• Intro
• Installation
• FAQ
  • How to open directories?
• Examples
• Demos

Intro

nvr is a tool that helps controlling nvim processes.

It basically does two things:

1. adds back the --remote family of options (see man vim)
2. helps controlling the current nvim from within :terminal

To target a certain nvim process, you either use the --servername option or set the environment variable $NVIM_LISTEN_ADDRESS.

Since $NVIM_LISTEN_ADDRESS is implicitely set by each nvim process, you can call nvr from within Neovim (:terminal) without specifying --servername.

Installation

$ pip3 install neovim-remote

Although you can install it via pip3, you can't search for it. The bug tracker of PyPI is full of issues about packages not appearing and the developers don't seem to care much.

FAQ

How to open directories?

:e /tmp opens a directory view via netrw. Netrw works by hooking into certain events, BufEnter in this case (see :au FileExplorer for all of them).

Unfortunately Neovim's API doesn't trigger any autocmds on its own, so simply nvr /tmp won't work. Meanwhile you can work around it like this:

$ nvr /tmp -c 'doau BufEnter'

Examples

In one window, create the server process:

$ NVIM_LISTEN_ADDRESS=/tmp/nvimsocket nvim

In another window do this:

$ # Spares us from using --servername all the time:
$ export NVIM_LISTEN_ADDRESS=/tmp/nvimsocket
$ # Open 2 files in the server:
$ nvr --remote file1 --remote file2
$ # Send keys to the current buffer of the server:
$ # Enter insert mode, enter 'abc', and go back to normal mode again:
$ nvr --remote-send 'iabc<esc>'
$ # Evaluate any VimL expression.
$ # Get all listed buffers:
$ nvr --remote-expr "join(sort(map(filter(range(bufnr('$')), 'buflisted(v:val)'), 'bufname(v:val)')), "\""\n"\"")"
.config/git/config
vim/vimrc
zsh/.zprofile

See nvr -h for all options.

Demos

(Click the GIFs to watch them full-size.)

Using nvr from a different window (another tmux pane in this case):

Using nvr from within Neovim: