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Why I'm Moving from Telescope to Snacks Picker | Why I'm not Using fzf-lua | Frecency feature

I've been using Telescope as my main picker ever since I started Neovim, But a few days ago, I noticed a post by Folke in twitter about a new picker he had created, so I decided to give it a try

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By Christian Arzu
14 min read
Why I'm Moving from Telescope to Snacks Picker | Why I'm not Using fzf-lua | Frecency feature

Contents

Table of contents

YouTube video

Pre-requisites

  • If you don’t want to watch the video above, and you already have your own neovim config, and want to quickly get started and follow along in this tutorial
  • Run the git clone commands below to clone my dotfiles in your .config directory and we will run my config below
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mkdir -p ~/.config
git clone git@github.com:linkarzu/dotfiles-latest ~/.config/linkarzu/dotfiles-latest
  • Open the newly downloaded neobean config with:
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NVIM_APPNAME=linkarzu/dotfiles-latest/neovim/neobean nvim
  • You can create an alias in your .bashrc or .zshrc file to run my config
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alias neobean='NVIM_APPNAME=linkarzu/dotfiles-latest/neovim/neobean nvim'
  • Then to run this config, just run neobean
  • If you don’t even have neovim yet, of course you will need to install it first, so if you’re just getting started, I have a video for you:

Why didn’t I move to fzf-lua?

  • I use the LazyVim distro, and Folke moved everyone from Telescope to fzf-lua a few mongs ago, but I didn’t switch because of a few reasons:

    • One of the main reasons was frecency, this is a plugin I used in telescope that increases the scores of files every time you open them, so the more times you open a file, the higher it’s score will be, so the next time you open telescope, search for a file, and there are 2 files with the same name, the one with the higher score will show up at the top
    • If you are still using telescope, and want to learn more about this frecency plugin, I have a video:

  • Another reason why I didn’t switch to fzf-lua is because I couldn’t start the buffers picker in normal mode, and that’s something I’m used to doing in telescope, I navigate my different buffers with Shift+h, so I get a buffers picker in normal mode, and I just move down and select the desired buffer, you can see an example in the image below

Image Snacks picker buffer

  • fzf-lua at least in my particular case, when using macOS, would get stuck when I hovered over an image, probably fixed already, but at the time that did cause issues for me

Why did I switch from Telescope to Snacks picker?

  • Mainly I did it because snacks opens faster for me, when I opened telescope, there was like a half second delay, and I open telescope multiple times a day, so it gets a little bit annoying
  • This probably has nothing to do with Telescope, I have used Telescope for many months and I love it, but probably something in my config interferes with Telescope and causes it to lag a little bit, so bottom line, this could be caused due to skill issue
  • There’s a discussion in reddit, if you’d like to read a little bit more and people explain their reasons on why they switched
    • Link to the reddit post can be found here

Snacks picker documentation

  • All of this is very well documented, and you can find it here: docs/picker.md

Snacks picker sample images

Image Default

Image Dropdown

Image ivy

Image ivy-split

Image select

Image sidebar

Image telescope

Image vertical

Image vscode

Snacks picker configuration

Picker keymaps

  • My snacks picker configuration can be found in my dotfiles, here’s the file: plugins/snacks.lua
  • ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Remember to star my dotfiles ⭐⭐⭐⭐
  • At the top of the file, you’ll be able to find the keys section, which is where I configure some keymaps, I ported these over from telescope
  • Notice that I specify a different layout for some of the keymaps, for example for the Snacks.picker.git_log I use the vertical layout, and for the Snacks.picker.git_branches I use the select layout, so it’s just a matter of preference, experiment with the different layouts and see what you like better
  • Also notice that I created some custom pickers, one of them can be seen below:
    • This allows me to iterate through my incomplete tasks in telescope
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      -- -- Iterate through incomplete tasks in Snacks_picker
      {
        -- -- You can confirm in your teminal lamw26wmal with:
        -- -- rg "^\s*-\s\[ \]" test-markdown.md
        "<leader>tt",
        function()
          Snacks.picker.grep({
            prompt = " ",
            -- pass your desired search as a static pattern
            search = "^\\s*- \\[ \\]",
            -- we enable regex so the pattern is interpreted as a regex
            regex = true,
            -- no “live grep” needed here since we have a fixed pattern
            live = false,
            -- restrict search to the current working directory
            dirs = { vim.fn.getcwd() },
            -- include files ignored by .gitignore
            args = { "--no-ignore" },
            -- Start in normal mode
            on_show = function()
              vim.cmd.stopinsert()
            end,
            finder = "grep",
            format = "file",
            show_empty = true,
            supports_live = false,
            layout = "ivy",
          })
        end,
        desc = "[P]Search for incomplete tasks",
      },
  • I also configured another custom keymap, which is similar, but it iterates through the completed tasks, I set it up as <leader>tc
  • Notice that these 2 custom keymaps, put me in normal mode by default

  • To learn about this task management in detail, go and check a video I created:

  • I have another custom keymap Alt+k that shows me all the different keymaps I have configured in neovim. I tend to forget them, so this picker allows me to type the description of one of the keymaps, and once I find it, hit enter and the keymap is executed. It’s also useful in case I need to see if a keymap in Neovim is already taken
  • <Leader><space> opens the Snacks.picker.files which allows me to search for the different files in the current project
  • Shift+h opens the Snacks.picker.buffers which allows me to navigate through my open buffers, notice a few things there:
    • I start it in normal mode
    • I configured the key d to close buffers when in this picker

  • I have a video in which I cover how I navigate buffers in Neovim:

  • If you want to see how the other keymaps work and what they do, I demo that in the video

Picker transform function

  • I needed to increase the score of one of the files in frecency, not sure why the score was not increased properly, so I basically “bumped” it a little bit
  • You will be able to find that in the plugin configuration file, here’s a snippet of the config
  • Notice that I increase the score of a particular file by 30 points, but notice the commented example below, you can also decrease the score of a file
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        transform = function(item)
          if not item.file then
            return item
          end
          -- Demote the "lazyvim" keymaps file:
          if item.file:match("lazyvim/lua/config/keymaps%.lua") then
            item.score_add = (item.score_add or 0) - 30
          end
          -- Boost the "neobean" keymaps file:
          -- if item.file:match("neobean/lua/config/keymaps%.lua") then
          --   item.score_add = (item.score_add or 0) + 100
          -- end
          return item
        end,

Debug scores

  • I like seeing the score each file has, at least during the testing phase, so if you want to enable that too, you do it with this
  • Remember, to understand where this goes, look in my config file, and also in the documentation
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        debug = {
          scores = true, -- show scores in the list
        },

Modify the layouts

  • I needed to increase the height of the ivy layout, I did that here
  • Again, remember to reference my config file to understand where to modify this, I’m just leaving this here as an example so you can have an idea
  • If you know a different way of doing this, please let me know
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        layouts = {
          -- I wanted to modify the ivy layout height and preview pane width,
          -- this is the only way I was able to do it
          -- NOTE: I don't think this is the right way as I'm declaring all the
          -- other values below, if you know a better way, let me know
          --
          -- Then call this layout in the keymaps above
          -- got example from here
          -- https://github.com/folke/snacks.nvim/discussions/468
          ivy = {
            layout = {
              box = "vertical",
              backdrop = false,
              row = -1,
              width = 0,
              height = 0.5,
              border = "top",
              title = " {title} {live} {flags}",
              title_pos = "left",
              { win = "input", height = 1, border = "bottom" },
              {
                box = "horizontal",
                { win = "list", border = "none" },
                { win = "preview", title = "{preview}", width = 0.5, border = "left" },
              },
            },
          },
          -- I wanted to modify the layout width
          --
          vertical = {
            layout = {
              backdrop = false,
              width = 0.8,
              min_width = 80,
              height = 0.8,
              min_height = 30,
              box = "vertical",
              border = "rounded",
              title = "{title} {live} {flags}",
              title_pos = "center",
              { win = "input", height = 1, border = "bottom" },
              { win = "list", border = "none" },
              { win = "preview", title = "{preview}", height = 0.4, border = "top" },
            },
          },
        },

Configure frecency

  • You enable frecency here:
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        matcher = {
          frecency = true,
        },

Configure scrolling

  • I’m used to scroll with shift+hjkl in LazyGit, also in telescope, so I configured the snacks picker the same way
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        win = {
          input = {
            keys = {
              -- to close the picker on ESC instead of going to normal mode,
              -- add the following keymap to your config
              ["<Esc>"] = { "close", mode = { "n", "i" } },
              -- I'm used to scrolling like this in LazyGit
              ["J"] = { "preview_scroll_down", mode = { "i", "n" } },
              ["K"] = { "preview_scroll_up", mode = { "i", "n" } },
              ["H"] = { "preview_scroll_left", mode = { "i", "n" } },
              ["L"] = { "preview_scroll_right", mode = { "i", "n" } },
            },
          },
        },

Disable snacks picker in blink.cmp

  • I don’t want autocompletion items to show up when I’m in a snacks picker, so I disabled this in blink
  • My blink config file can be found here: plugins/blink-cmp.lua
  • But to give you an idea on where I configured this, here’s a snippet of my blink.cmp config
  • Notice the snacks_picker_input section
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    opts.enabled = function()
      -- Get the current buffer's filetype
      local filetype = vim.bo[0].filetype
      -- Disable for Telescope buffers
      if filetype == "TelescopePrompt" or filetype == "minifiles" or filetype == "snacks_picker_input" then
        return false
      end
      return true
    end

Bullets.vim configuration

  • I had a really strange issue, when I opened a picker, searched for something, then stayed in insert mode and press enter, it would not work, I had to switch to normal mode first and then press enter to be able to select an item from the picker list
  • I spent hours trying to figure out what caused this issue, I had to disable all the plugins, auto commands, keymaps, and the culprit was the bullets.vim plugin
  • To fix this, add the following to your init.lua file, my init lua file is ~/github/dotfiles-latest/neovim/neobean/init.lua and it can be found here: neobean/init.lua
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vim.g.bullets_enable_in_empty_buffers = 0
  • I use bullet points for basically everything, as you can tell if you’re reading this article
  • If you would like to learn about my markdown setup in detail, I would highly recommend you to check my markdown workflow video, the 2025 version:

How to install the snacks picker

  • Remember that I use the lazyvim distro, so you need to add is as an extra
  • Personally, I add it in the lazy.lua file, which you can find here: config/lazy.lua
  • If you have fzf-lua and telescope enabled, remember to disable them, to avoid any sort of conflicts, personally I just disabled them, by setting enabled = false, in the plugin configuration
  • Remember to also disable it in the blink.cmp file as explained above, in case you don’t want completions when using a picker
  • I also disabled the telescope-frecency.lua plugin, my config can be found here plugins/telescope-frecency.lua
  • If you have any keymaps in your keymaps.lua file that are related to telescope or fzf-lua, remember to remove those as well, my keymaps file can be found here: config/keymaps.lua
  • And very important, if you use the bullets.vim plugin, remember to modify the config mentioned above

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