Bob

Struggle to keep your Neovim versions in check? Bob provides an easy way to install and switch versions on any system!

Bob is a cross-platform and easy-to-use Neovim version manager, allowing for easy switching between versions right from the command line.

🌟 Showcase

🔔 Notices

• 2022-10-29: Moved bob's symbolic link and downloads folder on macos from /Users/user/Library/Application Support to ~/.local/share please make sure to move all of your downloads to the new folder, run bob use <your desired version> and update your PATH

• 2023-02-13: Bob has recently switched to using a proxy executable for running Neovim executables. To switch from the old method that Bob used, follow these steps:

  1. Remove the current Neovim path from your global $PATH environment variable.
  2. Delete the following directory: On Unix: ~/.local/share/neovim On Windows: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\neovim

  Secondly the name of the downloads directory property in the configuration file has changed. Please refer to the updated list of properties for the new name.

📦 Requirements

Make sure you don't have Neovim already installed via other ways e.g. a package manager.

Build prerequisites

Building bob

Make sure rustup is installed.

Building Neovim

For further information refer to the Neovim wiki.

• CMake
• Git

• Visual Studio Build Tools with C++ extension pack

• Clang or GCC

MacOS note: follow these instructions

🔧 Installation

Install from releases

1. Download bob-{platform}-x86_64.zip
2. Unzip it
3. Run it with bob

Install from AUR

1. Install the bob or bob-bin package with an AUR helper e.g. paru: paru -S bob
2. Run it with bob

Install from source

1. cargo install --git https://github.com/MordechaiHadad/bob.git
2. Run bob with bob

Install from crates.io

1. cargo install bob-nvim
2. Run bob with bob

❓ Usage

A version-string can either be vx.x.x or x.x.x examples: v0.6.1 and 0.6.0

---

• bob use |nightly|stable|latest|<version-string>|<commit-hash>|

--no-install flag will prevent bob from auto invoking install command when using use

Switch to the specified version, by default will auto-invoke install command if the version is not installed already

---

• bob install |nightly|stable|latest|<version-string>|<commit-hash>|

Install the specified version, can also be used to update out-of-date nightly version.

---

• bob sync

If Config::version_sync_file_location is set, the version in that file will be parsed and installed.

---

• bob uninstall |nightly|stable|latest|<version-string>|<commit-hash>|

Uninstall the specified version.

---

• bob rollback

Rollback to an existing nightly rollback

---

• bob erase

Erase any change bob ever made including Neovim installation, Neovim version downloads and registry changes.

---

• bob list

List all installed and used versions.

---

• bob complete bash|elvish|fish|powershell|zsh

Generate shell completion.

---

• bob update |nightly|stable|--all|

Update existing version, can specify either a version or the flag --all

---

⚙ Configuration

This section is a bit more advanced and thus the user will have to do the work himself since bob doesn't do that.

Bob's configuration file will have to be in config_dir/bob/config.json but can be customized as seen below, to be more specific:

/home/user/.config/bob/config.json

C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\bob\config.json

/Users/user/Library/Application Support/bob/config.json

Custom Location

Bob's config file location can be configured by using an environment variable called $BOB_CONFIG. Example: export BOB_CONFIG=/path/to/config/config.json

Syntax

Property	Description	Default Value
enable_nightly_info	Will show new commits associated with new nightly release if enabled	true
downloads_location	The folder in which neovim versions will be downloaded to, bob will error if this option is specified but the folder doesn't exist	unix: /home/<username>/.local/share/bob, windows: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\bob
installation_location	The path in which the proxied neovim installation will be located in	unix: /home/<username>/.local/share/bob/nvim-bin, windows: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\bob\nvim-bin
version_sync_file_location	The path to a file that will hold the neovim version string, useful for config version tracking, bob will error if the specified file is not a valid file path	Disabled by default
rollback_limit	The amount of rollbacks before bob starts to delete older ones, can be up to 255	3

Example

// /home/user/.config/bob/config.json
{
  "enable_nightly_info": true, // Will show new commits associated with new nightly release if enabled
  "downloads_location": "$HOME/.local/share/bob", // The folder in which neovim versions will be installed too, bob will error if this option is specified but the folder doesn't exist
  "installation_location": "/home/user/.local/share/bob/nvim-bin", // The path in which the used neovim version will be located in
  "version_sync_file_location": "/home/user/.config/nvim/nvim.version", // The path to a file that will hold the neovim version string, useful for config version tracking, bob will error if the specified file is not a valid file path
  "rollback_limit": 3 // The amount of rollbacks before bob starts to delete older ones, can be up to 225
}

💻 Shell Completion

• Bash

Completion files are commonly stored in /etc/bash_completion.d/ for system-wide commands, but can be stored in ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions for user-specific commands. Run the command:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions
bob complete bash >> ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/bob

This installs the completion script. You may have to log out and log back in to your shell session for the changes to take effect.

• Bash (macOS/Homebrew)

Homebrew stores bash completion files within the Homebrew directory. With the bash-completion brew formula installed, run the command:

mkdir -p $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion.d
bob complete bash > $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion.d/bob.bash-completion

• Fish

Fish completion files are commonly stored in $HOME/.config/fish/completions. Run the command:

mkdir -p ~/.config/fish/completions
bob complete fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/bob.fish

This installs the completion script. You may have to log out and log back in to your shell session for the changes to take effect.

• Zsh

Zsh completions are commonly stored in any directory listed in your $fpath variable. To use these completions, you must either add the generated script to one of those directories, or add your own to this list.

Adding a custom directory is often the safest bet if you are unsure of which directory to use. First create the directory; for this example we'll create a hidden directory inside our $HOME directory:

mkdir ~/.zfunc

Then add the following lines to your .zshrc just before compinit:

fpath+=~/.zfunc

Now you can install the completions script using the following command:

bob complete zsh > ~/.zfunc/_bob

You must then either log out and log back in, or simply run

exec zsh

for the new completions to take effect.

• PowerShell

The PowerShell completion scripts require PowerShell v5.0+ (which comes with Windows 10, but can be downloaded separately for windows 7 or 8.1).

First, check if a profile has already been set

Test-Path $profile

If the above command returns False run the following

New-Item -path $profile -type file -force

Now open the file provided by $profile (if you used the New-Item command it will be ${env:USERPROFILE}\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1

Next, we either save the completions file into our profile, or into a separate file and source it inside our profile. To save the completions into our profile simply use

bob complete powershell >> ${env:USERPROFILE}\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1

🛠️ Troubleshooting

sudo: nvim: command not found This error can be caused when secure_path is enabled in /etc/sudoers like in distros such as Fedora Workstation 37, possible workarounds:

1. disable secure_path
2. run sudo env "PATH=$PATH" nvim
3. set $SUDO_USER to location of bob nvim binary: SUDO_EDITOR='/home/user/.local/share/bob/nvim-bin/nvim

These workarounds were devised by @nfejzic, thanks to him.

:heart: Credits And Inspiration

• nvm A node version manager
• nvenv A Neovim version manager written by NTBBloodbath