Enable gx in NvChad

The command gx opens the filename under the the cursor with vim.ui.open() (see :help netrw-gx). Then handling is provided by the internal netrw plugin. This plugin is disabled when using NvChad.

NvChad is using nvim-tree/nvim-tree.lua. In the configuration of this plugin, NvChad disables netrw, but allows the usage of netrw by the hijacking setup option (see lua/plugins/configs/nvimtree.lua).

This options will allow the usage of gx. But NvChad also disables the plugin in the configuration of the plugin manager folke/lazy.nvim. The netrw plugin is disabled with the option performance.rtp.disabled_plugins in the file plugins/configs/lazy_nvim.lua.

To enable the gx command the entry netrwPlugin must be removed from this option. But the configuration mechanism in NvChad allows only to overwrite an option. Therefore the most straightforward way is to overwrite the option with the complete list without netrwPlugin in custom/chadrc.lua:

chadrc.lua

local M = {}
M.lazy_vim = {
  performance = {
    rtp = {
      disabled_plugins = {
        "2html_plugin",
        ...
        "ftplugin",
      }
    }
  }
}
return M

The drawback of this method is, that whenever the NvChad configuration is changed, this list must be updated.

The better solution is to load the list and remove the favored plugins:

chadrc.lua

local M = {}
-- load default list of disabled plugins in NvChad
local default = require('plugins.configs.lazy_nvim')
local default_disabled_plugins = default.performance.rtp.disabled_plugins

-- specify which plugins should be removed from default disabled list
local enabled = {
  netrwPlugin = true,
}
-- enable those plugins
local i=1
while i <= #default_disabled_plugins do
    if enabled[default_disabled_plugins[i]] then
        table.remove(default_disabled_plugins, i)
    else
        i = i + 1
    end
end

M.lazy_nvim = {
  performance = {
    rtp = {
      disabled_plugins = default_disabled_plugins,
    },
  },
}
return M

Info

When you only want to use the gx command, there are other solutions like using a separate plugin, e.g., chrishrb/gx.nvim. This is also an example, how to overwrite configuration settings by removing an option in NvChad.

Tip

A table can be printed with the following commands:

print(vim.inspect(require('plugins.configs.lazy_nvim')))
print(vim.inspect(default_disabled_plugins))