Preview replace results in Neovim

There is an interesting option in Neovim called inccommand. It allows you see the live preview of your buffer after some command (i.e. replace).

To configure it add following to your ~/.config/nvim/init.vim:

set inccommand=nosplit

Or if you're using ~/.vimrc to configure both vim and neovim:

if has("nvim") 
  set inccommand=nosplit
endif

Now, as you type %s/text/replace/before you hit Enter you'll see the live result of your command so you can cancel it by hitting Esc.

You can also set inccommand to split. In that case the result will be shown in a separate split pane.