanks!!!

[quazl]

Great Job! Enjoying this series. Finally get some clear understanding of Lua configs.

[joshuatjhie]

Thank you very much! Truly a big help in understanding how to configure Neovim from scratch. Looking forward to the next one!

[quakuaq]

thank you this was super useful especially Tree-sitter-textobjects and kanagawa markdown fix part. really helped me!

[renatolinard]

the first time I've seen an explanation so details

[tonimaunde]

Thanks once again for the incredibly detailed video.

[technicalboy]

Good stuff brother! Mic is crisp! Waiting for next video.

[djwave]

@35:43 you start your setup with `init = function`, where in other plugins you start with `config = function`. Why use `init` here?

[yuxiang]

excellent stuff. different color for check and unchecked in md files is great!

[iwuvhanekawa]

thank you, many of neovim config videos out there don't explain in details.

[richardhu]

Thank you for this great series. I learned a lot. Love it!

[feresp]

Thanks for share it! Love the video and the format!