Neovim 101 — Motion

Explore motion plugins to improve the development workflow.

Neovim 101 — Motion

Vim motion or movement (:h motion) is a command that moves the cursor. In this article, we will explore plugins that can improve the user experience using Vim motions.

This article is part of the Neovim 101 series.

The Neovim configuration files are available in this repository.

Getting Started

In the Neovim for Beginners series, we walked through the basics of Vim motions and plugins that can enhance the built-in motions.

You should check out this article to refresh the basics!

Neovim for Beginners — Motion

Built-in Motions

Before using any plugins, we should be familiar with the built-in motion commands. The help documentation (:h motion.txt) provides a good introduction to

• motions and operators (:h operator)
• left-right motions (:h left-right-motions)
• up-down motions (:h up-down-motions)
• word motions (:h word-motions)
• object motions (:h object-motions)
• text object selection (:h text-objects)
• tag blocks (:h tag-blocks)
• mark motions (:h mark-motions)
• jump motions (:h jump-motions)
• change list jumps (:h change-list-jumps)
• various motions (:h various-motions)

Plugins to Support Built-in Motions

Let’s check out plugins that enhance the built-in motions. Similar plugins are grouped.

Left-Right Motions — quick-scope and eyeliner.nvim

quick-scope and eyeliner.nvim are similar plugins to enhance the left-right motion family — f, F, t, T. They highlight a unique character in every word on a line to help us use f, F and family.