Just wondering: how would you characterize the general feel of the different nvim flavours: LazyVim, Chad, Astro, etc.? I’m not thinking functionality, which plugins are included, etc., but the way they feel when one uses them.
I tried out a whole bunch of them, as per Elijah Manor’s excellent video about config switching (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkHjJlSgKZY)
I figured out LazyVim is trying its best not to look and feel like vim, with modal windows and fancy graphics and all. I didn’t like that. I can’t remember why I left Astro behind, but I finally settled on Chad, which at first I disliked because of the name, but eventually I figured out that that was the flavour for me: so many things just worked as expected, and there were so many times when I looked up something, and went: “Hm! That was quite smart, actually!”
So that’s where I’m at – and purely for “feel” reasons. So: convince me: what am I missing when I don’t use bundle B or config C?
Not much. I don’t use any bundles myself and never have FOMO. I sometimes copy configurations from big projects like Chad and Lazy if I see a clever way they added in certain visual aspect (bufferline, statusbar etc.); one can also see their plugin list for ideas. I figure by doing it yourself, it’s easier to maintain and learn the plugin functions/keybindings that way. The approach I take is (1) learn default nvim -> (2) understand what each plugin adds to the default functionality -> (3) install and tweak what you need to create your own ecosystem. But maybe it’s a bit geeky and time consuming.
TL;DR: you’re not missing out much, check in with recent commits from different projects if you want to steal new ideas, or just hang around neovim communities.
That’s my ideal as well – the distant goal that “one of these days, I am going to sit down and fix my config the way I really want it”. But then time comes in the way, and I just copy something from somewhere…
Emacs user here, but this is basically what I did as well, learnt a lot from the doom-emacs configuration and am using their modeline directly, but without the heft of extra, unnecessary utilities
I currently use Astro at the moment but have some issues with it. I started to use kickstart, which is not a bundle actually but some kind of minimal configuration. I like it for my personal projects but it doesn’t work at all for the C# .NET project from work. Unfortunately I don’t have the time nor do I want to invest the time to configure most of the things myself, but I do see a lot of merit in doing so. I personally learned a lot of additional built-in commands and features from “vanilla” neovim by using kickstart that I don’t regret it at all for trying out.
using NVIM_APPNAME is a nice trick, thanks !
you can even use it with nvim-qt :
#! /usr/bin/env sh
export NVIM_APPNAME=$1 shift
exec nvim-qt “$@”
I just switched from LunarVim to NvChad and it’s a nicer DX out of the box to me for frontend dev (convert from vscode). Though i find the lunarvim key mappings more intuitive.
The config paradigm in nvchad makes more sense to me than it does with lunarvim too.
Bit both are pretty cool 😎
I have not tried them all, but in my opinion there is nothing better than making your own config from kickstart.nvim.
Keeps things concise, shows and explains best practices and install essential plug-ins for you.
This is less of a batteries included kind of deal, but much better long term imo.
Yes, one of these days, that’s what I’m going to do. I do find it useful, though, to try out some of the bundles, if only to get an idea of what is possible, and what I like (and what I hate).
Exactly. I regularly check out Lazy, see if there’s any feature I’d be missing, and integrate them to my config. Never checked out Astro or Lunar more than a few minutes.
