What's the use case for a separate GUI for neovim? I remember using macvim for a few days maybe 8 years ago, but I never "got it". It felt like the benefits of having my editor in my terminal were thrown out for little return.
If neovim had a proper gui, you could move away from some of the limitations of the terminal. The biggest being using fixed width characters for drawing UI elements.
Emacs does it pretty well, one of the few things that makes me jealous of emacs as a vim user.
IIUC fixed widths is more than just a UI problem. Lots of internal code is assuming that. But maybe it works well-enough that it isn't a real issue.
I remember trying a terminal that didn't have fixed char widths and it mostly worked. The only real issue was line wrapping (as vim and the terminal would both wrap based on how long they considered the line to be). So maybe it would be possible! I would love to see solid support for variable-width fonts.
I know variable-width fonts are controversial, but I actually think they work well for coding but haven't had the chance to use them much due to Vim limitations. But especially for Markdown and similar mostly-text content they seem like a clear win.
And input limitations can be resolved by non-terminal UIs (for example like Ctrl+i and Tab being mapped to the same control character in old terminals - that one is solved by newer protocols, but the problems don't end there.)
doix|1 year ago
Emacs does it pretty well, one of the few things that makes me jealous of emacs as a vim user.
kevincox|1 year ago
I remember trying a terminal that didn't have fixed char widths and it mostly worked. The only real issue was line wrapping (as vim and the terminal would both wrap based on how long they considered the line to be). So maybe it would be possible! I would love to see solid support for variable-width fonts.
I know variable-width fonts are controversial, but I actually think they work well for coding but haven't had the chance to use them much due to Vim limitations. But especially for Markdown and similar mostly-text content they seem like a clear win.
kzrdude|1 year ago
bbkane|1 year ago
It'd make markdown editing easier for me
snarfy|1 year ago
anta40|1 year ago
Of course there are plenty of Neovim GUI. Currently happy enough with VimR.
alwillis|1 year ago
eviks|1 year ago
many broken things fixed automagically, like those meta keybinds that took years to implement, and also clipboards, then menus
then window management from resizing to switching with Alt-Tab and direct keybinds
then easier integration with external tooling since it's easier to detect the app in a dedicated window
Then freer keybindings not conflicting with the terminals'
Terminal is a poor restricting UI for any complex app such as the text editor