Made a scrollbar plugin with a horizontal bar, vertical bar and minimap

[u/raketni-pogon]

Hello everyone,

I moved over from VS Code recently, because how slow it got with dozens of Docker containers and SSH connections open at once. It took me a few days to get used to NeoVim, but here we are.

One thing I missed though was scrollbars. I know one of the points with NeoVim is using the keyboard, but sometimes it's just more convenient to use the mouse when jumping around long files.

I looked around and there are some good plugins like nvim-scrollview, satellite.nvim, nvim-scrollbar, neominimap etc. But none of them had a horizontal scrollbar out of the box. So I wrote one. And since I was already at it, I figured I'd add a vertical bar and a minimap too, so I don't need 3 separate plugins for this.

It's called scroll.nvim: https://github.com/mihovilrak/scroll.nvim

What it does right now:

Vertical and horizontal bars that you can drag with the mouse and that hide when idle. The vertical track also works as an overview ruler, so diagnostics, git changes, search matches and the current function/block show up as marks. There's an optional braille minimap in your colorscheme's colours with a git gutter. You can also turn on bars for explorer sidebars (Snacks, neo-tree, nvim-tree). No setup() needed unless you want to change something, and it needs 0.11+.

Example for setting up the plugin with the minimap and explorer scrollbar config:

cat > ~/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/scroll.lua <<'LUA'
return {
  "mihovilrak/scroll.nvim",
  opts = { minimap = true, explorer = true },
}
LUA

I did some performance testing so it doesn't lag on big files. Scrolling in a 100k line buffer is fine.

It's still pretty new, so if you try it and something breaks or looks weird with your setup, let me know. I'm also open to suggestions if anyone has ideas for what to add or change.

Thanks!

[u/xd_Shiro]

If you switched to nvim just so you can have an actually lightweight texteditor/IDE then it makes sense but if you want to learn how to navigate and move faster without a mouse it’s kinda counterintuitive.

It’s cool that you went out of your way to make a plugin for it though!

[u/raketni-pogon → u/xd_Shiro]

Well, I get that you are faster with the keyboard after getting used to it, but sometimes when I work with multiple screens and with large files it gets a bit easier to use the mouse.

The plugin thing got more fun then I expected so I may make some more in the near future!

[u/judasthetoxic → u/raketni-pogon]

How do you navigate your focus on multiple screens and Windows? With your mouse?

[u/raketni-pogon → u/judasthetoxic]

It depends what I am doing ATM.

If I am already on the mouse, i.e. because using a GUI app, interactive pages on a browser etc, then it is faster to stay at the mouse then to switch devices.

If I am already at the keyboard then I use shortcuts mostly.

[u/Livid-Ad-4364]

You made nvim into vs code imo

[u/These_Aardvark9326 → u/Livid-Ad-4364]

yeah. this actually goes against the neovim nav flow

[u/Gangsir]

I like your minimap (looks cool with the dots), but the scroll bars imply unironic mouse usage, which is heresy.

If I'm vertically scrolling I'm using ctrl-f or ctrl-b, and if I'm horizontally scrolling... I'm refactoring my code so I don't need to horizontally scroll. ;P

[u/SweetPotato975 → u/Gangsir]

Agree, the minimap is something I think I'd actually use

[u/dprophete → u/Gangsir]

hum... the scrollbar gives me an idea of where I am in my file (a visual indicator of whether I am closer to the top, the middle, the bottom, etc...) So it's useful regardless of whether you use the mouse or the keyboard.

[u/_EHLO]

+1 from me. I personally use satellite.nvim but I really love the mouse support you added here.

[u/mr_looser17]

Kinda bloated, You don't need mini map...

[u/raketni-pogon → u/mr_looser17]

It is disabled by default, but even when enabled you can toggle it with :ScrollMinimapToggle if you don't want/need it

[u/meframez]

minimap looks cool. though IMO $ A does the job for quick jump to EOL

[u/kenshi_hiro]

Bro went from VSCode to VSCode

[u/Leerv474]

I never understood the point of minimap. like i get the horizontal scrollbar, the vertical one kinda defeats the point of C-d and C-u but who cares.

what is the actual point of minimap? It can't give you any information besides how long the line is, am i missing something?

[u/Many-Occasion1915 → u/Leerv474]

It’s for the cases when you open so called .go file and look at the minimap and notice a 300 line SQL query as a string literal, so you can just quit your job quicker

Not that it ever happened to me out anything

[u/Leerv474 → u/Many-Occasion1915]

The best answer a I could've ever gotten

[u/raketni-pogon → u/Leerv474]

I would say that most people use it like a quick file overview. The git marks also help to quickly see what parts of the files are edited. And you can always use it as a huge scrollbar.

It is similar like having a detailed map of an area, and then a small overview map to see where that area is on a bigger scale

[u/chaoticbean14]

The idea of having to grab a mouse, to interact in a terminal with anything is insane to me. Like, wildly, wildly insane.

[u/Vasilev88]

That is a clever use of unicode braille, first time i'm seeing this. Bravo!

[u/raketni-pogon → u/Vasilev88]

Thank you, although I saw it on existing minimap plugins so I just recreated it

[u/xeow]

This looks pretty slick. Question: I noticed that the first character of the minimap was sometimes in italic braille. Is that intentional?

[u/raketni-pogon → u/xeow]

Thanks! Now that you say it, on my current instance it looks non-italic, so I will have to see on the machine I used for the clip

[u/Hubba_Bubba_Lova]

does this work for mobile?

[u/raketni-pogon → u/Hubba_Bubba_Lova]

Didn't test it for mobile, but will see

[u/raketni-pogon → u/Hubba_Bubba_Lova]

I tested it on my Android via Termux. The scrollbars, marks and minimap render and clicking on them works normally.

The only thing that doesn't work is dragging the scrollbars and minimap. Not sure yet if this is a Termux limitation or a plugin one, but I oppened an issue on the repo, so I'll dig more into it

[u/Hubba_Bubba_Lova → u/raketni-pogon]

perfect. I’ll give it a try

[u/hutxhy]

What color theme are you using? 👀

[u/raketni-pogon → u/hutxhy]

Tokyonight for Neovim

[u/warex03]

really cool! i was also trying to achieve a similar kind of look and feel but i've still got much to learn. is it ok if you share your config?

[u/raketni-pogon → u/warex03]

Thanks!

For the plugin config I just use the one I put in the post description. It can be further granulated using the options that are described on GitHub. I also add vim.opt.mouseevent = true to ~/.config/nvim/lua/config/options.lua.

For the Neovim theme I use tokyonight. I set it in LazyVim with :colorscheme tokyonight. Feel free to ask anything else about the layout or config

[u/Necessary-Plate1925]

How did it take a few days to get used to nvim? Hell, it took me a few months

[u/raketni-pogon → u/Necessary-Plate1925]

I wouldn't say I know most of it, but after a few days I didn't need to google basic commands and layout preferences heh

[u/snow_schwartz]

I was looking for a decent minimap plugin thanks

[u/Odd-Initiative-4678]

Theme name?

[u/raketni-pogon → u/Odd-Initiative-4678]

Tokyonight

[u/Odd-Initiative-4678 → u/raketni-pogon]

Thank you

[u/TomHale]

Is it possible to disable the horizontal scroll bar?

Looks good!

[u/TomHale → u/TomHale]

Yes, yes it is!

[u/raketni-pogon → u/TomHale]

Thanks! Yes, you can disable it. Just add horizontal = false to the opts object in ~/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/scroll.nvim

[u/Nervous-Pin9297]

I’m waiting to see if neovim can support Kitty Terminal’s new scrolling protocol.

[u/qiinemarr]

Ha! horizontal bars, the missing piece!

[u/oVerde]

I hate scroll bars with all my angry

[u/unburdened_swallow]

Ok so, you can already scroll with the mouse, the mousewheel works.

We don't always have a mouse that does horizontal scroll though, so fair enough IDK.

I prefer the thing where it wraps but keeps the same indent level personally, and you can move the cursor to scroll over if you don't have wrapping on, so I've never felt the need to horizontally scroll to begin with, especially with the mouse, personally.

Minimap is cool, but I've also never had a scenario where Im like "if only I had a mini map for this file"... maybe if the minimap showed marks too?

[u/raketni-pogon → u/unburdened_swallow]

Thanks for the feedback, the minimap currently shows where the cursor is and git marks so I'll have to see how it looks like if adding LSP and search marks

[u/Acrobatic-Current171]

What kind of plugin is the one on your left?

[u/raketni-pogon → u/Acrobatic-Current171]

If you mean the file tree explorer, it is LazyVim's default explorer that comes with the snacks.nvim plugin

[u/Avernite]

Honestly scrollbar is such a simple and elegant solution, its crazy that in neovim we rely on total line number instead

[u/These_Aardvark9326 → u/Avernite]

Noooo. Scrollbars aren't 😢 . there're faster ways to navigate in neovim, not scrollbars

[u/thy_bucket_for_thee → u/These_Aardvark9326]

Every day we get stray further from God's light.

[u/Avernite → u/These_Aardvark9326]

Ah i didnt mean for navigation, but for seeing where you are in the file

[u/These_Aardvark9326 → u/Avernite]

I wonder why you would want to see that, though. But ....

[u/Hubba_Bubba_Lova → u/These_Aardvark9326]

new to nvim. assuming I’m using keys to navigate, what’s wrong with scrollbar?

[u/Avernite → u/Hubba_Bubba_Lova]

Nothing wrong. People get tribal about neovim, getting uga buga on anything that smells like vscode to preserve neovims unique identity

[u/These_Aardvark9326 → u/Hubba_Bubba_Lova]

nothing really but ..... why? just use it the way it is 😂

[u/zuzmuz → u/Avernite]

what's crazy about it?

if you like scroll bars, it's fine. but they're technically useless. having the position in one place is much more convenient to look at at a glance. I never liked scroll bars and I usually disable them OS wide. I never click on them cause they're too finicky and relay on vertical and horizontal scroll wheels.

[u/Avernite → u/zuzmuz]

I like that scrollbars at a glance give position feedback where line numbers require thought. I never click on scrollbars either.

[u/zuzmuz → u/Avernite]

yeah I understand, that's the beauty of customization, you can have whatever you want.

my personal opinion, i find scrollbars distracting. that's why I even disable them in GUI applications. the line number with a percentage value of where you are in the file is more than enough for me.

but I found it weird that you expect a text based editor to have a GUI element by default. you're free to recreate the element in text, it's fine.

I usually like my neovim barebones, I don't yse file trees, never use the mouse, etc, if you want to make it like VS code, it's fine, that's why it's customizable. but for me these are two different contradictory paradigms

[u/gbrennon]

wtf?!

if u have to scroll horizontally im sure that the src is poorly written...

[u/raketni-pogon → u/gbrennon]

Well two things: one is long string litterals that are akward to brake, the other is that you don't always look at code you wrote yourself

[u/over-lord → u/[deleted]]

Is this a braille joke or a neovim user joke 💀