I’ve been working a lot with Neovim lately. If you know Vim, you probably also know MacVim, the GUI version of Vim.

Since MacVim is based on Vim, you’d either keep two separate configs or try to build a shared one for Neovim. And honestly, MacVim never really feels like a modern Mac app to me, it always comes across as a bit dated.

VimR

The better alternative is VimR. It’s built directly on Neovim and feels modern.

It also looks more like a real Mac application than MacVim. Written in Swift, which puts it closer to a normal macOS app.

Alongside the usual Neovim GUI features, VimR ships with a built-in file manager, a nice overview of all open files (buffers), and a simple HTML and Markdown preview.

VimR with around 30 open Markdown files and a Markdown preview

VimR in action with around 30 open Markdown files.

The Markdown preview can’t match a dedicated Markdown plugin inside Neovim, because VimR only handles basic Markdown. As a quick overview it’s fine though.

Installation

You probably already have a Neovim config, but VimR installs without one too.

You can grab VimR from the project page or install it via Homebrew:

brew install --cask vimr

VimR uses the standard Neovim config, so ~/.config/nvim/init.vim. If you want something VimR-specific, it goes into ~/.config/nvim/ginit.vim.

Mine has a single line in it, for the font:

VimRSetFontAndSize "SauceCodePro Nerd Font", 18
ginit.vim in VimR showing the font configuration

My ginit.vim: one line for font and size.

Everything else lives in init.vim as a shared config for both console and GUI.

I’ve been using VimR quite a lot over the last few months and haven’t run into any real problems or bugs.