When using Neovim for LÖVE we need to use S1M0N38's love2d.nvim plugin.

Disclaimer #

This guide already supposes you have a proper lsp configuration, lua_lsp installed and a plugin manager.

If you don't have any of these, the easiest way is to install an already made Neovim configuration, or a "Neovim distribution".

Setup #

Installation #

To setup the plugin, first we have to install it. The author of the plugin recommends to use lazy.nvim, so we are going to use it.

If you have a single-file setup, go to your init.lua and add this to your lazy setup:

require("lazy").setup({
  -- Other plugins...
  {
    "S1M0N38/love2d.nvim",
    cmd = "LoveRun",
    opts = {},
    keys = {
      { "<leader>v",   desc = "LÖVE", ft = "lua" },
      { "<leader>vv",  "<cmd>LoveRun<cr>", desc = "Run LÖVE", ft = "lua" },
      { "<leader>vs",  "<cmd>LoveStop<cr>", desc = "Stop LÖVE", ft = "lua" },
    },
  },
})

Otherwise, if you have a multi-file setup, create a new file in your plugins folder called love2d.lua and copy this into it:

return {
  "S1M0N38/love2d.nvim",
  cmd = "LoveRun",
  opts = {},
  keys = {
    { "<leader>v", ft = "lua", desc = "LÖVE" },
    { "<leader>vv", "<cmd>LoveRun<cr>", ft = "lua", desc = "Run LÖVE" },
    { "<leader>vs", "<cmd>LoveStop<cr>", ft = "lua", desc = "Stop LÖVE" },
  },
}

Post-installation #

After installing the plugin, we must configure it. It has three options:

• path_to_love_bin: The path to the love binary. Leave it empty if love is installed system-wide.
• path_to_love_library: The path to the love lua annotation library. Obligatory if you want lsp to automatically setup love annotations. Otherwise, leave it empty.
• restart_on_save: If you want open love instances to restart when saving to any file, set this option to true.

To change this values, modify the opts table in the plugin installation:

return {
  -- other..
  opts = {
    -- this are the default values
    path_to_love_bin = "love",
    path_to_love_library = vim.fn.globpath(vim.o.runtimepath, "love2d/library"),
    restart_on_save = false,
  },
  -- keys...
}

Usage #

After completing the plugin's setup, we now can use it to develop games with LÖVE and Neovim.

To run a new LÖVE instance, run the command :LoveRun to start. You have to do this in the same directory with the main.lua file. To stop LÖVE, run the :LoveStop command.

The plugin will load when running :LoveRun by default, so it will not recognize the love variable until you run a LÖVE instance. To make it load when Neovim is started, comment (or completely remove) the cmd line:

{
  "S1M0N38/love2d.nvim",
  --cmd = "LoveRun",
  opts = {},
  keys = {
    { "<leader>v", ft = "lua", desc = "LÖVE" },
    { "<leader>vv", "<cmd>LoveRun<cr>", ft = "lua", desc = "Run LÖVE" },
    { "<leader>vs", "<cmd>LoveStop<cr>", ft = "lua", desc = "Stop LÖVE" },
  },
}

GLSL highlighting #

As a bonus, we can also get shader syntax highlighting.

To do this, just install the parser for GLSL with :TSInstall. After doing so, Neovim will recognize the strings passed to love.graphics.newShader() as GLSL code.