Rainbow Parenthesis and Indentation in Neovim

Even though Treesitter provides syntax highlighting for our files. It does not provide highlighting for braces and indentation. These highlights comes in handy in larger code bases.

Requirements

• Neovim ≥ 0.5
• Indent Blankline
• Nvim-TS-Rainbow

• Rainbow Indentation

• Rainbow braces

Installation

• Add references of their repositories to the plugins.lua file and install them using shift + i key.

return {

    -- Alpha (Dashboard)
    {
        "goolord/alpha-nvim",
        lazy = true,
    },


    -- Auto Pairs
    {
        "windwp/nvim-autopairs"
    },

    -- Bufferline
    {
        'akinsho/bufferline.nvim',
        dependencies = {
            'nvim-tree/nvim-web-devicons'
        },
    },

    -- Colorscheme
    {
        'folke/tokyonight.nvim',
    },

    -- Hop (Better Navigation)
    {
        "phaazon/hop.nvim",
        lazy = true,
    },

    -- Added these two plugins
    -- Indentation Highlighting
    {
        "lukas-reineke/indent-blankline.nvim",
    },

    -- Rainbow Highlighting
    {
        "HiPhish/nvim-ts-rainbow2",
    },



    -- Lualine
    {
        'nvim-lualine/lualine.nvim',
        dependencies = {
            'nvim-tree/nvim-web-devicons'
        },
    },


    -- Language Support
    {
        'VonHeikemen/lsp-zero.nvim',
        lazy = true,
        branch = 'v1.x',
        dependencies = {
            -- LSP Support
            {'neovim/nvim-lspconfig'},             -- Required
            {'williamboman/mason.nvim'},           -- Optional
            {'williamboman/mason-lspconfig.nvim'}, -- Optional

            -- Autocompletion
            {'hrsh7th/nvim-cmp'},         -- Required
            {'hrsh7th/cmp-nvim-lsp'},     -- Required
            {'hrsh7th/cmp-buffer'},       -- Optional
            {'hrsh7th/cmp-path'},         -- Optional
            {'saadparwaiz1/cmp_luasnip'}, -- Optional
            {'hrsh7th/cmp-nvim-lua'},     -- Optional

            -- Snippets
            {'L3MON4D3/LuaSnip'},             -- Required
            {'rafamadriz/friendly-snippets'}, -- Optional
        }
    },


    -- Nvim-tree (File Explorer)
    {
        'nvim-tree/nvim-tree.lua',
        lazy = true,
        dependencies = {
            'nvim-tree/nvim-web-devicons',
        },
    },


    -- Nvim-Surround (Manipulating Surroundings)
    {
        "kylechui/nvim-surround",
        config = function()
            require("nvim-surround").setup({
                -- Configuration here, or leave empty to use defaults
            })
        end
    },


    -- Telescope (Fuzzy Finder)
    {
        'nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim',
        lazy = true,
        dependencies = {
            {'nvim-lua/plenary.nvim'},
        }
    },


    -- Treesitter
    {
        "nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter",
    },


    -- Toggle Term
    {
        'akinsho/toggleterm.nvim',
        config = true
    },

    -- Undo-Tree
    {
        "jiaoshijie/undotree",
      dependencies  = {
            "nvim-lua/plenary.nvim",
        },
    },

    -- Which-key
    {
        'folke/which-key.nvim',
        lazy = true,
    },

}

Configuration

1. Indentation Highlighting

• Create a new file named indentline-config.lua and add the following code.

-- indentline-config.lua

local status_ok, indent_blankline = pcall(require, "indent_blankline")
if not status_ok then
 return
end

vim.g.indent_blankline_buftype_exclude = { "terminal", "nofile" }
vim.g.indent_blankline_filetype_exclude = {
 "help",
 "startify",
 "dashboard",
 "packer",
 "neogitstatus",
 "NvimTree",
 "Trouble",
}
vim.g.indentLine_enabled = 1
-- vim.g.indent_blankline_char = "│"
vim.g.indent_blankline_char = "▏"
-- vim.g.indent_blankline_char = "▎"
vim.g.indent_blankline_show_trailing_blankline_indent = false
vim.g.indent_blankline_show_first_indent_level = true
vim.g.indent_blankline_use_treesitter = true
vim.g.indent_blankline_show_current_context = true
vim.g.indent_blankline_context_patterns = {
 "class",
 "return",
 "function",
 "method",
 "^if",
 "^while",
 "jsx_element",
 "^for",
 "^object",
 "^table",
 "block",
 "arguments",
 "if_statement",
 "else_clause",
 "jsx_element",
 "jsx_self_closing_element",
 "try_statement",
 "catch_clause",
 "import_statement",
 "operation_type",
}
-- HACK: work-around for https://github.com/lukas-reineke/indent-blankline.nvim/issues/59
vim.wo.colorcolumn = "99999"

 vim.cmd [[highlight IndentBlanklineIndent1 guifg=#E06C75 gui=nocombine]]
 vim.cmd [[highlight IndentBlanklineIndent2 guifg=#E5C07B gui=nocombine]]
 vim.cmd [[highlight IndentBlanklineIndent3 guifg=#98C379 gui=nocombine]]
 vim.cmd [[highlight IndentBlanklineIndent4 guifg=#56B6C2 gui=nocombine]]
 vim.cmd [[highlight IndentBlanklineIndent5 guifg=#61AFEF gui=nocombine]]
 vim.cmd [[highlight IndentBlanklineIndent6 guifg=#C678DD gui=nocombine]]

indent_blankline.setup({
 -- show_end_of_line = true,
 -- space_char_blankline = " ",
    -- show_current_context = true,
 -- show_current_context_start = true,
  char_highlight_list = {
    "IndentBlanklineIndent1",
    "IndentBlanklineIndent2",
    "IndentBlanklineIndent3",
    "IndentBlanklineIndent4",
    "IndentBlanklineIndent5",
    "IndentBlanklineIndent6",
  },
})

2. Braces Highlighting

• In the case of Braces highlighting, We don’t need to create any new file, just the updation of treesitter-config.lua file is required.
• Add this code to treesitter-config.lua file

  rainbow = {
    enable = true,
    -- list of languages you want to disable the plugin for
    -- disable = { "jsx", "cpp" },
    -- Which query to use for finding delimiters
    query = 'rainbow-parens',
    -- Highlight the entire buffer all at once
    strategy = require 'ts-rainbow.strategy.global',
    -- Do not enable for files with more than n lines
    max_file_lines = 3000
  }

• The updated treesitter-config.lua file looks like this…

-- treesitter-config.lua

local configs = require("nvim-treesitter.configs")
configs.setup {
  -- Add a language of your choice
  ensure_installed = {"cpp", "python", "lua", "java", "javascript", },
  sync_install = false,
  ignore_install = { "" }, -- List of parsers to ignore installing
  highlight = {
    enable = true, -- false will disable the whole extension
    disable = { "" }, -- list of language that will be disabled
    additional_vim_regex_highlighting = true,

  },
  indent = { enable = true, disable = { "yaml" } },
  rainbow = {
      enable = true,
      -- list of languages you want to disable the plugin for
      -- disable = { "jsx", "cpp" },
      -- Which query to use for finding delimiters
      query = 'rainbow-parens',
      -- Highlight the entire buffer all at once
      strategy = require 'ts-rainbow.strategy.global',
      -- Do not enable for files with more than n lines
      max_file_lines = 3000
    }
}

Main Configuration

• Source indentline-config.lua file to main configuration init.lua file.

-- init.lua 

require "options"
require "keymaps"
require "lazy-config"
require "alpha-config"
require "autopairs-config"
require "bufferline-config"
require "hop-config"
require "indentline-config"
require "lualine-config"
require "lsp-config"
require "nvim-tree-config"
require "telescope-config"
require "toggleterm-config"
require "treesitter-config"
require "undotree-config"
require "whichkey"

• Restart Neovim to observe the differences in indentation and brace highlighting.

Neovim From Scratch

• If you want a complete installation and configuration of Neovim from Scratch, then you can head over to my NEOVIM SERIES.
• This series is updated regularly, with updates and inclusion of newer plugins which improves the wholesome IDE experience of Neovim.