Oil
So for reasons of plugins having breaking changes and the fact that my previous setup relied on a few plugins working together, I decided now was the time to leave my comfort zone of using vifm inside neovim.
To be clear I do still love vifm and use it as my primary file browser outside of neovim.
I looked at a few neotree style plugins but really loved the look and feel I was used to coming from vifm and was easily able to emulate that in Oil.
Oil is a vim-vinegar like file explorer, personally that means not a lot to me having not used vinegar but apparently that is a good thing to those in the know.
When running Oil you are presented with a list of your files in a buffer, this buffer is editable and allows you to change file names, delete files, etc. Just like you would edit a file normally in Neovim. It feels very natural and very fitting.
The Defaults
The out of the box look, also what you get by entering Neovim with:
nvim .
Activating the preview will display it to the left, in my opinion looks wrong on the left but it can be changed.
Ctrl+p or <C-p>
My Cofigs
I much prefer the floating style and this can be easily achieved by adding "--float" to the end of the command:
:Oil --float
As you saw above; the preview will normally appear to the left, however if you wish like me for the preview to be to the right then add the following to your init file:
require('oil').setup {
-- Configuration for the floating window in oil.open_float
float = {
-- optionally override the oil buffers window title with custom function: fun(winid: integer): string
get_win_title = nil,
-- preview_split: Split direction: "auto", "left", "right", "above", "below".
preview_split = 'right',
-- This is the config that will be passed to nvim_open_win.
-- Change values here to customize the layout
override = function(conf)
return conf
end,
},
}
By default hidden files are hidden, if you wish to see them temporarily then use the keybind to view them:
g.If instead you wish to have them shown by default then add the following to your init file:
require('oil').setup {
view_options = {
-- Show files and directories that start with "."
show_hidden = true,
-- This function defines what is considered a "hidden" file
is_hidden_file = function(name, bufnr)
local m = name:match '^%.'
return m ~= nil
end,
-- This function defines what will never be shown, even when `show_hidden` is set
is_always_hidden = function(name, bufnr)
return false
end,
-- Sort file names with numbers in a more intuitive order for humans.
-- Can be "fast", true, or false. "fast" will turn it off for large directories.
natural_order = 'fast',
-- Sort file and directory names case insensitive
case_insensitive = false,
sort = {
-- sort order can be "asc" or "desc"
-- see :help oil-columns to see which columns are sortable
{ 'type', 'asc' },
{ 'name', 'asc' },
},
},
}To set a keybind your preferred keybind to invoke Oil:
vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader>e', ':Oil --float<CR>')Finally if you wish to copy my setup in full:
vim.keymap.set('n', '<space>e', ':Oil --float<CR>')
require('oil').setup {
view_options = {
-- Show files and directories that start with "."
show_hidden = true,
-- This function defines what is considered a "hidden" file
is_hidden_file = function(name, bufnr)
local m = name:match '^%.'
return m ~= nil
end,
-- This function defines what will never be shown, even when `show_hidden` is set
is_always_hidden = function(name, bufnr)
return false
end,
-- Sort file names with numbers in a more intuitive order for humans.
-- Can be "fast", true, or false. "fast" will turn it off for large directories.
natural_order = 'fast',
-- Sort file and directory names case insensitive
case_insensitive = false,
sort = {
-- sort order can be "asc" or "desc"
-- see :help oil-columns to see which columns are sortable
{ 'type', 'asc' },
{ 'name', 'asc' },
},
},
-- Configuration for the floating window in oil.open_float
float = {
-- optionally override the oil buffers window title with custom function: fun(winid: integer): string
get_win_title = nil,
-- preview_split: Split direction: "auto", "left", "right", "above", "below".
preview_split = 'right',
-- This is the config that will be passed to nvim_open_win.
-- Change values here to customize the layout
override = function(conf)
return conf
end,
},
}