This plugin adds image support to Neovim using Kitty's Graphics Protocol or ueberzugpp. \ It works great with Kitty and Tmux, and it handles all the rendering complexity for you.
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https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0ae46acf-3240-446a-a458-7c7dfd03b9b7
We provide:
Try it out quickly by downloading minimal-setup.lua from the root of this repository and running nvim --clean -c ":luafile minimal-setup.lua"
We support two rendering backends, so first you need to set up one of these:
kitty
backend
ueberzug
backend
We need to convert, scale, and crop images, and for that we use ImageMagick. \ There are two ways we can do this, and you need to pick and follow the setup for the one you prefer.
magick_rock
processor and the magick Lua rock
magick_cli
processor
identify
and convert
.For the magick_cli
processor you need a regular installation of ImageMagick.
\
For the magick_rock
processor you need to install the development version of ImageMagick.
This plugin will always have first class support for Tmux, to make it work make sure you:
set -gq allow-passthrough on
set -g visual-activity off
After you've set up the dependencies, install the image.nvim
plugin.
require("image").setup({
backend = "kitty",
processor = "magick_rock", -- or "magick_cli"
integrations = {
markdown = {
enabled = true,
clear_in_insert_mode = false,
download_remote_images = true,
only_render_image_at_cursor = false,
filetypes = { "markdown", "vimwiki" }, -- markdown extensions (ie. quarto) can go here
},
neorg = {
enabled = true,
filetypes = { "norg" },
},
typst = {
enabled = true,
filetypes = { "typst" },
},
html = {
enabled = false,
},
css = {
enabled = false,
},
},
max_width = nil,
max_height = nil,
max_width_window_percentage = nil,
max_height_window_percentage = 50,
window_overlap_clear_enabled = false, -- toggles images when windows are overlapped
window_overlap_clear_ft_ignore = { "cmp_menu", "cmp_docs", "" },
editor_only_render_when_focused = false, -- auto show/hide images when the editor gains/looses focus
tmux_show_only_in_active_window = false, -- auto show/hide images in the correct Tmux window (needs visual-activity off)
hijack_file_patterns = { "*.png", "*.jpg", "*.jpeg", "*.gif", "*.webp", "*.avif" }, -- render image files as images when opened
})
All the backends support rendering inside Tmux.
kitty
- best in class, works great and is very snappyueberzug
- backed by ueberzugpp, supports any terminal, but has lower performance
markdown
- uses tree-sitter-markdown and supports any Markdown-based grammars (Quarto, VimWiki Markdown)neorg
- uses tree-sitter-norg (also check https://github.com/nvim-neorg/neorg/issues/971)typst
- thanks to @etiennecollin (https://github.com/3rd/image.nvim/pull/223)html
and css
- thanks to @zuloo (https://github.com/3rd/image.nvim/pull/163)You can configure where images are searched for on a per-integration basis by passing a function to
resolve_image_path
as shown below:
require('image').setup({
integrations = {
markdown = {
resolve_image_path = function(document_path, image_path, fallback)
-- document_path is the path to the file that contains the image
-- image_path is the potentially relative path to the image. for
-- markdown it's `![](this text)`
-- you can call the fallback function to get the default behavior
return fallback(document_path, image_path)
end,
}
}
})
Check https://github.com/3rd/image.nvim/issues/190#issuecomment-2378156235 for how to configure this for Obsidian.
Check types.lua for a better overview of how everything is modeled.
local api = require("image")
-- from a file (absolute path)
local image = api.from_file("/path/to/image.png", {
id = "my_image_id", -- optional, defaults to a random string
window = 1000, -- optional, binds image to a window and its bounds
buffer = 1000, -- optional, binds image to a buffer (paired with window binding)
with_virtual_padding = true, -- optional, pads vertically with extmarks, defaults to false
-- optional, binds image to an extmark which it follows. Forced to be true when
-- `with_virtual_padding` is true. defaults to false.
inline = true,
-- geometry (optional)
x = 1,
y = 1,
width = 10,
height = 10
})
-- from a URL
api.from_url("https://gist.ro/s/remote.png", {
-- all the same options from above
}, function(img)
-- do stuff with the image
end
)
image:render() -- render image
image:render(geometry) -- update image geometry and render it
image:clear()
image:move(x, y) -- move image
image:brightness(value) -- change brightness
image:saturation(value) -- change saturation
image:hue(value) -- change hue
-- create a report, also available as :ImageReport
require("image").create_report()
Deep thanks to the awesome people who have gifted their time and energy to this project, and to those who work on Neovim and the dependencies without which this would not be possible.
Some years ago, I took a trip to Emacs land for a few months to learn Elisp and also research what Org-mode is, how it works, and look for features of interest for my workflow.
I already had my own document syntax, albeit a very simple one, hacked together with Vimscript and a lot of Regex, and I was looking for ideas to improve it and build features on top of it.
I kept working on my syntax over the years, rewrote it many times, and today it's a proper Tree-sitter grammar, that I use for all my needs, from second braining to managing my tasks and time. It's helped me control my ADHD and be productive long before I was diagnosed, and it's still helping me be so much better than I'd be without it today.
One thing Emacs and Org-mode had that I liked was the ability to embed images in the document. Of course, we don't "need" it, but... I really wanted to have images in my documents.
About 3 years ago, I made my first attempt at solving this problem but didn't get far. If you have similar interests, you might have seen the vimage.nvim demo video on YouTube.
It was using ueberzug, which is now dead. It was buggy and didn't handle things like window-relative positioning, attaching images to windows and buffers, folds, etc.
Kitty's graphics protocol was a thing, but it didn't work with Tmux, which I'll probably use forever or replace it with something of my own.
Now, things have changed, and I'm happy to announce that rendering images using Kitty's graphics protocol from Neovim inside Tmux is working, and it's working pretty well!