This is not a complete list of changes. Just what I have noticed. Complete release note for nvim 0.8 is here.

Nvim-lsp update

server capabilities

The old client.resolved_capabilities table is changed to client.server_capabilities, and the key has also changed.

client.resolved_capabilities.document_formatting  ---> client.server_capabilities.documentFormattingProvider
client.resolved_capabilities.document_range_formatting ---> client.server_capabilities.documentRangeFormattingProvider
client.resolved_capabilities.document_highlight  ---> client.server_capabilities.documentHighlightProvider

To check the complete server_capabilities table for a file type, open that file, and run the following command:

lua =vim.lsp.get_active_clients()[1].server_capabilities

It will print the full table.

method change

Lsp format method has changed, both vim.lsp.buf.formatting_sync() and vim.lsp.buf.formatting() will be deprecated. Now we should vim.lsp.buf.format(), which has async param (default false) to control whether format should be async.

vim.lsp.buf.range_formatting() is also deprecated. Now the formatexpr option for your buffer will be set to vim.lsp.formatexpr() if this option is not set by user. To format the selected code, you just press gq instead.

others

This reddit post also shares others changes, like the LspAttach and LspDetach event, tagfunc, omnifunc support etc.

Options and defaults

mouse

Mouse is enabled by default1 and mousescroll option is added, you can define how many lines to scroll like this:

set mousescroll=ver:1,hor:5

Also if you set mousemodel=popup, nvim now shows a pop up menu. To disable this, just use set mousemodel=extend.

winbar/cmdline

Nvim has add an winbar option, it is like statusline, but on top of your window.

For cmdline, you can use set cmdheight=0 to hide the cmd line completely, and it will show when you type. You may the press enter message often when some message is printed, which may be annoying sometimes. There is also a plugin noice.nvim made for ease the issue.

clickable statusline and winbar

Nvim 0.8 add %@some_func@text_shown%X clickable element in statusline and winbar. some_func is the function that will be run when you click text_shown.

Here is a demo:

function Hello(...)
  local arg = {...}
  arg = vim.inspect(arg)
  print('hello world, arg:', arg)
end

local w = vim.fn.winwidth(0)
local pos = math.floor(w/2)

local stl = string.rep(" ", pos)
stl = stl .. "%5@v:lua.Hello@click me%X"

vim.o.statusline=stl

Save it as test.lua, then run nvim -u test.lua. Click the text click me, you will see the message printed.

State dir change

The directory for storing shada, undo, swap, log, lsp-log is changed from ~/.local/share/nvim to ~/.local/state/nvim. See also https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/14090#issuecomment-1125055183.

Check the exact directory with command echo stdpath('state').

filetype.lua by default

Remove the old filetype settings and the new filetype.lua will be used automatically. The following should be removed:

vim.g.do_filetype_lua = 1
vim.g.did_load_filetypes = 0

* and # can search selected text

* and # can now search selected text literally2. Previously I was using vim-asterisk together with nvim-hlslens. Now I can remove vim-asterisk, with a little hack:

keymap.set("n", "*", "", {
  callback = function()
    vim.fn.execute("normal! *N")
    hlslens.start()
  end,
})
keymap.set("n", "#", "", {
  callback = function()
    vim.fn.execute("normal! #N")
    hlslens.start()
  end,
})

It do has limitations, for example, you can search multi-line selections.

Treesitter

Now the treesitter parser for vim, lua, and help is enabled by default. But currently the help doc parser seems to have issues regarding conceal, as reported in issue here.

Man command improve

• It is implemented in lua and should be faster compared to its vim implementation3.
• In buffer opened by :Man, you can use gO to show the argument list view4.

Check command or map location

If the lua mapping is defined the via callback, we can now see its defined location.

vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>sv", "", {
  silent = true,
  desc = "reload init.lua",
  callback = function()
    vim.cmd([[
      update $MYVIMRC
      source $MYVIMRC
    ]])
    vim.notify("Nvim config successfully reloaded!", vim.log.levels.INFO, { title = "nvim-config" })
  end,
})

For example, I have the above mapping, now I can see where it is defined with verb nmap ,sv (my leader key is comma).

However, for mapping defined via right hand side string, we only see that the mapping is set from lua, but not the exact location.

By right hand side string, I mean mapping like the following:

vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>p", "m`o<ESC>p``", { desc = "paste below current line" })

This is unlike the mapping defined in vim script. To see the mapping location, start nvim with nvim -V1, then use the :verbose command again, we should see the mapping location.

This is still not perfect and confusing even for experienced users like me.

vim.fs module

vim.fs (:h lua-fs) aims to provide some function for common path operations like os.path in Python. For example:

local d = vim.fs.dirname('~/.config/nvim/init.lua')
print(d)

startup time for require

Now time for require is also shown for nvim --startuptime time.log like this:

....
206.153  000.101  000.101: require('lualine_require')
206.558  000.632  000.531: require('lualine')
214.826  000.150  000.150: require('lualine.utils.mode')
216.924  000.140  000.140: require('lualine.extensions.nerdtree')
217.125  011.338  010.417: require('config.statusline')
....