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Installation

IceNvim requires the latest stable version of neovim to run. This means that you will need neovim >= 0.11.0.

Prerequisites

To get IceNvim running, you need to have these dependencies installed:

  • git
  • a nerd font
  • curl
  • fd
  • gcc
  • cmake
  • gzip or 7zip
  • node and npm
  • tree-sitter-cli
  • yarn
  • python3 and pip3
  • ripgrep
  • wget

Also, if you are using Linux, you will be needing these:

  • unzip
  • python virtual environment
  • xclip (not required on WSL)
  • zip
Installing dependencies on different systems MacOS: 
brew install wget fd ripgrep node yarn cmake tree-sitter-cli
Arch: 
sudo pacman -S --needed curl gzip wget fd ripgrep gcc nodejs npm python python-pip unzip zip xclip python-virtualenv tree-sitter-cli
Windows (via scoop): 
scoop install curl gzip wget fd ripgrep mingw nodejs-lts python

Installing IceNvim

On Windows:

git clone https://github.com/Shaobin-Jiang/IceNvim "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\nvim"

On MacOS / Linux:

git clone https://github.com/Shaobin-Jiang/IceNvim ~/.config/nvim

As a precaution, you should check whether the prerequisites from the previous section are all installed. Of course, missing dependencies does not really crash your computer, but it does make hell of a mess. Therefore, when the cloning is done, start neovim with nvim --noplugin and run the :IceHealth command. It should inform you of any missing dependency.

You can also check whether the nerd font is correctly used by running the IceCheckIcons command, which ought to display the icons like below:

With everything ready, you can now restart neovim with nvim (no noplugin flag this time). IceNvim will automatically install some plugins for you, as well as treesitter parsers and language servers. Wait till these are finished, and you can get started with using IceNvim.

Optional Installation

Automatic IME Switching

For users who use IME a lot, switching modes in neovim can be a pain in the ***. IceNvim deals with this by automatically switching the input method to English when it is not in insert mode.

For Windows / WSL, to enable this functionality, im-select.exe will be needed. Place the executable in the bin directory in the neovim configuration directory. You will need to create one if there is no such directory.

Additionally, if you are using wsl, you might have to do this:

chmod +x ~/.config/nvim/bin/im-select.exe

For MacOS, you will need to install macism. It can be installed with homebrew:

brew tap laishulu/homebrew
brew install macism

For Linux, IME switching is also supported for Fcitx5.

Unicode Yanking

Although text yanked from within IceNvim is already available from outside, one might find that utf-8 characters are not copied properly on Windows and WSL. This is because the functionality is dealt with by Windows' CLIP command which does a poor job when used with unicode characters.

To solve this, one might need to download uclip.exe and place it in the bin directory in the neovim configuration directory.

Additionally, if you are using wsl, you might have to do this:

chmod +x ~/.config/nvim/bin/uclip.exe

Language-Specific Installation

C# Development

IceNvim uses Omnisharp and Csharpier for C# development. If you want to use IceNvim for C# development, make sure that you have dotnet sdk installed.

If you are receiving nuget-related errors when installing csharpier, you might have to configure nuget source by running this command:

dotnet nuget add source https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json -n nuget.org

Rust Development

If you want to use IceNvim for rust development, you will need to install rust-analyzer. The recommended way is to install rustup.

Troubleshooting

Mason Registry Refreshing Failed

This might be due to the use of proxies. Shut down softwares of such kind and run the :Mason command. The interface that pops up will prompt you on how to refresh the registry again.