New renderer prototypes ?

[Mikhail V]

Are there existing ideas, prototypes or forks of VIM
with interactive GUI?
I believe a decend GUI engine can boost
the editing productivity by means of advanced
interactive features.
With a GUI I don't mean of course menus/buttons, but
the design of the interaction and visual feedback, e.g.
navigation, scrolling, more mouse features.

Also I am very interested in realistic fonts, which could
quickly improve the reading experience.

Currently I consider VIM a perfect editor and
it would be hard to name something that is
limiting it.
But the GUI is, well, not enabling the above mentioned
luxuries :)

So how realistic is the scenario where VIM becomes
these "features"?
I understand intuitively that these "features" are the core of
the application in this case. So it is more precise to
ask whether the developers will consider prototype
proposals adressing these features?

Mikhail

[Bram Moolenaar]

Mikhail wrote:

> Are there existing ideas, prototypes or forks of VIM
> with interactive GUI?
> I believe a decend GUI engine can boost
> the editing productivity by means of advanced
> interactive features.
> With a GUI I don't mean of course menus/buttons, but
> the design of the interaction and visual feedback, e.g.
> navigation, scrolling, more mouse features.
>
> Also I am very interested in realistic fonts, which could
> quickly improve the reading experience.

Not sure why you call this "renderer". It seems it's more about
interactive elements.

> Currently I consider VIM a perfect editor and
> it would be hard to name something that is
> limiting it.
> But the GUI is, well, not enabling the above mentioned
> luxuries :)
>
> So how realistic is the scenario where VIM becomes
> these "features"?
> I understand intuitively that these "features" are the core of
> the application in this case. So it is more precise to
> ask whether the developers will consider prototype
> proposals adressing these features?

Vim has always been used in a terminal just as often as in the GUI. We
prefer functionality to be available in both. Doesn't need to look
exactly the same, that would be impossible, but it must be possible to
use mappings, plugins, etc. both in the GUI and the terminal the same
way. This does add restrictions to what's possible in the GUI.

--
Q: Why does /dev/null accept only integers?
A: You can't sink a float.

/// Bram Moolenaar -- Br...@Moolenaar.net -- http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\
/// sponsor Vim, vote for features -- http://www.Vim.org/sponsor/ \\\
\\\ an exciting new programming language -- http://www.Zimbu.org ///
\\\ help me help AIDS victims -- http://ICCF-Holland.org ///

[Mikhail V]

On Wednesday, 9 August 2017 22:57:26 UTC+2, Bram Moolenaar wrote:
> Mikhail wrote:
>
> > Are there existing ideas, prototypes or forks of VIM
> > with interactive GUI?
> > I believe a decend GUI engine can boost
> > the editing productivity by means of advanced
> > interactive features.
> > With a GUI I don't mean of course menus/buttons, but
> > the design of the interaction and visual feedback, e.g.
> > navigation, scrolling, more mouse features.
> >
> > Also I am very interested in realistic fonts, which could
> > quickly improve the reading experience.
>
> Not sure why you call this "renderer". It seems it's more about
> interactive elements.

The code which composes and draws everything in the window I called a renderer.
Probably it is not very exact term.

Having a proportional font is the most wanted feature for me.
I am totally satisfied with other features in VIM
but they all could be pixel-precise and much easier
to implement if we'd move from the tile-based GUI to the fully graphical mode.
There exist decent libraries to do all related things, I'd probably
use the SDL library or similar analog.

I understand the dilemma here, e.g. if I'll get nice proportional font,
but as a result, much slower editor response and startup time, I would not
be happy, still I will choose proportional font for long work, since it
is much better reading experience.
Here is an anecdote from my practice: for almost everything
code-like I use VIM, but for the rest simple
edits I use Notepad, and I realise that the _only_ reason
I do so is the pleasure of a readable proportional font.
So one of the key aspects for my judgement of an IDE or a code editor
would be undoubtfully the text rendering and fonts.

>
> > Currently I consider VIM a perfect editor and
> > it would be hard to name something that is
> > limiting it.
> > But the GUI is, well, not enabling the above mentioned
> > luxuries :)
> >
> > So how realistic is the scenario where VIM becomes
> > these "features"?
> > I understand intuitively that these "features" are the core of
> > the application in this case. So it is more precise to
> > ask whether the developers will consider prototype
> > proposals adressing these features?
>
> Vim has always been used in a terminal just as often as in the GUI. We
> prefer functionality to be available in both. Doesn't need to look
> exactly the same, that would be impossible, but it must be possible to
> use mappings, plugins, etc. both in the GUI and the terminal the same
> way. This does add restrictions to what's possible in the GUI.

I know too little about how VIM is designed internally :(
Theoretically, I suppose it is feasable to substitute
the graphical part without breaking (too much) the compatibility.
Still most logic that are bound to the tile-based nature of
current GUI must be retooled completely.

Mikhail