Blogs » Use Vim as a Scala IDE

This is a general guide for using SpaceVim as a Scala IDE, including layer configuration and usage. Each of the following sections will be covered:

• Setup Scala development environment
• Enable language layer
• code completion
• alternate file jumping
• code running
• REPL support
• code format

Setup Scala development environment

Make sure you have scala installed in your os. If you are using windows, you can install scala and coursier via:

scoop install scala coursier

If you want to use lsp layer, you need to install the language server for scala:

coursier install metals

Enable language layer

lang#scala layer provides scala language specific features for SpaceVim. This layer is not enabled by default. To write scala language, you need to enable the lang#scala layer. Press SPC f v d to open SpaceVim configuration file, and add following configuration:

[[layers]]
  name = 'lang#scala'

for more info, you can read the lang#scala layer documentation.

code completion

By default the autocomplete layer has been enabled, so after loading lang#scala layer, the code completion for scala language should work well.

alternate file jumping

To manage the alternate file for a project, you may need to create a .project_alt.json file in the root of your project.

for example, add following content into the .project_alt.json file:

{
  "src/*.scala": { "alternate": "test/{}.scala" },
  "test/*.scala": { "alternate": "src/{}.scala" }
}

with this configuration, you can jump between the source code and test file via command :A

code running

The key binding for running current file is SPC l r , it will run sbt run asynchronously. And the stdout will be shown on a runner buffer.

REPL support

Start a scala inferior REPL process with SPC l s i. After REPL process started, you can send code to scala process via key bindings:

code format

The code formation feature is provided by format layer, and this layer is enabled by default. The default format engine is neoformat, it will run scalafmt or scalariform asynchronously on current file.

To use scalafmt, you need to install it via:

coursier install scalafmt

If you want to use scalariform, you need to install scalariform. and set scalariform_jar option to the path of the scalariform jar.